This is how it’s usually stated, altogether different from the OP.
Question needs to be rephrased.
Here’s an example most should be able to grasp. The recent Virginia earthquake of 2011 was a real event. Anecdotal evidence of it was tweeted almost in real time, and mapping the tweets and text messages (which were mostly OMG it’s a fucking earthquake!) shows an expanding circle of text/tweets, which is good enough to locate the center of the earthquake, as well as a real time display of the waves moving outward from the center.
Each text is an anecdote, but the plural of them is evidence. Evidence that is good enough to map an earthquake in time and location. Due to the speed a text travels many people had a warming of the quake before it hit them.
Anecdotes are data, just the lowest and least reliable form of it. I don’t recall seeing anyone arguing that anecdotes are completely worthless, just that they can’t be flung into a discussion and automatically considered worthy of respect.
Too often this goes along with inaccurate and annoying tropes like “we don’t know what causes X, therefore my anecdote is meaningful” and “Science was wrong before, therefore you must respect my crazy-ass anecdote”.
If there are a number of anecdotes (particularly from people with critical thinking skills and knowledge in a particular area), and if the theory generated from them makes logical sense, then those anecdotes reasonably can be the starting point for systematic investigation.
And yet people do just that, all the time. Why? And why do they sometimes repeat the wrong quote when doing it? Here is the incredible irony of it all. People reject anecdotal data, and say “the plural of anecdote isn’t data”, because of anecdotal evidence. They didn’t get it from a scientific study, from a peer reviewed paper, or even from the person who originally said the correct phrase. In fact, the claim/statement “the plural of anecdote isn’t data” is a false statement, a corruption of the original thought, yet people repeat it, and act as if it is gospel.
Because they HEARD SOMEBODY ELSE SAY IT. which is the very definition of an anecdote. So it’s an anecdote (and wrong) that is used to dismiss any anecdote that they disagree with.
I find that ironic. Even more so when you show them (with sources and everything) that the original phrase was the exact opposite, and that the phrase they are using is wrong, is an anecdote, they still stick with their version. Because they place anecdotal evidence higher than real evidence.
Priceless.
And yet, as I just explained, it happens ALL THE TIME.
What is common, is that people use anecdotes they agree with, all the time, but reject anecdotes they disagree with, or sound impossible.
I was just looking at something just an hour ago and saw this principle at work. It’s actually a good enough example it will fit right in the topic at hand.
The New York Times was pimping fear and disaster, and used two anecdotes to say rising oceans are already flooding Miami Beach. That climate change is now.
Both of them are complete fictions. It’s completely not true what they are trying to tell you.
But, how can you know? My saying it isn’t true is also an anecdote. Right? But what if a hundred people that have lived in that exact area told you it’s bullshit? That the flooding has always happened? That it’s a combination of tides, wind driven water levels in Biscayne Bay, and the fact that due to the land subsidence there, water from the bay is forced up the storm drains and floods the roadways, in a spot that has always been very low. That the pumping of ground water caused the already low area to sink by a foot in the last 80 years.
Is that data? Of course it is. It’s also exactly what is really happening. It has nothing to do with climate change or rising oceans.
Because I actually know this, I knew the anecdotal stories the NYTimes used was nonsense. But of course all that can be dismissed as “just an anecdote”.
But because of the internet, and old newspapers, you don’t have to trust my word (or a hundred other people).
The Miami News covered this exact same story in 1973. Because that time it was bad enough to be news. Because it happens most every year, and always has, it’s not usually considered news in Miami Beach.
The final irony is that 1973 story uses an anecdote.
It’s all so ironic.
“Hmm,” thought I to myself, “this old thread has been bumped. Oh, I see that FXMastermind has decided to post on the topic of how to distinguish good, rational scientific thought from bad, lazy emotional thought. This is sure to be enlightening, and not at all biased toward a particular viewpoint on a particular subject.”
I see my expectations have been thoroughly fulfilled.
There’s an example of an anecdote. If you have already decided and agree with smeghead, you will accept it as data. If you don’t, it’s easy to dismiss it as anecdote. Another example of exactly what I was explaining. Thanks smeghead.
But that isn’t what happens. If the sources are believed, people just buy whatever anecdotes are told. If they disagree or are skeptical, they may dismiss all anecdotes they disagree with.
It’s a constant source of amusement online.
“The plural of ‘anecdote’…” is used as a response to “I don’ know anyone who voted for Nixon, therefore McGovern won.”
No, and you just made that up. In fact you used an anecdote!!
Hahahahaha
Good one