[QUOTE=Alex_Dubinsky]
And you’re forgetting the singular of ‘data’ isn’t ‘fact’. Not even ‘something that doesn’t need interpretation’.
[/QUOTE]
I’m not forgetting anything of the sort. A single datum is not worthless; anecdotes by themselves are not worthless. But there is a pitfall that is common with anecdotes: it happened to me, therefore it must have a causal connection. Thus, here, a person burns their finger and then touches their earlobe and it seems to have some effect upon the burn, or the feeling of the burn. So the person leaps to a conclusion: the burn must have been helped by the touching of the earlobe. Then if they find that others have had the same experience, the assumption becomes: wow, there are many who have had the same experience, so it must be true!
Of course, we know that nothing further from the truth COULD be true. Which is my point. One anecdote is worth only a very little: it represents the experience of one person. Multiple anecdotes aren’t worth much more, because all the represent is the multiple experiences of the people from whom the anecdotes are received. THAT, sir, is not data of any value in trying to decide what is really true or not about an underlying cause, because, as I amply demonstrated in the follow-up post, just because it seemed to have a connection doesn’t mean it actually does.
Of course, it’s not the sort of thing that people who want to latch onto otherwise unexplainable phenomena like to hear. So, if you prefer to think that bodily emanations can affect the street lights you walk under, or that people really can bend spoons with their minds, or other similar such things, then by all means, ignore the point I made and cherish your anecdotal evidence.
Of course, intelligent people will tend to :rolleyes: or :dubious: or 
. Price you pay, I guess. :smack:
(Who knows? In the long run, the “intelligent” people may be the ones doing the :smack: !)