Anecdote isn’t worthless, it just takes a lot of it to become credible.
Like, think of an anecdote like a single study - doesn’t carry much weight, but may indicate that further investigation is called for. A shit ton of anecdotes all making a similar claim - now we’ve got peer review that may actually add up to something significant. It also may not, but the more it builds momentum without being debunked, the more likely it is to be actually getting at something real.
![[Anecdotal evidence]](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/75f540ef-d018-44c9-89e2-e7b6d59f1676.jpeg){kind=link}
Anecdote isn’t worthless, it just takes a lot of it to become credible.
Like, think of an anecdote like a single study - doesn’t carry much weight, but may indicate that further investigation is called for. A shit ton of anecdotes all making a similar claim - now we’ve got peer review that may actually add up to something significant. It also may not, but the more it builds momentum without being debunked, the more likely it is to be actually getting at something real.
Doesn’t a “lot of anecdotal evidence” eventually become a sample set?