Anthropic Principles

It often bothered me as to quite how,
The binding rules of physics came to be.
And why from all their perfect majesty,
Is hence rendered what I see here and now.
From rolling fields tended by the plough,
Right out to stars spread through the galaxy,
To let these things occur seems unlikely.
Oh why should simple rules have made a cow?

As many men have seen including I,
The answer to the paradox is clear.
Selection bias gives the world we view.
A universe missing big nuclei,
Would also lack the men to sit and peer,
Whilst living inside Goldilocks' zoo.

[Will Benfold, Nov 2013]