PSA: Using personal anecdotes to support your argument is bad

Electra_Cute · 2019-03-12T18:17:47+00:00

I see so much of this on the sub

Using your own personal anecdote to support your argument, interesting. Do you have a peer reviewed citation to back up your claim?

passepar2t · 2019-03-12T18:38:40+00:00

Hahah, I remember once being a neckbearded undergrad.

rus9384 · 2019-03-12T18:11:06+00:00

It only takes a single anecdote to shoot down the assertion that "all X are like that." The real problem is when people argue in absolutes and then bitch about anecdotal evidence.

Littleknownfacts · 2019-03-12T18:14:57+00:00

I've rarely seen people give anecdotes as support of an argument. More often it's used an example of something or given as a case study.

[deleted] · 2019-03-12T18:34:41+00:00

No, it isn't. You can't expect random people to supply you with peer reviewed published results.

I see this sub as an exchange of experiences. I try to give women here some male perspective as neutral as I can based on my personal experiences and observations in the hope it will open an eye now and then. I never have peer reviewed published results for that.

MrHerbSherman · 2019-03-12T18:20:56+00:00

Personal experience can shed a lot of insight into what “studies” have missed. When my personal experience is extremely different from what the study says, and the study does not offer a good explanation for that, then that’s a great basis to question the design and methods of the study

goatismycopilot · 2019-03-12T18:12:10+00:00

Who are you?

SmurfESmurferson · 2019-03-12T18:15:52+00:00

Personal anecdotes are a shortcut to figuring out if someone’s argument is worth listening to

I may find the perspective of a religious dude in the rural Midwest (for example) interesting, but ultimately useless for applying to the local culture I’m surrounded by

NOTSM · 2019-03-12T18:22:03+00:00

One cannot make a sound argument without referencing peer-reviewed studies and datasets.

Sure

But I’m not gonna put together a bibliography for my Reddit comments. That’s way too much effort

ThisIsJustATr1bute · 2019-03-12T18:15:16+00:00

One time I used a personal anecdote on a paper though and I got an A, so.

ThisIsJustATr1bute · 2019-03-12T18:54:53+00:00

People are at their most real when using anecdotes. Lets be honest OP, when people look for evidence or whatever, its not to form an opinion, its to provide reinforcement for the one they already hold. And how did that opinion come about? Personal experience... anecdotes.

Even if there was a rule here like "you must include evidence/study for your opinion", it would all be the same opinions and posts happening, just with more .edu links being thrown and intellectual ammo being expended on both sides. Ultimately a pain in the ass for no gain.

The only real change would be sometimes, someone not being able to find at least one study that supports their opinion so they have to shut up... but that may as well be a reflection on social science rather than their opinion. Bias in the social sciences, especially re: race and gender related stuff, is quite prevalent, and reproduceability problems/conflating correlation with causation abounds.

A much worse issue than this is, imo, the opposite trend where people infer anecdotes about other people's lives based on their stance. "Only an incel would believe that", "you must just suck with women", "you must be an uggo", etc. That's where communication and debate truly break down.

reluctantly_red · 2019-03-12T19:29:34+00:00

People make decisions and reach conclusions based on personal experience all the time. An example from my world -- every jury verdict ever is based on the personal experiences of the jurors. Accurate observation and reasonable incite are just as valid as double blind studies when it comes to social and personal issues.

blackedoutfast · 2019-03-12T20:27:41+00:00

One cannot make a sound argument without referencing peer-reviewed studies and datasets.

bzzt wrong.

peer reviewed studies and datasets are absolutely NOT the only valid way to support an argument. only spergy iamverysmart reddittards would think this. it's not how any of this works. logic and debate is NOT a matter of simply scoring the most points by having more peer-reviewed studies than the other side. it's actually pretty fallacious to believe that this one particular form of possible support for an argument is the only or best way to support an argument.

