A Pindaric Ode to Accuracy
Congratulations to well-educated nobs,
Antithesis of credulous unlettered slobs,
_Sharp minds who bring the truth to light,
_Who cite their sources, get things right,
__Subjecting all to thought,
__Discounting rumor, not
Believing what they can’t substantiate,
Not judging till they can investigate,
___They fix mistakes,
___Discover fakes.
We want our house upon a firm foundation built,
On solid truth, not lies, on solid stone, not silt.
_Our useful home, to be the best,
_Cannot on contradiction rest.
__Coherent structure must
__Not rise from shaky dust.
No edifice is healthy, sound, or strong
On ground unproved, unfounded, false, or wrong.
___What folly acts,
___Not based on facts!
___Be critical.
___Be skeptical.
However smart you are, you are not wise
If you can’t separate the truth from lies.
__Hypothesis, not myth,
__Is scientific pith.
_Don’t be seduced by fantasies.
_Adhere to sane capacities.
Preferring intellectuals, we are not snobs,
We just want experts qualified to do these jobs.
Eric v.d. Luft, Ph.D., was Curator of Historical Collections at SUNY Upstate Medical University from 1987 to 2006 and has taught at Villanova University, Syracuse University, Upstate, and the College of Saint Rose. He is the author, editor, or translator of over 690 publications in philosophy, religion, librarianship, history, history of medicine, politics, humor, popular culture, and nineteenth-century studies.
I love everything about this ode – the chosen form, the mellifluous flow, and the message. The poem’s brilliance lies in its humble intelligence. Beneath the expertly written, polished couplets is a self-aware modesty that tells this reader the speaker practices the same discipline he praises – most refreshing in these days of duplicity. Knowledge divorced from humility becomes arrogance. Your ode has done much to restore my confidence in “well educated nobs” who “… want [their] house upon a firm foundation built, / On solid truth, not lies, on solid stone, not silt.” Thank you, Dr. Luft, for an inspirational poem that I will be returning to when the next “expert” veers from your vision. This may be soon. The “credulous uneducated slobs” have worked out that there are many “expert” views that cannot be relied upon.
Eric, as a former academic with several degrees who has taught at several universities, I am in complete agreement with your excellently constructed poem with a powerful message. Academia seems to have descended in recent decades as history and government have become neglected studies while pretenders spout inaccurate and intentionally misleading lies ignoring lessons learned and simple logic. Susan eloquently expressed how your brilliance and intelligence shine through to us as readers and concerned citizens. So-called experts have become perpetrators of propaganda and not faithful searchers for the truth.
Not just wonderful poetry, but an excellent explanation of the scientific method… which has nothing to do with concensus. Richard Feynman is smiling.
Indeed, Eric, these days too many people ignore true experts and their expertise, their truth being what they wish the truth was, skewed by their political and religious leanings and their ethnic biases. If you research from unreliable, misleading or fake sites and sources, you’ll be part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Great stuff, Eric, and some equally instructive comments.
This is Pindaric in style — the easygoing flow, the thoughtful commentary, and (in the first stanza) the lengthy sentence. It is a clear statement in defense of accuracy as opposed to emotional dreaming.
I very much admire the form created for this ode. It’s better to build on Pindaric artistry in such a matter than simply to call a poem an ode. You use all the line lengths from hexameter to dimeter in the lines (6644335522) of your first two stanzas, Eric, then reverse them (2255334466) for your concluding stanza. And that’s where I read the accurate (but a bit surprising) statement that hypothesis is scientific pith. Since a hypothesis is tentative, and unproven because of lack of evidence, it’s no firm foundation on which to build. It is scientific pith in the sense of being a place to start. I just made a down payment to a contractor after he came back to more carefully measure windows to be replaced. He didn’t rely on earlier rough measurements, from which he could only judge which available window styles might fit. Hypotheses sometimes need to be discarded, as “experts qualified to do their jobs” know. The form of your ode creatively suggests a possible need for hypothesis reversal.
Talk about accuracy! The author hit so many nails on the head that his hammer must still be ringing. There’s nothing I like better than a good philosophical romp. This poem stands the test, hands down.