Could science alone guarantee the future of humanity?
Echo:
And more homespun methods can be unveiled,
Such as in the dietary case
When a father researched what availed
In rapeseed oil to pace
His son’s fatty acid production
To his myelin sheath’s construction.¹
Science:
They thwarted the experimental run,
The Odones without a PhD
Who wanted to save their son
From Adrenoleukodystrophy –
But the bringing of data to fruition
Is our collective mission! ²
Echo:
Is our collective mission
To foster scientific hacks
Or interdisciplinary speculation
About the value of facts?
The thought is very preoccupying
That my sense of priorities is dying.
Science:
It’s not hope that gives value to data
Or love that remyelinates lives.
There’s now no treasure greater
Than the comb of empirical hives,
Where the competitive workers thrill
To the merry jingle of the till.
¹The theme is taken from a moving film, based on a true story, “Lorenzo’s Oil”
² I accept that the film cast the real scientist in the Lorenzo case in a deliberately unflattering light.
See the ‘Lorenzo’s Oil’ feedback.