What’s with the elephant?

The story of the blind men and the elephant is a parable originating long ago, somewhere in South Asia. A more recent English language version is the poem "The Blind Men and the Elephant" by John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887). The poem begins:

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind

They conclude that the elephant is a wall, a snake, a spear, a tree, a fan, or a rope, depending upon where they touch. They have a heated debate that is never resolved. The poem ends with:

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

The “Evidence” in Evidence-based Medicine is our Elephant.