Misunderstood Microscope

In her never-ending quest to convince me that science is evil, daughter Kristin sent me a story about a guy being injured when he was crushed under a 10,000 pound electron microscope. This happened in her home city of Cincinnati. My immediate response to her was that microscopes don't kill people, people kill people. But I have since uncovered some background information on this situation.

It seems that until late, last March, the microscope in question was living peacefully on an island, in a remote area of the Pacific Ocean. The native tribe, that also lived on this island, worshiped the big scope, which they called Bausch (a native word meaning large eye that sees small things). Bausch had a mate that lived with him on the island (don't get ahead of me). Her name was Lomb (native for, companion of large eye that sees small things). Bausch and Lomb loved each other very much and the natives kept them happy by feeding them large, 50 pound paramecia, which are found only in that part of the world.

All this was upset when an adventurer from Ohio stumbled upon the island and observed the two scopes from a distance. In his greed, he realized what a large sum of money he could get by selling Bausch( the much larger of the pair) to some medical facility back in the U.S.

He lured Bausch onto a freighter, using large, suggestive pictures of the Hubble Space Telescope, and then transported him to Cincinnati. A deal was arranged to sell the big scope to a research hospital in Pittsburgh. The incident in which the man was injured happened as they were preparing Bausch for transport.

How can we hold this poor instrument responsible for the injured man? Bausch just wanted to return to his island, and nobody wants to go to Pittsburgh. The saddest part of this story is that authorities are now saying that Bausch must be dismantled. I'm afraid that this is going to become just a big spectacle.