Talk:Anecdotal evidence

message: Raymond Wolfinger, in his 1969-1970 lecture season, uttered the perceptive bon mot "The plural of anecdote is data".  This concisely states the fundamental problem with anecdotal evidence and the way to resolve that problem - any single anecdote is insufficient for most scientific purposes, but gathering multiple empirical reports and reducing them properly can yield a falsifiable hypothesis or suggest an experimental path.
On Internet discussion boards and forums, the inverted phrase "the plural of anecdote is NOT data" is used as a rhetorical attack to discredit evidence contrary to one's position.  If a commenter posts "hard shoes wreck your feet" and another commenter posts "I wear hard shoes and my feet are fine" the original poster can either correct his original position statement (to "hard shoes can damage feet" perhaps) or he can retort "the plural of anecdote is not data" as a form of ad-hominem attack.
Attachment to the "is NOT data" form has reached a level of devotion in some forums that can best be described as fanatical; any report of any sort can be discredited and its author vilified by invocation of this meme.  Dr. Wolfinger's deceptively simple and correct statement has essentially been eclipsed by legions of chanting trolls.
Re-reading this discussion in light of this information may be illuminating... note also that the attribution given on the page is unsupported.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.153.180.229 (talk) 20:46, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Internet Memes Are Not Data 

message: ":The only time a sample size of 1 is statistically valid is when you're disproving a conclusion that claims to be correct for 100% of the population in question (which really only happens in logical arguments, not statistical arguments). So, if you're trying to make the argument that cigarettes don't cause cancer, the argument is flawed because the statistical evidence you're arguing from is too weak to support the conclusion. However, the exact same anecdotal evidence could be used to support a very strong argument that cigarettes don't always cause cancer, so to say that an argument is fallacious just because the evidence it's based on is anecdotal is clearly wrong. --Flatline 17:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "gathered factually" and "statistically valid" are two very different things. For a single data point to be statistically valid, you have to be able to show what population the data point came from (which can be very difficult to do after the sample has been taken), demonstrate that the sample was randomly chosen from that population to prevent bias (impossible to show in the case of an anecdote), and, since your sample size is so small, you need to be able to make some sort of argument that the population in question is homogeneous (impossible to make without taking more samples).  --Flatline 16:37, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

text: In that case, the datum is being used as a counter example, not as statistical evidence. It is statistically invalid. I was mistaken when I called it statistically valid in a previous comment. --Flatline 17:45, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I've never heard "anecdotal" used this way before. You have some anecdotal evidence that falls from great heights don't kill, but you could just as easily have anecdotal evidence that says falls from great heights do kill, so to apply the word "anecdotal" to the conclusion doesn't tell me anything about the correctness of the conclusion. I did a google search on "anecdotal conclusion" and found lots of examples of people using the phrase to mean "conclusion based on anecdotal evidence". Would I be correct if I said that you would claim that it means "conclusion that is verifiably false but supported by (carefully chosen) correct evidence that misrepresents the true state of things"? --Flatline 17:41, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

text: It is a fact that you dropped a hammer and it fell. It is meaningless to ask if it's statistically valid without first identifying "for what purpose?". There is a difference between a fact and a statistic; they are not the same thing. Similarly, there is a difference between scientific data and mere collection of facts (hence the cliche: "The plural of anecdote is not data"). --Flatline 17:41, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

text: This is wrong. It is the origin (or lack of a verifiable origin) that determines if evidence is anecdotal. It has nothing to do with how the evidence is used. According to your definition, it would be possible to have two arguments based on the exact same evidence, but the evidence would only be anecdotal in the case of the fallacious argument. That's absurd! --Flatline 17:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  a struggle for understanding 

