to think that people who do not understand that an anecdote is not the same as a statistic are stupid?

[turningvioletviolet]

Listening to Jeremy Vine (for my sins). Topic is 'breastfed children are more clever than those who aren't' (which is neither here nor there), based on a Brazilian study.

But the amount of people who are texting in saying 'my child wasn't breastfed and is top of the top school in the country so therefore the study IS NOT TRUE' or conversely that they did breastfeed and their child is thick as pig s**t so the study IS NOT TRUE.

Your anecdote means NOTHING.

And so ends my daily rant at the Jeremy Vine show.

Ha! There was a thread exactly like that on Jere this morning.

And yes, the OP seemed rather lacking in something.

On here. My auto correct is rather lacking in something too.

Anecdotes do mean something. But only if the study said, "every BF child is cleverer than EVERY FF child", which it doesn't. Sometimes one documented case does make a difference in science terms. Not in the case of small, statistical bump for the BFer's IQ.

However, the issue is that science is badly presented to people. 'breastfed children are more clever than those who aren't' is obviously not what the study said and obviously inaccurate. It probably said, "we found a statistically significant difference between the IQs of BF and BF children." Correlation does not causation make.

Sorry BF and FF (I was obviously FF).

YANBU. It happens on MN quite frequently too.

I will say that it can be difficult to accept a statistic when your experience is the opposite.

Ha, I text something very similar to my DH after I heard that and I saw this thread and thought it could be about this.

Clearly, over 30 years of research will now be ripped up and this one woman and her two children will become the definitive proof of everything that is breastfeeding related.

In all seriousness though, I was pleased there wasn't any mention of 'weirdness' and no reaction at all to the mum who mentioned her breastfed 4 year old and 2 year old.

Yanbu, this really riles me on so many MN threads (esp BF/FF ones).

I once heard someone say, "the plural of ANECDOTE is ANECDOTES, not DATA!" which I thought was very succinct!

I will say that it can be difficult to accept a statistic when your experience is the opposite. Even scientists have massive issues with confirmation bias and they, presumably, aren't stupid.

There was a cool study which was in the NG recently. Even very educated people will take longer to answer counter-intuitive truth questions than intuitive ones. So, longer to correctly answer "does the sun orbit the earth" than "does the moon orbit the earth" and longer to answer "do we share a common ancestor with jellyfish" than "do we share a common ancestor with primates".

Common sense arguing in our brains with knowledge!

Agreed, after the study within families of BFF vs FF showing no real difference I thought this could all be put to bed/War is over.

Yes, someone on my Facebook was using it to stealth boast about her children being on the top table for everything (so it must be a load of baloney. ) The study isn't claiming that no formula fed child can ever be on the top table fgs.

It's just a statistic. You can't extrapolate from it that BF babies are cleverer than FF babies. I'm not a fan of statistics.

The plural of anecdote is not data

I'm not a fan of statistics. Statistics are the meat and potatoes of a lot of science. I'm not a fan of people badly applying and poorly interpreting statistics but they themselves are wonderful tools.

I thought exactly the same listening to the same phone on

phone in

YANBU. You see it all the time on here, not just with BF/FF either. I've seen it on vaccination threads. Eg: my neighbour had a reaction to the flu vaccine so I'm not having the vaccine this year.

Yanbu. The other one that comes up very, very often on here is summer-borns and education. Obviously, summer-born children are in no way disadvantaged, because 'My Jonny's eldest was born on the 31st August and went to Oxford'. And the top table of every MNer school is full of August born children.

The thing is that unless a statistic found a 100% link in a infinite study, there will always be exceptions.

For the person the exception is true, it is a 100% true, for them.

Personally I think statistics are useful when you are trying to make informed decisions, when you want additional information to help you make that decision.

However when there is very little choice to be made because of circumstances or when the choice has been made and there is no going back, people will not want statistics rammed down their throat. They will remind themselves of anecdotal exceptions of success, despite the statistics suggesting the opposite, because of the decision they have already made. Which, if the decision has been made, is the best way to be IMO - remaining hopeful for the future, instead of being all doom and gloom, is good.

By the way, I did breastfeed. My personal choice, I knew I would obsess about making bottles up in a sleep deprived state.

I came across the word anecdata the other day, which I thought nicely summarised the misapprehension.

YANBU. People take things so personally.

Statistics can be manipulated to support anything you want.

Yes op. It's blooming irritating. It's mathsism.

"It's just a statistic. You can't extrapolate from it that BF babies are cleverer than FF babies. I'm not a fan of statistics"

You can though, thats the point. Fan or not, stats done properly tell us everything. Its what science and technology and medicine are based on. You have a lot to thank statistics for.

im an exception to many "rules" as is my family apparently thyroid problems dont run in family's but my mom sister nan aunt and great aunt have it they are all under-active thyroids statistically on the rare occasions that it is seen in more than one family member they all have they same type wrong again im an overactive thyroid im also supposed to have massive fertility problems because of my thyroid again untrue

statistics prove nothing at all to me!

personally i think they are just using statistics to say breast is best again as if we haven't had it rammed down our throats enough i personally GET IT so enough with the debate please?