Evidence-based evidence
What is the evidence for the reliability of the ‘Evidence-based’ benchmark?
What follows below is an adaptation of a traditional Sufi and Indian story.
Out rushed 6 young men, determined to discover what the elephant was like.
The first young man, in his haste, ran straight into the side of the elephant. He spread out his arms and felt the animal’s broad, smooth side and thought, "This is an animal, my nose leaves no doubt of that, but this animal is like a wall." He rushed back to the city to tell of his discovery.
The second young blind man, feeling through the air, grasped the elephant’s trunk. "This elephant is like a snake, but it is so huge that its hot breath makes a snorting sound." He turned to run back to the city and tell his tale.
The third young blind man walked into the elephant’s tusk. He felt the hard, smooth ivory surface of the tusk and felt its pointed tip. "How wonderful!" he thought. "The elephant is hard and sharp like a spear!" Off he ran.
The fourth young blind man reached low with his hands, and found one of the elephant’s legs. He reached around and hugged it, feeling its rough skin and the elephant moved. "No wonder this elephant frightens the king’s enemies," he thought. "It is like a tree trunk or a mighty column, yet it bends, is very strong, and strikes the ground with great force." Feeling a little frightened himself, he fled back to the city.
The fifth young blind man found the elephant’s tail. "I don’t see what all the excitement is about," he said. "The elephant is nothing but a frayed bit of rope." He dropped the tail and ran after the others.
The sixth young blind man was in a hurry, not wanting to be left behind. He grasped the ear itself and felt its thin roughness. He laughed with delight. "This wonderful elephant is like a living fan." And, like the others, he was satisfied with his quick first impression and headed back to the city.
But finally, an old blind man came. He had left the city, walking in his usual slow way, content to take his time and study the elephant thoroughly. He walked all around the elephant, touching every part of it, smelling it, listening to all of its sounds. He found the elephant’s mouth and fed the animal a treat, then petted it on its great trunk.
Those 6 young men become teachers in the city - the only ones who knew about elephants. All other young people who wanted to learn about elephants went to them and shaped their concepts of what elephants were according to the model given by the teacher that they followed. There was much argument as to what elephants were.
One day the old man returned to the city, only to find it in an uproar. He quietly listened to the arguments. "It’s like a wall!" "No, it’s like a snake!" "No, it’s like a spear!" "No, it’s like a tree!" "No, it’s like a rope!" "No, it’s like a fan!" The old man tried to tell them that there was truth in everything they were all saying but that it wasn’t the whole truth. So the people in the city started to argue with the old man as well as with each other.
The old man turned and went home, laughing as he remembered his own foolishness as a young man.
Like these, he once hastily concluded that he understood the whole of something when he had experienced only a part. He laughed again as he remembered his greater foolishness of once being unwilling to discover truth for himself, depending wholly on others’ teachings.
But he laughed hardest of all as he realized that he had become the only one in the city who did not know what an elephant was like.