That was badly phrased: many people claiming things which appear to be in violation of all natural laws is not evidence for anything. It’s been said that the plural of anedote is not data, but that depends on the nature of the anecdote. If many people claim things which are unextraordinary - anecdotes about cats in their backyards - fine, that’s evidence. It’s data, since the standards of proof for such a commonplace claim are fairly low.
If many people claim things which are unusual but not impossible, such as anecdotes about there being penguins in their backyards, well, I’m a little dubious: I’d like some pretty hard evidence, not merely stories about how “my brother in law once saw one late at night”. A photo would be good. A few tracks. A recording of their calls. See if you can trap one.
Now, if many people have anecdotes about the near-impossible, that there are tiny pink winged horses in their backyards, frankly I’m as sceptical as all hell, and those stories ain’t data. The burden of proof is on the claimants to back up their stories, and the more extraordinary the anecdotes, the tougher the standards of proof required.
Now, tiny pink winged horses are one thing - they don’t violate any laws of physics that I know of, although the flight part may be a bit tricky given their size, and it’s hard to see how they could have the bone structure and musculature to support both hooved walking and flapping. It’s a tough sell, but I suppose they’re barely - just barely - at least physically possible.
But ghosts - which are supposedly intangible and incorporeal yet visible, apparently capable of speech with no organs of vocalisation, seemingly able to cause chemical reactions on photographic film despite being unseen by the naked eye, reputedly capable, despite their intangibility, of flinging material objects about, allegedly able to appear and disappear at will and travel through solid matter - the whole range of feats which defy every physical law, in fact - that makes them impossible.
The standards of their proof is gonna hafta be orders of magnitude tougher than those for pygmy pink pegasuses, and “many people claim” doesn’t even begin to cut it. Given human fallibility, gullibility, suggestibility and plain old-fashioned deceitfulness, these anecdotes don’t even approach being data.
Mama_Hound, might I suggest a little reading for you: Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World is an excellent and highly readable primer in critical thinking, common errors in reasoning, the scientific method, and standards of evidence and proof. It’s a near indispensable book.
But neither did the OP. Neither did I, come to that. All I’ve said is that there are unknowable things out there-why not ghosts as well? Again, ghosts in Victorian dress, holding bloody sabers or whathaveyou-no and no and no.