message: This idea that anecdotal evidence only supports fallacious conclusions is wrong. Anecdotal evidence is simply evidence that comes from personal experience rather than designed scienfic experiments.
For example, if I know someone who was killed by a gun, then I can use that as anecdotal evidence that guns can kill people which is a verifiably correct conclusion even though it was arrived at through anecdotal evidence.
While it is true that anecdotal evidence is very weak evidence and is dangerous to depend on, this article goes too far when it claims that anecdotal evidence can only support an incorrect conclusion. --Flatline 17:29, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. Since anecdotal evidence is not a logical test of a claim, it is by pure chance that the conclusion supported by anecdotal evidence may turn out to be correct.  In your example, you claim that if you know someone who had been killed by a gun, then you may conclude that guns can kill. However, we know that guns can kill because it can be scientifically tested (we know that bullets traveling at high velocity can damage living tissue and may cause death), and not solely because of your personal experience. Even though your personal experience tells you that guns can kill people, that conclusion can never be derived from an argument that relies solely on anecdotal evidence. It would be illogical. --jvanek01 15:21, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  it does not follow that the conclusion is fallacious 

message: The problems we are wrestling with on the definition of Anecdotal Evidence.
Truth: If the evidence is false, the fact that it is used in an anecdote is moot. The evidence is false, not anecdotal. It won't help to have poorly gathered data for the same reason, it is untrustworthy data, not anecdotal data. The data must be true or it supports nothing.
Personal: All evidence is observed from some personal position. It takes a person to observe data. Where the data comes from is unimportant to science. What is important to science is that it is verifiable and repeatable. The reason the data is often irrefutably true is because both sides of the anecdote often know the data is reported correctly from personal experiences. Drop a hammer on Earth and it will fall. It only needs to be true, not personal.
Singular: Often, but not always, users of anecdotal evidence quote more than one case. Therefore, singularity is not a required property of anecdotal evidence. Singularity is anecdotal evidence supporting the point that anecdotal evidence must be singular.
Anecdote: Evidence is science, the anecdote is what the evidence has been chosen to support.
Conclusion: The anecdote is the conclusion that the evidence was selected to support. 
If the evidence supports a true conclusion, there is no surrounding evidence to prove the anecdotal nature. The conclusion then becomes a hypothesis or immature point, not an anecdote. 
A scientific hypothesis takes data and attempts to fit a model to it. That data must be verifiable as is the data for an anecdote. The difference is, there is data that proves the anecdotal conclusion wrong, where the hypothesis remains a hypothesis until more data supports it or refutes it. If the hypothesis is claimed after refuting evidence is found, it becomes and anecdote supported by the earlier incomplete evidence.
If a conclusion is stated as verified by the data, the conclusion is immature. The cure for the immature conclusion is to point out additional evidence that could also explain the outcome.
Anecdotal evidence is an incorrect premise gained and supported by incomplete scientific data. The cure is to supply the complete data.
Premature conclusion is based on immature scientific data. Data gained without a full scientific investigation. Show additional possibilities.
The two are closely related but not the same. 
The fallacy in anecdotal evidence is shown by the complete data. 
The fallacy in the incomplete conclusion is shown by alternate explanations. 
Smoking doesn't cause lung cancer, because many people have lived to 95 dying from other factors not relating to smoking or cancer, is anecdotal. The more complete evidence, that 90+ percent of the lung cancer cases were smokers, shows the fallacy. The anecdote exposed by more complete data, stops the necessity of more study.
Eating limes prevents scurvy, because Charlie ate them last voyage and didn't get scurvy, is a hypothesis or immature conclusion. There was no other supporting evidence to refute the claim. Being that it lacked falsifying data, more study was appropriate. Charlie ate a new thing he made and calls "aspirin" that voyage also, would lend addition avenues (Now both could be true.). 
Quasars are powered, or not, by black holes, are premature conclusions. There is insufficient data to rule out either point. It is hard to know much about energy sources billions of light years away. 
Hand picked data leads to false anecdotes.
Incomplete data leads to immature conclusions. 
--Eric Norby 12:12, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You seem to think that anecdotal evidence is some sort of logical fallacy and then go to great lengths to distinguish the "anecdotal evidence fallacy" from other logical fallacies. As such, the article you contributed, while containing some interesting points that should, perhaps, ultimately be included in the "final" article, is so heavily dependent on a misunderstanding that I decided to simply revert. Anecdotal evidence says nothing about the structure of the argument that uses it. Instead, it is a red flag that the premise might not be verifyable and that the argument using it might be relying on unsupportable generalizations (as my stats professor might say, "The plural of anecdote is not data"). Anecdotal evidence isn't a fallacy by itself, it's merely a catagory of evidence that hasn't had the rigorous safeguards of experimental evidence applied. Food for thought: should eye-witness accounts of crimes be considered anecdotal evidence? --Flatline 15:47, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a difference between eye-witness evidence and evidence from anecdote, so one cannot be easily compared to the other. For example: “I saw Tom commit the crime, therefore Tom is guilty” (eye-witness evidence) as opposed to, “I heard that Tom committed a crime, therefore Tom is guilty” (anecdotal evidence). Conclusions derived from eye-witness evidence are unreliable; while conclusions derived from anecdotal evidence are illogical. --jvanek01 15:48, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

