To think ancedotal evidence does count?

[Angelfootprints]

I have seen an increasing tactic on threads to dismiss anecdotal evidence From the "opposition". Especially on topics that are subjective ( religion, feminism , classism etc)

I think anecdotal evidence does count. It forms our life experiences and not everything can be measured in a scientific way. Some studies could be outdated, have an agenda or misinterpreted findings.

Science and studies don't always have the answers.

For example have been having medical problems which recently might be caused by a certain medication. There is no scientific studies to confirm this, yet googling this medication I have seen lots of women report these problems. Should I ignore all the anecdotal evidence because science (and the doctors) say it can't be true?

I think experiences from living, breathing people can be just as valid.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I agree with a lot of what ellie is saying.

Something anecdotal evidence is useful for is disproving. If you have a single contradictory example, that stands. It may not matter very much, but it's useful for stuff like when people say 'oh, all Christians believe gay people shouldn't marry'. In that situation just one person saying 'nope, I'm Christian and pro gay marriage' is enough. Though, then, naturally everyone ends up arguing about precise definitions of 'Christianity' and moving to the more general position 'most Christians believe ...'.

Occasionally I think the reason anecdotal evidence gets slammed on MN is it can come across as a little bit as if the person thinks their tiny, tiny, tiny amount of experience in the world really should count for more, proportionally, than it does.

[Dahlen]

Anecdotal evidence does count in the sense that it is often the basis on which more scientific stiudies are based - i.e. someone sees a pattern in their own experiences or from what other people have told them and sets out to see if this is repeated on a larger scale, while factoring in appropriate controls, etc.

However, while anecdotal evidence can be strong, it isn't necessary accurate. Living in a particular area or among a certain social group can predispose you to the idea that what happens there is what happens everywhere, when really that area/group may be quite unrepresentative.

[TheSkiingGardener]

Science doesn't claim to prove anything. All a study can do us show that a theory hasn't proven to be false, for instance, general relativity showed Newtonian mechanics to be false, and currently we hold on to general relativity as it shows consistent results where theory matches data.

Could be that there comes a time when that is shown to be false too though.

[Trills]

Poor reporting of studies does not mean they are poor studies. Yes.

A single anecdote may be true, it may be interesting, but it is unlikely to be a good basis for making a decision.

"I just think people sometimes blindly take it as the holy grail without questioning it or considering it could be wrong."

Anyone doing this does not understand how science works. That's not a reason to dismiss the scientific method, it's a reminder that people misinterpret and state as "if X then Y" on issues that are about risks and averages, not absolutes.

[DadOnIce]

Sales of wine are shown to go up by 15% one Saturday night. The ratings of "Strictly Come Dancing" also go up by 15%. You can show a correlation on a graph between the increase in consumption of wine and the increase in viewers of "Strictly Come Dancing". It would, however, be inaccurate to presume the two are connected just because they form the same shape on a graph. You need to take account of other factors influencing an increase in wine purchase (maybe Oddbins had a special offer on that week) and other factors influencing the ratings of "Strictly Come Dancing" (maybe it was the semi-final, there had been a lot of publicity that week, different time-slot, etc., etc.).

[DadOnIce]

Dismissing someone as "too lazy to engage with the argument" usually shows that you haven't understood what the argument actually is about. HTH.

[KobayashiMaru]

poor reporting of studies does not mean they are poor studies Tsk tsk, such fundamental misconceptions.

[Kungfutea]

Do you have any understanding of statistics toad and why what you said about how studies are carried out is meaningless?

[seeker]

Anecdote is not data because correlation is not causation.

[DolomitesDonkey]

Yanbu - by the very virtue of its nature evidence is often self-selecting anecdotal - particularly in light of the fact we don't conduct long-term laboratory experiments on homo sapiens. Sadly there are many unable to differentiate fact and logic from screaming mantra.

[Toadinthehole]

Dismissing an argument as 'anecdotal' merely shows, more often that not, that the person making the comment is simply too lazy to engage with the argument.

What's more, citing some scientific study in response is frequently even worse because the studies, being of very limited application, normally don't prove the point that the person citing them intends to make.

If is, for example, perfectly possible to conduct a scientific study in which various people bang their elbows on the table, run three times round their houses widdershins, eat six apples, then pray to The Great Green Arkleseizure, then if you run out of their houses and see if you are hit by a car. You could then compare the results with a control group and remark that taking the above actions is associated with being more / less likely to be hit by cars. It wouldn't be a study much more worthless than many being churned out by universities worldwide, and doubtlessly would be circulated on the Internet as 'evidence' of how you can make yourself less likely to be hit by cars.

[delusionsofadequacy]

Slightly off topic but if the example in your op of the potential side effect is the case for you then you can report it to the mhra via their yellow card reporting system and then your anecdote will add to their statistics and who knows maybe it will become a recognised side effect! yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk/the-yellow-card-scheme/

[andubelievedthat]

Small point ? perhaps ? but> the Copenhagen interpretation only works on a sub atomic level,when one tries to scale it up to the scale you speak of , it no longer applies,,and, it is a thought experiment .

[DadOnIce]

You could bang your elbow on the table, run three times round your house widdershins, eat six apples, then pray to The Great Green Arkleseizure. Then if you run out of your house and narrowly avoid being hit by a car, you could claim that this proves the Great Green Arkleseizure exists because he saved you from being hit by a car. What, so the banging of the elbow, the running widdershins and the apples had no effect, then?

i.e. Most "anecdotal" evidence is just confirmation bias in practice.

[KobayashiMaru]

If I smoke 40 a day yet live to be a hundred with never an illness, can I then tell everyone that I know for a fact that smoking does not cause cancer?

Your example shows you have somewhat misunderstood the point anyway.

[DadOnIce]

Yes, the key emotive word is "invalid". Statistically, a single person's anecdotal evidence is invalid - when it comes to actually being relevant for proving an argument wrong. That's not the same as saying it is invalid for them - it may have been valuable, meaningful, but it isn't relevant.

Often, it's simply confirmation bias in action. Anyone remember Derren Brown with the horse-racing? And the comparison with homeopathy?

[Whyriskit]

As part of my degree I did some qualitative microanalysis of parent/child interactions. The professor supervising the project was world renowned in the field of child development but without stats it did all feel a bit woolly.

[EllieArroway]

Yeah - but Dad - they couldn't find any men in their sample (apparently) who hadn't looked at porn so couldn't make a comparative study.

Mind you - some might have been saying they had when really they hadn't, so you might be right.

[RichardSimmonsTankTop]

"A lot of posters will mock the poster- but really your on to a losing battle as you cannot prove your position. How could you?It doesn't mean its not the truth though and what the poster is saying is invalid."

If they're talking about their own experience of course it's not 'invalid', but if they're saying that their experience negates the science, yes, the conclusion that the person is drawing is incorrect.

[EllieArroway]

As Kim said - most people using stats to try and prove something don't really understand stats.

And all that study about porn demonstrates is that it is "unlikely" that a man has never looked at porn - not that there's absolutely no men anywhere that don't.

[DadOnIce]

Well, the porn thing is a classic example of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in action - you affect the thing being studied by the act of studying it. The same is true of sex surveys in magazines - people won't be completely honest.

For things which you can't "prove" you can still collect evidence. Nobody can prove fairies don't exist, but given that every example of fairies so far found in the world is fictional or a hoax, one can comfortably draw the conclusion that they don't. Unless new evidence comes to light.

I suppose what I was saying above about anecdotes is that there will always be examples which appear to "contradict" or "disprove" a theory - until you look into them, weigh them against the other evidence, and realise they actually don't.