Some six years ago I wrote a paper critical of the UN's IPCC climate modeling and with the author's permission included the following poem, which occasioned favorable reader comment:
Irving Rothchild
Everitus Professor of Reproductive Biology
Case Western Reserve University
Science, 11 August 2000, p. 871-872
"I have seen “model” used as a substitute for any number of precise terms that would have clearly conveyed the writer’s exact meaning.
"In my more than 60 years as a scientist, I don’t recall that my contemporaries or I ever used 'model' except to refer to behavior, the annual influx of new automobiles, ladies and gentlemen who show off new clothes or pose for other purposes, or small replicas of sailboats, ships, airplanes, railroad trains, and the like.
Of course the vogue word/bandwagon phenomenon is nothing new, but it still amazes me. Hence this verse:"
A MODEL Poem
What have you got, a theory?
Hypothesis? A strategy?
A peachy-keen analogy?
Rest your brain
With a quiet coddle,
Join the crowd and call it a MODEL!
Do you itch to tell your latest scheme,
Hunch, proposal, process, theme,
Idea that boosts your self-esteem,
And your brain can’t sprint
But only waddle?
Join the crowd and call it a MODEL!
What’s the word, a preparation?
Notion? Plan? Sketch? Creation?
Diagram? An explanation?
But if your brain can only
Crawl or toddle,
Join the crowd and just use MODEL!
Is “Design of an Experiment”
The essence of your mind’s intent?
Words like those don’t pay the rent!
Why strain your brain
For more than a twaddle?
Join the crowd and just use MODEL!
Protocol? System? Prototype?
The word that’s got the mostest hype
To push a thought that’s barely ripe?
Don’t sweat your
Cliché-loaded noodle!
Join the crowd and just use MODEL!
O, Muse of Science! Muse of each
Kind of lucid, sparkling speech!
How far do you think
This prayer will reach?
Bless’d be the day
When even a clod’ll
Use his brain instead of MODEL!
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