Yann Martel and the Robber

This is the story of, Yann Martel and the Robber, who he turned from an enemy,
Into a friend.

Warm and breezy on A Monday night,
The robber climbs up the brick wall.
The apartment was well light with candlelight,
And in the corner reading, sat Yann Martel.

The robber was stunned and looked frightened,
Yann Martel barely looked up.
In the summer distance, a bolt of lightning,
And the robber screamed, “Hands up!”

The robber was impressed with his possessions,
Things no one could find in a mall.
He whimpered, “Hey I said hands up.”
But Yann Martel just offered a drink, in a Hemmingway like drawl.

Yann Martel gingerly stood up
And handed the robber his drink,
He knew this could be a wonderful story,
Martel handed him a poem and asked, “What do you think?”

The robber looked at him in astonishment.
Tears rolling down his face.
As he tried reading the poem titled ‘Abandonment”
He cried even louder and said, “I can’t.”

Not being able to read is like being caught on a lifeboat,
Or like being young and by accident getting AIDS.
Yann Martel said “I think I know how you feel.
Let me teach you my friend so never again will you have to steal.”

After that night the robber came back religiously,
Yann Martel continued to travel the world.
This time the robber could lose his mind in a wonderful story,
And the robber went and found work, in a zoo.

That was the story of “Yann Martel and the Robber”.

Source: College English, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Jan., 1984), pp. 85-88

This very fact led me to the argument that the scientific method is unable to solve the problems that most concern us. In having argued so I am not denying the value of science. I am denying, however, that the rules of evidence that operate within the scientific community can be used to address our most pressing difficulties, ones that have often been the inadvertent results of scientific discovery. For example, the scientific method has given us nuclear fission, but it is helpless in enabling us to determine whether to use a nuclear weapon or whether to build a nuclear power plant. In moving from the realm of scientific investigation to the arena of political action, we have made a transition to another discourse community with different rules of evidence.