Anecdotal Evidence

The Wikipedia Article on it.

Okay, so everyone has a tendency to do this to some extent (some more than others) and on a board like this that has a tendency to be debaty, it's often used. In competitive debate, you'd be called out on this immediately, however, I'm wondering how much value you guys place on stories that other people produce.

Keep in mind, Unreliable Narrator has a bad tendency to show up quite often and even if you don't accept those people's stories, how about non-fiction novels that tell a single view point of someone during some event? Should those be given any more weight due to their artistic merit or publisher editing?

I prefer anecdotal evidence because there's an annoying tendency for people to take statistics as "Oh, there's a 12% chance that this doesn't happen. This means it's never going to happen to anyone and therefore we shouldn't care!". With anecdotes, it's easier to see how the statistic applies in real life, and to see the consequences of dismissing something as statistically unlikely.

Accounts of historical events are not anecdotal evidence. If Winston Churchill writes what happened during the Battle of Britain, you can be fairly confident in what he says. Issues of POV and reliability come up, but that a different issue.

Anecdotal evidence is when I say "I eat raw onions whenever I start to get a cold and it always cures it" (a true statement, but not a reliable one as to the health benefits of onions). In this case, I'm making a statement about my personal experiences, but I am not rpoviding any evidence that my personal experiences are typical of the general population.

^^ Both are useful for different purposes. Anecdotal evidence illustrates a point, while statistics provide evidence for a conclusion.

I guess I should have made non-fictional novel more clear in its definition, basically, books written like normal novels but includes a retelling of a real situation with real people. History books and similar compilations I wouldn't consider a novel.

Stories and statistics have their uses. Stories can always be skewed by the story teller, whether they know it or not. Stats can also be abused or just made up. See: Every issue ever.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics mixed with not paying much attention to anecdotal evidence means there's remarkably little evidence you can trust. I try to go with statistics on things I think are simpler. Then again, I can appreciate fractions and percentages more than most people.

Anecdotal evidence can be perfectly acceptable as a refutation of a supposed universal. You say "This never happens." I say "It happened to me." Assuming that I'm not lying, your universal has been disproved.

Anecdotal evidence won't teach you how common an exception is, but it will teach you that exceptions exist and they are affected by the situation at hand.

In lieu of objective and/or statistical evidence, anecdotal evidence is the next best thing.

Ding.

edited 3rd May '11 1:34:54 PM by annebeeche

Anecdotal Evidence is like a chair, you can sit down on it, but you're not gonna build your case on it.

For that you get a table.

edited 3rd May '11 1:39:10 PM by Counterclock

Stats are usually better than anecdotal evidence because they at least imply that someone's investigated the issue on a large scale and looked at multiple instances of something. Anecdotal evidence is less reliable because it only requires a single instance. However, it is often powerfully persuasive, because humans like a good story. And a lot of them aren't good at maths.

That's why politicians prefer anecdotes to statistics, even if they're the wooliest sounding ones you ever heard e.g. David Cameron's tale of a black man he once met in Portsmouth, from whom he learned...something. I can't quite remember now.

I personally think you need both. You need stats to see the bigger picture, but you need anecdotal evidence in order to tie together all the moving parts that make up the bigger picture.

DG: Alternatively, it makes no sense to complain about how X is broken or plain doesn't work if only 12% are getting screwed over, or vice versa.

It means it's not perfect, sure, but that doesn't make it completely unusable.

edited 3rd May '11 2:05:16 PM by MrAHR

So being in a statistical minority means that you don't count?

I never said that.

@ captainbrass: I'm sure that at least a solid 80% of Cameron's stories start with, "I was talking to a(n) (insert implied minority of any kind here) last week..." It would be impossible to break them down to find one instance!

Obviously I kid, but at the same time I'm totally admitting that I'm simply not a good debater. Online, I actually like anecdotal stuff on forums. They certainly end up a lot more memorable to me, when I'm interested. As a bonus, going off where I visit on teh 'net, the opposite side aren't likely to be totally focused debaters either. But I get that I'm avoiding the whole discussion on that note and wasting everyone's time.

Very much on board with annebeeche et al. It's why those classic write-ups of housewife lifestyles by Anne Oakley and all that are still considered "important" today. I mean, extraneous qualitative data will just clutter up a big survey, but if there's something undoubtedly being ignored... well, then it's being ignored(?). When we have all these info-finding gizmos (and BOOKS), it can be quite interesting to ask yourself why it's being ignored. Then you get your publishing deal and all that.

@AHR: "it makes no sense to complain about how X is broken or plain doesn't work if only 12% are getting screwed over"

Implying that I have no right to complain that something doesn't work because the majority isn't negatively impacted.

No. I said that it makes no sense to complain about how, specifically, X is completely broken or useless.

It might have blind spots, or some problems, but if the amount of the people who are receiving the shaft is a minority, that's a good thing. It means they have, for the most part, taken care of most of the people, and now need to just take care of the smaller blips.

It's like medicine. Even if something that cures cancer only works on 65% of people, leaving the 35% with less than stellar results, that is still 65% who are cured (which is a good thing).

What it means is that there needs to be medicine to help with the abnormal cases, not that the original medicine is completely out of wonk and needs to be revamped.

And that's the problem. An anecdote provides one case. It defines nothing. It explains what a person needs personally, but it says nothing for the system as a whole, or if its even an accurate judgement.

Minorities should not be ignored, but that does not mean they should necessarily be the first and only opinion on whether something works or not. See medicine example. Everyone has an anecdote. That's what statistics are.

A mass collection of every single anecdote out there, to get the most possible accurate answer.

When you use an anecdote as evidence, all you are doing is, removing one anecdote, taking a shot in the dark as to which anecdote it is, and slathering a huge appeal to pathos on it, and presenting it as a fully researched statistical finding.

edited 3rd May '11 2:39:16 PM by MrAHR

However, in internet arguments, there's an overriding tendency to say that it's "good enough".

An example is the homeschooling thread that we had a while back. I argued that while the majority of homeschooled kids did well, there was still a segment of homeschooled kids who got the shaft. I provided an example of how my parents treated me when I was homeschooled, and said that we needed some sort of regulation to keep that from happening to others. Instead of refuting my point, people went "hur dur anecdote, that doesn't count".

That's what I'm talking about.