This happens all the time on an e-mail list I am on. For example, someone will mention “I hate it when certain irresponsible people bring their kids to X event because unattended children are distracting. Perhaps X event should be child-free in the future.” This will immediately be followed by protests of “But I bring my kids to X event and they are always well-behaved because I brought them up right! And I can’t always find a baby-sitter because I’m poor/single/etc.” and imply that original poster is a child hating idiot for even bringing the subject up in the first place. Did the original poster say ‘all kids are distracting’? No, original poster said ‘unattended children are distracting’. Did original poster say protesting person’s kids are distracting? No, original poster said irresponsible parents have distracting children and that in their opinion X event would be better served by being child-free. And this is on a local list where nearly all the people know each other IRL and are aware of each person’s family structure. Drives me nuts.
You people seem to have forgotten the sentence most useful when faced with these people, “Shut the fuck up, moron!”
Bad advice. One time when I said that to someone, they kicked me in the nuts with a lead-toed boot and now I’m sterile.
Yup. This is why the fat threads, SUV thread, and that GODDAMN PICKY EATER TRAINWRECK never seem to die.
It gets pretty tiresome after awhile.
Also a good reminder that very little is truly black and white.
When people make absolute statements it can be like waving a reg flag in front of a bull, someone will just have to prove the exception to the rule.
I thought data was the plural of datum.
Shut the fuck up, moron!
See how it trips so lightly off the tongue?
Oh yeah?
Well, I once knew a guy who had a Fnord that would ONLY eat people who didn’t see it!
Are you saying he’s some kind of perverted fnord-having freak who deserves to be flattened by a steamroller? You’ve got a lot of nerve.
No, data is literally the plural of datum. Anecdotes is literally the plural of anecdote.
Just a pet peeve of mine.
Anectdotal evidence has some place in arguments. Like if someone makes the claim that, “There is just no way you can justify not taking your shoes off” well then you can bring up an anectdote to show that there really is at least one way.
But in general anectdote should only be sprinkled in to an argument to help with analogy and shouldn’t be the crux of an argument itself.
This is funny - we’re getting an example within the thread.
“Anecdotal evidence doesn’t cut it.”
“Well there was this one situation where anecdotal evidence was valid.”
This is a pretty good example as well. In this thread, CanvasShoes said:
Data is collected in a systematic fashion, with care being taken to avoid bias and include all relevant data points, whether they support or oppose the hypothesis. You can have a thousand anecdotes, but if they were not collected in a systematic fashion that accounts for bias, they are not data.
(Plus, also what previous posters said about the misuse of literally. Speaking of pet peeves.)
You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Tons of things are truly black and white. Penguins are black and white. How dare you tell the penguins they’re not truly what they are, you jerk!
Yeah. That literally chaps my hide.
Nuh-uh! Baby penguins are brownish-grey, you sick sick bastard.
Won’t someone please think of the baby penguins?!?!
Eh, I’m not so sure about that. A collection of biased and sloppily-collected anecdotes is data, even if it’s bad or worthless data.
If the anecdote is about Brent Spiner, does it count double?
I think as long as anecdotal evidence is presented as such, then it is fine. In fact, on a message board, there is an argument that it should be positively encouraged: example - most of the questions in GQ could be answered probably much more succinctly and scientifically by running a Google search or looking up Wikipedia or what-have-you, but by coming to somewhere such as the SDMB, you get the hard facts and you also get some interesting related personal stories, which is something an encyclopedia will never give you.
It also makes the place a bit more human, and is one up the wankers who love to cry “CITE!” at every opportunity. There is a place for hard evidence backed up by verifiable cites, and there is a place for anecdotal stories. As long as one doesn’t try to masquerade as the other, there should be no problem. I think most people are smart enough to recognise anecdotal stuff when they see it.
Cite?
::: ducks and runs :::
Sorry, but I gotta disagree with you on this one. If most (more than 50%) people where capable of recognizing anecdotal information when it was presented, we would not need to have message board like this one. In my experience, most people cannot filter out anecdotal or irrelevant information when trying to make or study an argument.