Anecdotal Evidence

[downbeatplumb]

To be fair Donald Trump has said that he did those things.

Is that evidence that he did?

Its certainly reportable by the main stream media and it does conform to what the women said he did.

If someone says Charlie ate all the biscuits, the biscuits are gone and Charlie says he ate all the biscuits chances are Charlie ate all the biscuits.

If someone said a large armadillo came in and ate the biscuits and someone says you know what I think armadillos do eat biscuits then in rural surrey this will need further evidence.

[The Grand Nudger]

What reason is that?

The same as it's been for pages and pages.  Anecdotes are evidence, in the loosest sense of the word, only of one persons subjective experience of some x that may or may not have occurred, and..if it did occur, may or may not have occurred as described.  It's even looser for each of your examples, which, themselves, refer to subjective measures -of- subjective experiences.  X stresses out bill and jane, so they say (though, honestly, it;s probably not their stress anecdotes that give away their stressful state if we were being completely honest).  So what, x -doesn't- stress me out.  Conversely, some thing that bill and jane say is super fun might stress the shit out of me.  

Are you saying that multiple anecdotes become empirical evidence?

if you're discussing anecdotes of self reporting stress, ofc they are, but of what? Amusingly,  in reference to one of your other examples, the relative stress of children..we have a fun bit of data. You should look up the interesting difference between what people self report regarding children and stress on a daily scale and on a yearly scale.  It seems that we tell ourselves two entirely contradictory stories about that...and ofc, we tell those contradictory stories to others or we wouldn't have such a wonderful case example of the uselessness of anecdotal evidence that;s so exceedingly specific to the sorts of examples you've decided to offer.

No, that's why anecdotal evidence is imperfect. It isn't useless. Most people don't have the time to park outside a house they're looking at all night for a few days to check the noise level. Most people don't knock on potential neighbors' doors and invite themselves in for dinner. Testimony from neighbors is about the only way you'll get such info. It might not be perfect. It's better than nothing.

All it can tell you is whether or not the noise level exceeds that persons threshold for noisy, which is an unknown threshold to you, and probably not the same threshold.  Useless.  I mean, if you want to use it by mounding up garbage in support of a point you've conceded...I guess there's that....but......personally, I wouldn't buy a slapchop based on a testimonial and here you are telling us you bought a house.

See above - no, I didn't wander the neighborhood at nights checking for noise and crime. Like most people, I was at the house on a few weekend afternoons.

There are far easier ways to check for those things.  A few weekends was better data than all of the anecdotal evidence you were offered.  Something tells me that if those few weekends empirical observations didn't line up, you'd have decided the anecdotal data was useless..seeing as how you base your weight of anecdote upon empirical observations just as surely as you base your important life decisions on empirical evidence.

What's the -actual- evidence regarding the gettysburg address, or trump's possibly assaulting women in the past?

Are those important life decisions?  For whom? Are you under the impression that no evidence, other than anecdotal evidence...exists for either? Which one?

[John V]

Its certainly reportable by the main stream media and it does conform to what the women said he did.

Actually it was reported before women made claims.

I don't know about armadillos and biscuits. How about a straight answer? If someone says I have sexually assaulted women is that evidence that he has sexually assaulted women? Not conclusive proof, but evidence?

[The Grand Nudger]

People make false confessions.  No, it's not evidence, because it makes nothing -evident-.

[bennyboy]

There's no such thing as anecdotal evidence. Anecdote is not evidence. Period. It's absolutely bullshit to say that our most important life decisions are based on hearsay... our most important life decisions are based on following either our head or our hearts. Period.

Of course there's such a thing as anecdotal evidence. How many times have you seen a thread started by an atheist along the lines of Should I date a theist, or Should I tell my parents/co-workers I'm an atheist? How do people answer? They give their personal experience, or sometimes that of a friend - anecdotes.

And half of the anecdotes are likely exaggerated or made-up bullshit.  This isn't really evidence-- it's a narrative with a point.

See, if you used Jesus' example from the NT as evidence that it is right to behave a certain way, then I'd look at the idea of it-- I'd imagine someone stepping in to stop a woman from being stoned, put myself in her place, and say-- "Yeah, that's right.  Tolerance is better than intolerance."  If you used the same exact story as evidence that God came to Earth to teach tolerance, I would be unlikely to accept it as credible evidence.

The stories these people tell about relationships are plausible narratives, and the reader will base their merit on the idea they reveal, not on their actual truth.  If I say, "I dated an Asian girl, and she was a great lover!" you won't need a video proving it.  You'll find the narrative credible enough, and possibly put in on your bucket list to do some verification of your own.