If we want to ensure that our worldview is actually based in reality, it is our responsibility to stop using our own personal experiences as supporting arguments.

bzzt wrong again.

assuming those personal anecdotes are true and accurate, they are also based in reality and reflect at least a portion of what is actually happening in reality. and since so many of the discussions here are based on very low-level personal relationships and interactions, anecdotes can actually be more relevant than a much larger scale study or dataset that is focused on general data and statistical trends

I see so much of this on the sub: "Men have X worse than women" (no evidence provided) "No women have it worse" (no evidence provided) And then both people think that they contributed to the debate. Its foolish.

bzzt and a hat trick of wrongness, very impressive

if people support their assertion with a personal anecdote, that is evidence. it may not be the best evidence or very strong evidence, but it is evidence.

i feel like this whole thing may be based on you mistinterpreting a phrase that is beloved to many reddittards who think they are master debaters : "the plural of anecdote is not data" (which interestingly is actually a redditard misquote of the original quote, which said that the plural of anecdote IS data).

you seem to be confusing data with evidence. they are not direct synonyms. data, such as facts and statistics, is a type of evidence. but it's NOT the only form of evidence. personal anecdotes are also a form of evidence, which can be more, less,or equally valid as any data. and it's up to the audience to decide which particular evidence is more persuasive.

blackedoutfast · 2019-03-12T18:32:47+00:00

What I find funniest here is people who know they are straight up messed up use their anecdotes to generalize about others. Staaaahhpppppppppppppp

SeemedGood · 2019-03-12T20:00:36+00:00

Unfortunately, our vulgar understanding of scientific inquiry has become so weak that most are unable to distinguish between empirical and rational methods of inquiry and most do not understand the strengths and weakness of the two processes.

On this sub we are largely dealing with inquiry into subjects in which the variables are not discrete and are hard to measure. In such cases, the empirical method of scientific inquiry is actually a weaker method of discovering truth than the rational method.

The use of personal anecdotes is not an attempt to establish empirical evidence, and as you have pointed out if it is, it is an inherently flawed one. Rather, the use of personal anecdotes serves to provide a specific example for rational deconstruction down to the level of axiom. Taken in this sense the use of personal anecdote can lead to a much stronger (more useful) discovery process than the application of empirical testing where the underlying variables being observed are not discrete and are difficult to measure accurately.

Mattcwu · 2019-03-12T23:13:21+00:00

My friend group disagrees with you. We think our experience does represent the larger population.

CWU, M., et al., (2019). Why Anecdotal Evidence is Superior to Peer-Reviewed Studies.

Reddit. Conde Nast, New York NY.

AutoModerator · 2019-03-12T18:05:13+00:00

Attention!

You can post off topic/jokes/puns as a comment to this Automoderator message.
For "CMV" and "Question for X" Threads: Parent comments that aren't from the target group will be removed, along with their child replies.
If you want to agree with OP instead of challenging their view or if the question is not targeted at you, post it as an answer to this comment.
OP you can choose your own flair according to these guidelines., just press Flair under your post!

Thanks for your cooperation and enjoy the discussion!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

AstuteBlackMan · 2019-03-12T21:38:08+00:00

So you can only make an argument with data? I can create my own study and falsify it if I have to

planejane · 2019-03-12T22:03:03+00:00

It's useful for discussing local SMPs. For example I don't understand why CoastCels don't migrate to the Midwest. Lower COL, conservative lifestyles, plenty of tech industries migrating there, and most of all, a gender ratio in 20-30yos that favors men, especially in college cities.

But yeah, for many other arguments it's counter-productive.

RoyalAugur92 · 2019-03-13T04:09:24+00:00

Tell that to literally every woman on this board.

whichbladeN · 2019-03-12T19:54:42+00:00

A robust claim would have both.

But sometimes anecdotal evidence is what is being asked for. And statistics often don't exist or aren't useful to answer certain questions.

douchebag_throwaway3 · 2019-03-12T23:53:22+00:00

The SMV is not a hard science.

Studies are full of bias and preconceived ideas.

WhatIsTheMeaningHere · 2019-03-13T00:10:02+00:00

Not everything has to be backed up scientifically.

Santaclause37 · 2019-03-13T05:00:14+00:00

Exactly, I keep hearing about this short ethnic dude who has had lots of girlfriends yet I've never seen one in real life

exit_sandman · 2019-03-13T10:25:07+00:00

It requires studies in the first place, and this requires a certain subject being considered worthy of research.

It would be pretty doable to expose the anti-male/pro-female bias in certain segments of society (media and academia among them), but good luck finding a paper on that (also because of aforementioned bias in the academia).

[deleted] · 2019-03-13T10:42:15+00:00

TRP: women generally AWALT
Women: well I am not like that!
TRP: sigh..

