The trouble with that horse story is that its message negates free will, and it's used to dismiss and short-circuit the entire history of the scientific endeavor to discern cause and effect. It's the perfect story for an age stooped under the weight of brutality, suffering and ignorance. Voltaire skewered its European version with his mockery, not coincidentally right when Western civilization truly began to emerge from mystical superstition. "All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds," says Pangloss.