RE: Anecdotal Evidence
November 29, 2016 at 10:54 am
(This post was last modified: November 29, 2016 at 11:10 am by Full Circle.
Edit Reason: double-post
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(October 6, 2016 at 5:38 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: If one person reports something odd, it's an anecdote. If 1,000 people report something odd, it's qualitative evidence.
Like Fatima and the “dancing, zig-zagging” Sun?
Sometimes when 1,000 people report something odd it is simply mass hallucination and not qualitative evidence.
Sorry if I’m covering over trodden ground here but I always thought that anecdotal evidence was simply one person’s observation. I suppose more than one person can share in the anecdote and even when many do it should be taken with a grain of salt until scientifically tested.
For instance the Egyptians noticed that when the Crocodiles came up the Nile River during the year so would the flooding of the low lying areas and planting season was at hand. They surmised that the Crocodiles brought the floods and therefore they were regarded as gods. Ass-backwards but hey, unexamined anecdotal evidence may sound legitimate on the surface and still be completely wrong.
"Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.” ~ Ambrose Bierce
“I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's." - Mark Twain in Eruption
“I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's." - Mark Twain in Eruption