The-Wizard-of-Oz- · 2019-03-13T12:38:47+00:00

Yes, but it's more convincing.

bonusfruit · 2019-03-13T20:30:16+00:00

I've used personal anecdotes before and won arguments by doing so. Therefore you're wrong

cxj · 2019-03-13T22:46:13+00:00

You're technically right in terms of strict debate, but essentially "purple pill debate is really a misnomer here.

There are no ways to truly, scientifically figure out a lot of the questions/topics of PPD.

Frankly, I'm not that interested in social "science," I'm here for personal anecdotes of people I find interesting even when I disagree with them. I want to see how they perceived similar experiences and how that may or may not change my view.

The best example of this is me observing women being attracted to XYZ and believing it was for certain reasons, but after reading in detail about the subjective qualitative experience of PPD women, especially those who agree that women are attracted to XYZ, my view has been changed about why that is, or what that experience is actually like. This is very enlightening and I don't believe I could have gotten that without anecdotes.

Xemnas81 · 2019-03-14T00:05:10+00:00

Ah yes, the empirical approach.

Do you believe that the sciences are fundamentally unbiased too?

I can tell you for every Martie Haselton telling it (sex differences) as it is, there is a Gina Rippon or Cordelina Fine pushing patriarchal-socialisation.

As to rights issues, the vast majority of studies are from Gender Studies or the feminist strain of sociology-hardly an impartial discipline. STEM kids literally have Statistics classes y'know.

Then we come to the issue of the fact that the layperson is incapable of parsing a scientific study without bias or just plain misinterpretation.

Whisper · 2019-03-14T06:06:28+00:00

Bad for who?

[deleted] · 2019-03-12T19:03:59+00:00

Using personal anecdotes to support your argument is counter-productive when trying debate intelligently. One cannot make a sound argument without referencing peer-reviewed studies and datasets.

If we want to ensure that our worldview is actually based in reality, it is our responsibility to stop using our own personal experiences as supporting arguments.

As a social scientist myself I agree, but you forget somethings.

When the area is not well explored, or you don't have academic knowledge, what do you do? you use what you have available. non academics have no reason to follow our rules. Nor should they.

Not everyone can be a scientist. It is the job of an academic to learn, discover and teach everything by the scientific method and by a peer reviewed lens.

Most people in PPD are clearly not academics or even amateur scientists. They just wanna debate a topic.

Anecdotal evidence is a low valued argument, and we all know it. But it has a value. Even if it is a case study it may spark some good discussion of the topic.

This sub is great because it allows debate and discussion about things that are taboo elsewhere, but if we continue acting like our personal experiences are representative of the bigger picture, we are going to ruin this sub.

You forget this is a sub about, from and to laymen.

We are the strangers here. This it is no r/AskSocialScientists. T

hey talk about hypotheses and sometimes proofs about their hypotheses (even if anecdotal).

but they are here to debate, not to be part of the sciency stuff. Let them debate and learn for their own.

Everyone is free to speak what they will, and be proven wrong just as likely. That is the point of free speech and debates, be it in the academy or here.

If we want to debate, we need to debate with facts and logic. If we are sharing our personal stories, we aren't contributing anything substantial to the debate.

That is why I prefer the free speech approach.

If your argument, logic, or proofs are sh*t, you will be called on it. that is the whole point.

Ever learned of learning by mistakes?

I see so much of this on the sub: "Men have X worse than women" (no evidence provided) "No women have it worse" (no evidence provided) And then both people think that they contributed to the debate. Its foolish.

Foolish is to not participate and consider their points my friend.

Even perceptions are valuable, Heck, what do you think we measure with psichometrics? pure perception.

Let them argue, it is a good exercise of the mind, and quite fun. None here is striving to make scientific breakthroughs. Just to have a good time.

If you talked about improving the quality of proofs instead of just be against low valued arguments. I would agree more with you.

TL:DR. I may know the low value of what they speak but I will defend their right to speak it. We are here to debate. This is no academic event. Just a bunch of people wanting to debate.

Title	PSA: Using personal anecdotes to support your argument is bad
Author	logicisdedd
Upvotes	23
Comments	139
Date	March 12, 2019 6:05 PM UTC (7 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/b0ax9n/psa_using_personal_anecdotes_to_support_your/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/psa-using-personal-anecdotes-to-support-your.256789 https://theredarchive.com/post/256789

Comments