Anecdotal Evidence

[bennyboy]

Here I disagree, I don't think that evidence needs to be reproducible or that a conflict of interest always is against evidence.  If I where to produce evidence which shows that I did not commit the murder on trail for, I certainly have an interest in being shown as innocent, but it doesn't follow, that the evidence is invalidated because of that.

If there's a conflict of interest AND a person cannot produce reproducible evidence, their testimony is garbage. If a scientist says he produce cold fusion, he has a personal motivation in being the guy to produce cold fusion. If he says, ". . . but my data got lost in a lab fire," then you'll say. . . okay either tell us how to do it, do it again with better documentation, or stop wasting our time.

As for the murder trial. . . nobody in this thread is talking about "producing evidence." We're talking about anecdotes. . . the use of personal testimony as evidence. When a criminal says, "Eh. . . that knife ain't mine. . . I think I saw some dude. . . yeah, that's it, I saw some dude walking by here a minute ago it must be his. . ." he has a personal interest in the outcome AND he can't produce evidence supporting his anecdote. His word is garbage-- complete, absolute zero value.


So if a Christian starts telling me that God is real, I'll ask if they have a personal motivation in making me believe so. The answer, pretty obviously, is yes. Then I'll ask for other evidence supporting their claim that God is real-- miracles caught on camera, for example. And when they can't provide it, I'll say the same thing I would say to the scientist: "I think you have a personal motivation, and you don't have evidence, so I'm not really going to entertain your claim at this time. Come back when you have something more persuasive."