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Bayesian Hubris v. Mercy Seat 11A

“Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, who miraculously walked away
from the Ahmedabad disaster, in which more than 240 people
were killed” —The Daily Telegraph on Air India Flight 171 crash

Bayesian inference: a method of statistical inference … used to
calculate a probability of a hypothesis, given prior evidence.

It wasn’t meant to be this way: Good God,
No! For probabilities—all were weighed;
Title, for extra measure, made the point:
Ship-shape, unsinkable, whatsoever played—

‘The Bayesian’ would stay afloat, like Noah’s
Arc once before, though, given a moment’s thought,
There’s one key difference between that boat then
And one that the billionaire Mike Lynch bought:

One, perhaps, that no-one much calculates
In the run of life’s storms, typhoons, upsets,
Which wicked men and women call their fate,
But wiser sorts see more as settling debts.

How terrible—surprising—going down
When that’s not possible, not in his plan,
Not in that certainty mathematics has:
Did he cry out: ‘Me God I’m only man’

Before the waves swept over, and he drowned?
For certainly, He brings destruction to
The proud, but to the humble something else;
For what’s impossible for others, He can do:

The flight took off: from India, One-Seven-One,
So many souls—as engine power failed—
Hurled to the ground with fifty gallons fuelled,
Pummelled to pieces or barbecue-grilled.

No hope, no expectation to see light
Or living ever more, the media said,
(Conclusive as they are, pretend to be)
As flames flared up, who’d gainsay what they’d said?

But then again, there’s fate; there’s destiny,
Another thing: who knew there’d be a seat
Of mercy, 11A, in which one sat,
As flames flared up in metal melting heat—

Like Daniel long before enduring wrath
From that great king who ruled the Earth by force;
And in the midst of all the fire—all lost—
To toast and cinders men return of course;

Yet, yet … as Daniel found, One like a Man—
But fiercer far than all the stars that burn—
Appears, and in His aura wraps V.K. Ramesh,
Staggering, living, from that infernal urn.

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James Sale has had over 50 books published, most recently, “Mapping Motivation for Top Performing Teams” (Routledge, 2021). He has been nominated by The Hong Kong Review for the 2022 Pushcart Prize for poetry, has won first prize in The Society of Classical Poets 2017 annual competition, and performed in New York in 2019. He is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. His most recent poetry collection is DoorWay. For more information about the author, and about his Dante project, visit https://englishcantos.home.blog. To subscribe to his brief, free and monthly poetry newsletter, contact him at [email protected]

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6 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    James, I am familiar with Bayesian calculations from my university days. Your poem made me think of the several times I escaped death. One of them was the Pan Am Lockerbie catastrophe. I had a ticket for the plane, but my incoming flight from Moscow had been postponed a couple of hours. When I arrived at the gate in Frankfurt, I was told I had to take a later flight. I am always amazed at how wonderfully you write and adeptly rhyme your poems including enjambment when warranted.

    Reply
  2. ABB

    Like Roy, I also studied Bayesian networks in college, in a theories of causality class. While the specific concept has become vague, I appreciate this pitting of human attempts to control uncertainty with the ‘mercy seat’ suggesting divine agency beyond calculation. The likening to Daniel and Noah are apt. It’s hard to not believe in destiny after living through something like this, but an even bigger marvel than this event is how such miraculous improbabilities still don’t change the mindset of secular people as they continue to grope for explanatory models.

    Reply
  4. Joseph S. Salemi

    It can also work with evil persons whom we might have preferred to see perish. Adolf Hitler was saved from certain death four times in his life:

    1) Once when he was a soldier in the trenches during World War I, a voice in his head told him get get up and walk away from the place where he was sitting. After he did so, a French artillery shell landed in the spot where he had been, killing everyone in the vicinity.

    2) After the failure of the Munich Putsch in 1923, Hitler was a fugitive in a safe house, hunted by the Bavarian police. He resolved to shoot himself, and had a pistol ready. An older woman who was with him prevailed upon him not to do it, and with many tears and arguments convinced him to surrender instead.

    3) In the late 1930s, when war was imminent, a German worker designed and planted a powerful bomb directly behind the pillar where Hitler was to give a long speech. It was set to explode right in the middle of his harangue and blow him to pieces. Because of a scheduling glitch, Hitler began his speech early, and left the area fifteen minutes before the bomb was set to detonate. It blew up and killed eight persons, and wounded many others.

    4) In 1944, Colonel von Stauffenberg and other German officers planned to kill Hitler with a bomb in a small suitcase placed next to him during a military briefing. By pure chance, the man next to Hitler pushed the suitcase aside and moved it behind a heavy wooden leg of the table. The subsequent explosion killed and wounded serval persons, but Hitler was protected by the wooden table leg and sustained non-fatal injuries only.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      As an academic with the equivalent of two more MA degrees in history (minus the theses), I remember these well and thinking divine intervention in support of the Chistian allied forces for further historical purposes and for the establishment of the Israeli state.

      Reply

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