text: Okay, flipping through one of my philosophy textbooks from college (Invitation to Critical Thinking, by Joel Rudinow and Vincent Barry), in the chapter "Informal Fallacies of Evidence" they list a fallacy which they call the fallacy of suppressed evidence. From their discription, this fallacy matches the description that you've given for anecdotal evidence, except that in their description, the evidence can come from any kind of source (not just personal anecdotes). What's important to understand is that as a fallacy, this is a type of argument (as opposed to a type of evidence). Other fallacies that commonly use anecdotal evidence include: fallacy of small sample (where conclusions are drawn from a statistically insignificant set of samples), fallacy of unrepresentative sample (where samples are drawn from the wrong population), and (most obviously) unidentified experts ("I met doctor at the bar, and he said..."). --Flatline 17:49, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Since when is it a fallacy to reference a relevant authority? Unless you have reason to doubt the authority of the reference or can demonstrate that there is no consensus of experts in the field, I am inclined to trust this reference. --Flatline 02:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text: The data was incorrect. Your new article is similarly incorrect. --Flatline 02:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I gave my reasoning on this very discussion page. In fact, you are responding to it now. --Flatline 02:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text: If we accept your definition, then it is trivial to find argument pairs such that the data is anecdotal in one argument and not in the other. How can this be acceptable? Either the data is anecdotal, or it is not. The context is irrelevant; only the origin matters when determining if said evidence is anecdotal or not. --Flatline 02:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Please refrain from insults and name calling. It is inappropriate and distracts from the task of improving the article. --Flatline 02:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yes the conclusion is fallacious and the data correct. 

message: Narratives are used to make points, and since we all retain an internal model of the world, and can model another person's mind as well, narrative has a subjective reality to us.  Anecdotes represent a transfer of soem piece of narrative, which we can test for consistency against those models.
The statistical examples seem to hve ignored the Rev. Bayes' work, and also the n-of 1 trial which is a statistically sound evidence based medicine method.  Since it relies on repeated trials the applicability to 666 m falls may be limited by volunteers.  
Overall, this has the apeparance of a silly argument, given that we all know what anecdotes are even before we reach our anecdotage. 
The Invisible Anon 14:33, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anecdote and Narrative 

message: OK, I have just given this a pretty serious overhaul, keeping in mind comments on this talk page. I believe I have covered most of the major concerns. However, it is far from complete. At this point, I think a casual reader would get a general sense of the concept and its different uses. I have added citations wherever possible, and I'd like to see more published sources for quotations. Please feel free to make additions or suggestions, but let's try to keep this from becoming unreadable. Thanks to all whose suggestions on this page were incorporated into this iteration. Jokestress 04:08, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup attempt 

