All scientific proof started off as anecdotal evidence. There's no mysterious dividing line between anecdotes and science: any anecdote that goes beyond the level of the subjective becomes science.
WHY disregard "ANECDOTAL" evidence?
by hamsterbait 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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WTWizard
Personal experiences are just that. If it happens to one person, it can happen to others. For instance, I gained about 40 pounds of lard (about what I lost from the 4X15 in college) within 6 months. This means it can happen--though there will always be the case where someone whose idea of exercise was to lift a spoon of ice cream or nacho chips to their mouth went in and lost 40 pounds in 6 months.
With the witless religion, experiences do vary wildly. There is no such thing as unity. For instance, different people might write disassociation letters. One might have it upheld and be shunned. Another might have their letter second-guessed and start receiving endless hounding calls. Still another, particularly single no-prospect "brothers" with one of the hounders interested in hosting him, might be physically recaptured. There is going to be wild variance in the result of doing the exact same action, and it might not always fit any pattern.
This is why we should look at individual experiences as part of the bigger picture. There is no such thing as a predictable response. Often, these differences are because of the individual hounders. Sometimes they are the result of a different starting point. In cases where people commit suicide after leaving the cult or return, it is often because such person is not prepared to do their own thinking or live outside the cult, and is too lazy and/or dishonest to do their own thinking. Another person would be able to learn to think, and would leave with only the lost time and opportunities as damage. It is all part of the bigger picture, and the better integrated our thinking is, the better the picture we see of the Washtowel Slaveholdery.
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Farkel
TD,
:Here's a good example: JW publications have often related stories of individuals who have survived catastrophic drops in hemocrit without receiving allogeneic blood transfusions. The conclusion presented is that transfusion is bad medicine, that does not save lives and is not needed.
Your example is also a good example of a false dilemma: presenting only one possible conclusion from a fact, when there may be more than one.
With regards to the validity of anecdotal evidence, it depends upon the evidence. If 25 people personally witnessed a murder and gave exactly the same testimony, that is credible evidence. If 25 people drank Gatoraid and claimed it cure them of cancer, that "evidence" deserves more scrutiny.
There are a lot of folk cures used throughout the world that are passed down from generation to generation. Some of them are nearly miraculous in their healing, and others are garbage. So you can see, the "evidence" from anecdotes is by its very nature, contextual.
Farkel
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Fadeout
Farkel: Your example is also a good example of a false dilemma: presenting only one possible conclusion from a fact, when there may be more than one.
I think that's the problem with isolated anecdotal evidence.
It's not that anecdotal evidence is invalid or worthless. But all too often the false dilemma arises from isolated anecdotal evidence.
"A black man robbed my convenience store. Blacks are all a bunch of thugs."
"Look at all these people claiming they have been abducted by aliens. It must really be happening."
"This soup is terrible. This restaurant sucks." etc.
Note that the conclusion may still be true; it's simply that the anecdotal evidence was insufficient to make that conclusion. The restaurant may indeed suck; but that can't be judged based on one bad bowl of soup.
Thus, in any scientifically conducted study, multiple trials are necessary. A drug working on a single person is weak anecdotal evidence. A drug working on 95% of a group of 1,000 participants is anecdotal evidence amplified by enough orders of magnitude to be considered objective empirical evidence. The difference is that you're reducing the level of subjectivity, the margin of error, the amount of faith required to accept a conclusion.