Outside the Woos' Ivory Tower OR Bronze Dog's Being Anvilicious

SETTING: Just outside an enormous tower of ivory surrounded by elephant bones and a crowd of people all wearing dull gray robes.

DRONES: (marching in place, slowly rotating) Lock. Step. Lock. Step.

ENTER BRONZE DOG, STAGE LEFT, dancing.

DRONES: No dancing! So sayeth The Authorities! Lock. Step.

BRONZE DOG: What? Some doctors did a study and found that this dance exercises nearly every muscle in the body and, when done regularly, increases cardiopulminary efficiency. And I think it looks cool.

DRONES: The Authorities dictated a thousand years ago that dancing is bad for you. Lock. Step.

BD: You're relying on the word of some people who lived before the scientific method took off? People who didn't have access to the technology or data we do today?

DRONES: Well, you're just going on the word of the DDR Pad and Wii Fit manufacturers! Lock. Step.

BD: Hardly. These studies were overseen and replicated by an international community of people with competing interests and biases under numerous countermeasures designed to enforce objectivity.

DRONES: They're all working together in a global money-making conspiracy! Lock. Step.

BD: You seriously believe that? Talk about cynical. They don't even make that much money off this stuff. Certainly not enough to bribe or silence the potential whistle blowers and fake all the tests.

DRONES: The DDR Pad and Wii Fit manufacturers say that all people are alike.

BD: Pfft. No they don't. This dance has to be varied in some manners for the people involved. My height, weight, and medical history had to be considered to calibrate it to match me. Not recommended if you are nursing or pregnant, or if you have a heart condition. That's why doctors maintain medical histories both for me and my family, while alties don't care about keeping records.

A BABY is heard crying from somewhere in the crowd.

DRONES: Number 7155477 has given birth. Her baby is unhealthy because of your dance. You cannot question her perceptions of this correlation because you are not a parent. Parents are ascended to the top of the ivory tower, where they are set above questioning. You will not criticize her observations. Lock. Step.

BD: Uh, I don't see her ascending the tower. She's still on the same ground as the rest of us. Having a baby doesn't raise someone into godhood. We're all mere, fallible mortals with observational biases. We need science to filter out our biases and reach objective knowledge.

DRONES: No we do not. We have common sense. We should trust our ancient biases instead of rigorously testing them. Lock. Step.

BD: Is that why you've been marching in small circles for all this time while science has been moving us forward in ways we couldn't even imagine a few generations ago?

[No conclusion.]

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Some anvils need to be dropped.