message: I removed "oxymoronic" from this sentence:  "Anecdotal evidence is an informal oxymoronic account of evidence in the form of an anecdote".  It's an awkward edit, and moreover is a failure of NPOV 101:  instead of defining "anecdotal evidence" as oxymoronic, we need to say who says it is and why.  As the article notes, there are in fact some forms of anecdote that are accepted as evidence, e.g. case studies in medicine.  The veracity of an observation and how one interprets it will vary with the situation. -Jim Butler 21:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, "anecdotal evidence" isn't an oxymoron. I too would like to see a published source claiming it is. Jokestress 04:34, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've commented on this on my talkpage. See WP oxymoron. Mccready 07:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The article you cite says of terms like "anecdotal evidence": "unlike real oxymora, [they] are used in full earnest and without any sense of paradox by many speakers in everyday language." Labeling the term "anecdotal evidence" an oxymoron is a POV that requires a published citation. You can probably find one in a scientific skeptic's book or in a law journal, two views that have disputes over meaning of the term "evidence." Jokestress 08:17, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree that we don't need to say it's oxymoronic.  I'll remove this language, again. Friday (talk) 17:36, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oxymoron 

message: The article needs a section on something like this, citing evidence. From the top of my head ... the study where people witnessed a car crash and were asked about it later. —porges(talk) 09:25, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be like Loftus & Palmer (1974) and Loftus & Miller (1978)? Although I would suggest that those speak more just to the unreliability of memory generally, not just anecdotal evidence. If you had a videotape of the *whatever*, it still be flawed through availability or representativeness --Limegreen 09:44, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but since anecdotal evidence is totally reliant on the rememberances of the witness, that is relevant :) —porges(talk) 05:13, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Depending on exactly which definition of anecdotal evidence from the article you choose to use, then anecdotal evidence can be be reliant on memory. In a witness context, then probably yes. But if it's a doctor presenting anecdotal evidence of a rise in illness X, then there may be written records or even lab test results. There is then no memorial component, but with doubts to the representativeness etc., the evidence is still anecdotal. --Limegreen 00:14, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why anecdotal evidence is unreliable 

message: It's often reported that "flying is safer than driving" but without qualification this isn't a meaningful claim. Road travel typically involves relatively short trips with the risk spread relatively evenly throughout the entire trip; air travel typically involves longer trips with much of the risk concentrated at takeoff and landing. The result of this is that comparative safety depends on whether you look at risk per mile travelled (appropriate to driving) or per trip (appropriate to flying). Therefore I've removed this from the article. --Calair 12:30, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Flying vs driving