[Edwardo Piet]

It's no surprise to me that we have a Christian here that doesn't know what constitutes evidence.

Claims are not evidence for said claims. Anecdotes themselves are not evidence.

Without induction there is no evidence. Period.

[ApeNotKillApe]

Alder's Razor: If something cannot be settled by experiment or observation, it is not worthy of debate.

[Edwardo Piet]

Meh, I disagree. In my experience most debate involves correcting the opponent's fallacies... and I think it's worthy to not allow misrepresentations and sophistry to be given free reign.

...and it's worthy of my eyes to see William Lane Craig reduced to a bumbling mess in a debate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiJnCQuPiuo

Absolutely destroyed.

P.S. I also love philosophy and philosophy isn't experimental.

I love science but logic is even more paramount. Science is mostly about inductive logic but both deductive and inductive logic are vitally important. Science wouldn't work without logic... hell, nothing would even make any sense and the world could not exist if it were not for logic. If the universe as a whole was like the quantum world reality wouldn't work. We live in a rational universe. A purposeless universe, full of irrational beings, but a rational universe nonetheless. And hell, even mathematicians is absolutely completely logical. It's just logic with numbers. Logic is everything. Quite literally. I'm not talking about the concept of logic, I'm talking about the logical absolutes and the fact there can't not be logicality because if there wasn't there logically would have to not be logicality... there's no such thing as an illogical contradiction, only a logical contradiction, etc, etc. There has to be something because there is literally no alternative. This is the case regardless of if I or anyone else is here to conceptualize it because if it wasn't the case it logically wouldn't be which means it would be, logically, etc. Paradox.

[ApeNotKillApe]

Meh, I disagree. In my experience most debate involves correcting the opponent's fallacies... and I think it's worthy to not allow misrepresentations and sophistry to be given free reign.

...and it's worthy of my eyes to see William Lane Craig reduced to a bumbling mess in a debate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiJnCQuPiuo

Absolutely destroyed.

P.S. I also love philosophy and philosophy isn't experimental.

I love science but logic is even more paramount. Science is mostly about inductive logic but both deductive and inductive logic are vitally important. Science wouldn't work without logic... hell, nothing would even make any sense and the world could not exist if it were not for logic. If the universe as a whole was like the quantum world reality wouldn't work. We live in a rational universe. A purposeless universe, full of irrational beings, but a rational universe nonetheless. And hell, even mathematicians is absolutely completely logical. It's just logic with numbers. Logic is everything. Quite literally. I'm not talking about the concept of logic, I'm talking about the logical absolutes and the fact there can't not be logicality because if there wasn't there logically would have to not be logicality... there's no such thing as an illogical contradiction, only a logical contradiction, etc, etc. There has to be something because there is literally no alternative. This is the case regardless of if I or anyone else is here to conceptualize it because if it wasn't the case it logically wouldn't be which means it would be, logically, etc. Paradox.

I think, in this world, debating the superstitions is something worth doing, for reasons that I don't think I need to list for you. It also happens to be very satisfying to be John Cena to religion's Sin Cara.

But debating about God is ultimately frivilous in the sense that these superstitions are obviously not reflective of reality and have been demonstrated to be about as much as they ever really can be. The questions brought up in debates about the nature of God are all ultimately discussed on a false pretense that there is an answer to begin with, that there's even a clear definition of what a god is, that there's some point to discussing the nature of an entity that doesn't exist - or if they are religious, that there's some method or some point to trying to understand the nature of God, who by their own admission is deliberately unknowable and also known to become aggitated when mortals try to understand him.

God is a stupid thing to talk about looking at it honestly, there's no value to the topic itself, it's a ridiculous idea and a waste of time that would only ever be worth discussing in a world as completely insane as our own.

[The Grand Nudger]

@Ham

Philosophy requires sound propositions, and those propositions require observation to be declared sound. If you disagree, you don't love (and can't do) philosopy...lol. Without observations from which to form propositions, you'd just be making shit up to bicker about. If the quality of the propositions are strictly, uniformly, and directly proportionate to the quality of the observations from which they are drawn....so too, logically, is the quality of the subsequent philosophy. Logic is nothing -other- than a way of settling things by reference to observation, and the system itself is built out of observations regarding the relationships between proposition, condition, inference, and conclusion.



(that quip about how , if the universe were like the quantum world, reality wouldn't work..is a complete non-sequitur, and seemingly false of the face of it by reference to the fact that reality, well....works.....while simultaneously being the same thing as the quantum world?)