The uproar made the auditorium's domed ceiling hum. The elderly professors in the front rows whispered among themselves, displeased by the freshman's pointed challenge.
Security personnel were already closing in from both side aisles, ready to forcibly take the microphone.
Elias did not lose his temper. He adjusted his collar and raised his right hand in a calming downward gesture. The guards returned to their positions.
"Miss Quinzel, a classic defensive question rooted in evolutionary psychology."
Elias looked levelly at the girl in the bright yellow hoodie. His tone was gentle, without a trace of overbearing condescension.
"Animals do need fear to escape predators, but humans have already reached the top of the food chain. The dangers we face today are no longer saber-toothed tigers in the jungle, but mortgages, unemployment, and interpersonal power struggles. The excessive anxiety triggered by the chronic stress these social structures produce is destroying our immune systems."
He spread his hands, and the holographic screen behind him switched on cue to a chart of disordered brainwave patterns in modern humans.
"Rational resistance does not have to come at the cost of self-destructive suffering. What the drug removes is internal strife. What it leaves is pure judgment. A patient so tormented by depression that they cannot get out of bed cannot even save themselves. How are they supposed to resist social injustice?"
Elias leaned forward, his voice intensely compelling.
"I am not neutering human will. I am helping humanity shed the historical baggage of evolution, allowing us to make choices in a state of absolute rationality."
The applause from the audience erupted even more enthusiastically than before.
Harley pursed her lips and let go of the microphone stand. This bait-and-switch debating technique was profoundly deceptive, deftly reducing a sweeping question of social ethics to one of