message: The definition has once again slipped off the deep end of "anecdotal evidence is bad evidence". Although the evidence quoted from personal anecdote, or even general anecdote, can be unscientific, incorrect, and invalid, it can just as easily be very correct and factual but still be used anecdotally and that use can be correct or incorrect. Thus, bad data has other names and the difference from anecdotal evidence must be pointed out. The complication of the definition is that most people use the term erroneously to mean "bad data". There should be some mention of why that is an erroneous use of the anecdotal logical.
It is not the evidence that is in dispute, it is the method, or conclusion. The main story is what is in dispute not the anecdote. The definition must entertain why the main story is erroneous not the anecdote. If the anecdote is in dispute there are other logical fallacies for bad evidence that are much more powerful to use. It would be inefficient to use the anecdotal evidence logical flaw. 
Again, someone pointing out that many smokers die at age 95 from something other than lung cancer or smoking related disease, is valid scientific data. People that eat limes while on a long sea voyage don't get scurvy, is also equally valid scientific data. What is lacking from those anecdotes is the idea that there could be many other variables that contributes to the observed conditions of lung cancer and scurvy. Such factors are diet, and genetics. Concluding from the anecdote leaves the other factors to weaken the debate. It is simpler to say "anecdotal evidence" than what about died, genetics, location, type of water, etc...
Data given anecdotally ignores all those other possible variables. In a sense, it is incomplete evidence. In another sense, it is incomplete study to for the conclusion in the larger part of the paper. 
The claim of "anecdotal evidence" should permeate that the conclusion is premature or even wrong, but the evidence doesn't support nor refute it. 
If you use the personal anecdotal evidence that you grandmother lived to 95 and didn't die of lung cancer, you could correctly use it to prove that lung cancer doesn't kill all smokers. That conclusion should be a green light for science to study the area of 'why some people don't die young of lung cancer'. That type of conclusion from anecdotal evidence should suggest that the previous lung cancer studies, although possibly good, need more study.
Personal anecdote is often very very irrefutable, especially when both parties know the anecdote personally. In a sense, anecdotal evidence and personal anecdotal evidence are irrefutable correct and useful. 
Also: There needs to be an explanation regarding the difference between "anecdotal evidence" and "personal anecdotal evidence". It should incorporate the idea that all science is supposed to be personal. "If you don't agree do the experiment yourself." The difference between scientific facts and anecdote should be given. Remember anecdote is a small story inside a bigger one, therefore it is likely that the anecdotal evidence just doesn't tell it all. 
Please correct the definition in the main page to reflect the difference between "bad evidence" and "anecdotal evidence." They are not the same, although many think they are. There is a subtle but important difference. As the page reads now it promotes the idea that anecdotal evidence, is the poorest data type ever. Remember anecdote is a small story in the larger story. So the larger story is not proven by the anecdote, even if the larger story is correct and the anecdote correct. It is the larger stories fallacy that is in error by anecdotal evidence, not the evidence itself. If it is the evidence itself, there are other names given to the bad data.
Example: If you grandmother lived to 95 and smoked her whole life and died in a car-wreck, how do you know her lungs weren't riddled with cancer and would have killed her had she lived just a little longer? That is and example of incomplete study. If it is known that she did have lung cancer, it is incomplete or fraudulent evidence. All those are a much greater fallacy than the personal anecdote. 
If the person comes back with, "We did a complete extensive autopsy by three independent labs and all concluded that here lungs, although black were in perfect health." Then the information is just anecdotal if used incorrectly, if used correctly it is scientific. 
Eric Norby 16:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: These analogies and points are all interesting, but we need a published citation to back these assertions up, so this doesn't veer back into original research. If you have specific citations you'd like to discuss, please list them here. Jokestress 16:32, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Recent changes questioned

message: The table lists scientific evidence as "Irrefutable", which is a little misleading.  Without getting into the specifics of the scientific method, one of the "general observations" for the reliability prong of the Daubert Standard is that the theory or technique must be falsifiable.  Battles of the experts are a ludicrously expensive feature in trial law and are generally avoided (see Expert witness), but that does not mean that they do not take place.  Is this table a direct quote from the source or can it be modified (or at least disclaimed)?Somedumbyankee (talk) 21:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Objection to Miller/Miller table

message: The article as it stands today seems to be confusing 2 entirely different ideas:
1. A story about whose veracity there is doubt (specifically, but not only, hearsay).
2. An accurate and reliable report which has no statistical significance (my grandfather smoked 40 a day until he died at 90). (Of course the report may actually also be unreliable, but the point is that it's not statistically significant).
I think only (2) could be called anecdotal evidence; (1) is either unsupported hearsay or just unreliable testimonial evidence. But if it's felt that both these things should be grouped under "anecdotal evidence" a very sharp distinction should be made between them.
Pol098 (talk) 14:07, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The whole article is wrongly based 

message: I think a section should be made about misleading vividness in this article even if the two stay independent from each other.--Taeyebaar (talk) 05:07, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merging Misleading vividness 

message: I cut this from the intro as incomprehensible:
:Anecdotal evidence is no more than a type description (i.e., short narrative), and is often confused in discussions with its weight, or other considerations, as to the purpose(s) for which it is used.  This is true regardless of the veracity of individual claims.Carroll, Robert Todd. Anecdotal (testimonial) evidence, from the Skeptic's Dictionary.Novella, Steven. Science-based Medicine. Link. Second link. Retrieved 26 August 2012.Bearden, James. Anecdotal evidence. Link.
Ben Finn (talk) 11:21, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Intro

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Is there a Wikipedia policy for anecdotal evidence? Benjamin (talk) 05:51, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  policy