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Mouse Heaven or Mouse Hell? (2022)
Biologist John Calhoun’s rodent experiments gripped a society consumed by fears of overpopulation.
It was a large pen—a 4½-foot cube—with everything a mouse could ever desire: plenty of food and water; a perfect climate; reams of paper to make cozy nests; and 256 separate apartments, accessible via mesh tubes bolted to the walls. Calhoun actively encouraged such speculation, once writing, “I shall largely speak of mice, but my thoughts are on man.” As early as 1968, journalist Tom Wolfe titled an essay about New York “O Rotten Gotham—Sliding Down into the Behavioral Sink.” Oddly, though, none of the prognosticators could agree on the main lesson of Universe 25. More recent interpretations see the mice collapse in terms of one-percenters and wealth inequality; they blame the social dysfunction on a few aggressive males hoarding precious resources (e.g., desirable apartments).
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