Anecdotal Evidence

[bennyboy]

Anecdotal evidence is a description of an event, coupled with an attribution about its cause or its nature. The description might be fair enough, but the attribution is likely to be poorly supported.

If someone says, "I started wearing crystals around my neck, and a few weeks later, my cancer was gone," we have a description, possibly real, of events in someone's life. However, if the person proceeds in trying to sell crystals because they have magical healing powers, they are using anecdotal evidence-- they have not demonstrated any link between the crystal and the cure, and have not demonstrated that over the population, crystals will correlate to health.

A VERY common example we've all heard is, "Uncle Bubba smoked 10 cigars a day and drank a bottle of whiskey every weekend, and he lived to be 110. So nah, I like smoking, and if you tell me it will harm my health, then I'll say you're full of shit." However, if you look at the general population, it will be immediately obvious that both smoking and excessive drinking greatly reduce people's life expectancy, and Uncle Bubba was a tough S.O.B. and probably very lucky.

[Minimalist]

Religitards love anecdotes.  Far preferable than trying to find facts as far as they are concerned.

[brewer]

Suppose I tell you, 'I was taken aboard a starship from the Gilflingian Empire.  They explained to me their benevolent purposes, took readings of my brainwaves and brought me home.'  This is an anecdote.

Suppose I tell you, 'I was taken aboard a starship from the Gilflingian Empire.  They said people wouldn't believe this story, so they sent me back with detailed instruction on how to build a cold-fusion generator for $12, how to cure all cancers, a sure-fire way to settle the troubles in Gaza and Syria, and how to safely and rapidly increase Earth's agricultural production 15 fold.  See?  The instructions are engraved right here on these plates of trivactium, a non-conductive metal alloy made of stable astatine.'  This is evidence.

And never the twain shall meet.

Boru

Not until you build the generator, settle the troubles and increase the production. Until then they are just words on something strange.

[robvalue]

An untestable verbal account.

It's poor evidence because it's subject to all sorts of corruption, and there is no way to discover whether the events happened or not without further evidence. Even if they did, the accuracy cannot be determined. There's plenty of good explanations why several people, even large groups of people, would report the same apparently extraordinary event. And they're all more likely than "it was something magic", in my opinion.

If anyone believes that something as-yet undemonstrated to even be possible has happened based on anecdotal evidence alone, they have made a serious error. It may be a good starting point for investigation. It cannot be the investigation. You're granting these witnesses the power to correctly identify and categorise an unknown phenomenon.

Attempts to try to reduce all evidence down to the level of anecdotes is the last ditch tactic of someone desperately resorting to tu quoque fallacies. Attempts to conflate the mundane (Jack killed him) with the extraordinary (a ghost killed him) are along the same lines. Your evidence doesn't get any better by talking about it, nor by talking about other evidence. If someone has seen your evidence and is unconvinced, you need to try something else to convince them; not to try to tell them that they should be convinced.

As a last point: compare what happens when you hear an anecdote that you would like to be true, versus one you wouldn't like to be true. Do you treat both equally? Would you concede an (extraordinary) point you don't want to be true on the basis of piles of anecdotal evidence?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Do you believe the testimonies of thousands of alien abduction victims?

Edit: Then alien abduction anecdotes qualify as qualitative evidence? Not in my book. But maybe to other alien abductees.

It is evidence of something interesting although not necessarily what it seems to be.

[Cyberman]

Religitards love anecdotes.  Far preferable than trying to find facts as far as they are concerned.

They should do. It's all they have, when all's said and done.

[robvalue]

I want to make another point about attempts to drag scientific evidence down to the level of anecdotes.

"You're relying on the word of scientists".

Yes, this is often the case. But I'm relying on them to report something that is falsifiable. That's the difference.

Consider these two scenarios:

"Everyone who has been there agrees that there is a pillar, which is 3 metres high."

"Everyone who has been there agrees that there is a spectral pillar there."

The first claim is falsifiable. If it wasn't true, it would just take one person to measure the pillar, or notice that there is no pillar, and the game is up. So the idea that not a single person has tried this, or everyone who has done so has been silenced, is becoming a very unlikely possibility.

However, spectral pillars are unfalsifiable. No one can show it isn't there. No one can show it is there. As such, it's a useless claim to make, and no amount of "evidence" confirms it. Even if lots of people agree, it means nothing, because it cannot ever be tested. No one can simply turn up and "measure" it, like they can in the first scenario. People start using such unreliable methods as "feeling it" or "I experienced it". And as expected, people aren't going to report the same things about this spectral pillar either. How tall is it, I wonder?

[Angrboda]

Anecdotes become more trustworthy the more mundane the claim. I read the meter on the scope and it read 8 units is trustworthy. I was visited by the ghost of Abraham Lincoln is not. It has to do with intervals of confidence. The chance that the report of the meter reading being false based on random variation is negligible. The chance of the ghost sighting being wrong by random variation is significant. Not to mention the factors which can conspire to render a witnesses statement worthless. There is less incentive to fabricate things with a mundane observation.

[robvalue]

I wonder? Can someone who is immersed in religious mythology genuinely not tell the difference between the mundane and the extraordinary very well? Like, if they think there's magic shit going on everywhere, to them a godly voice or an angel or something is going to seem more mundane than it would to someone who doubts the existence of such things in the first place.

I guess to them, it's simply more mundane and that's the end of it. But you can't force someone to accept anecdotal evidence by getting angry about it.

Also, what use is it? Even if I believe you, so what? It has no practical use, whatever this weird event is, other than to be drawn into further belief of weird events.

For example, "Everything in the bible happened". Okay. Don't care. Why should I? It would be interesting at least, if I could test it somehow. All I can do is read it over and over.

[RoadRunner79]

An untestable verbal account.

It's poor evidence because it's subject to all sorts of corruption, and there is no way to discover whether the events happened or not without further evidence. Even if they did, the accuracy cannot be determined. There's plenty of good explanations why several people, even large groups of people, would report the same apparently extraordinary event. And they're all more likely than "it was something magic", in my opinion.

If anyone believes that something as-yet undemonstrated to even be possible has happened based on anecdotal evidence alone, they have made a serious error. It may be a good starting point for investigation. It cannot be the investigation. You're granting these witnesses the power to correctly identify and categorise an unknown phenomenon.

Attempts to try to reduce all evidence down to the level of anecdotes is the last ditch tactic of someone desperately resorting to tu quoque fallacies. Attempts to conflate the mundane (Jack killed him) with the extraordinary (a ghost killed him) are along the same lines. Your evidence doesn't get any better by talking about it, nor by talking about other evidence. If someone has seen your evidence and is unconvinced, you need to try something else to convince them; not to try to tell them that they should be convinced.

As a last point: compare what happens when you hear an anecdote that you would like to be true, versus one you wouldn't like to be true. Do you treat both equally? Would you concede an (extraordinary) point you don't want to be true on the basis of piles of anecdotal evidence?

Your definition seems fairly unique from what I have found from various sites on the net. Even the more liberal and specific ones. Also, I think we may have a different idea of what testable means.....

As to your question.... it is difficult to answer, because of the differences we have in definition. While I often do check for corroboration, on the things I am already inclined to believe, I am more likely to take them on faith, without testing them as well as I should. I'm not really comfortable saying that I don't want to believe something... I'm not that closed off to the evidence. However something which goes against my current worldview and understanding can be uncomfortable and difficult. While it would be a little more complicated (depend on the specifics of the accounts) yes, a number of independent verbal accounts without reason to doubt them, would be evidence to make me believe.