And that was considered a BAD thing?

In some cases they can be, depending on the nature of the claim for which they are advanced. For the claim “tigers sometimes attack people,” an anecdote of a person attacked by a tiger is adequate data to accept the claim. Whereas for a claim which would need good statistics to evaluate, anecdotes are pointless.

Certainly there are large swathes of subjects where the saying is reasonably accurate (including the bulk of the topics discussed on this blog). It’s probably fair to say, MOST subjects of scientific interest. That doesn’t make it universal.

After all, everyone knows that blanket statements are always wrong.

In some circumstances they can warrant and investigation FOR data, but they themselves are not data.

There was a recent post here about eliminating factors in the testing to be sure you’re only testing your hypohesis. If the CAM types had any interest in the scientific method, they’d be trying to eliminate such variables in the testing that might bias against their methods. Or, alternately, they’d be trying to remove extraneous factors to find the core of how their cure works. Of course, they have no interest in shining a bright light in their shadowy corners…

And the answer to that will be: what’s a clinical trial? When you’re dealing with such a person, it’s either a clueless dupe, or a conscious charlatan.

Or they ask you if you have tried it. A most satisfying answer is…
You cannot decide if something works by trying it, you have to do a clinical trial.

Some say that the outcome of experiments in quantum physics is incompatable with an objective reality.
I tell then to put their theory into practice by jumping out of a ten storey window and see if the path below might restore a respect for concrete reality.

I prefer to think of it this way:
From my point of view, if it were not for the fact that I am here then there may as well be nothing at all. Therefore the fact that everything is here is important only because I am here.
Not sure if that makes sense to anyone else.

I think it’s known here I’m a vet. If I give out a licensed painkiller, X, to an animal owner and they tell me their arthritic Labrador is less lame the next week, my ingrained pedantry forces me on many occasions to try to set that improvement in context and make proper allowance for spontaneous amelioration and all the other confounders that are at play. 

However, if I am given a new licensed NSAID, Y, by the drug company that is “better” than the previous drug, but I have client after client telling me they’ve seen no improvement, I feel somewhat justified in giving more weight to that negative evidence than I would to its positive opposite.

Given all the positive biases working in favour of Drug Y, for the client to have the confidence to report a negative outcome feels like something of greater evidential weight (That statement has truthiness for me )

Is there a formal sense in which confirming anecdotes and disconfirming anecdotes are not simply mirror images and equal in magnitude?

I hope I have conveyed the sense of the issue adequately. 

[Yeah, great job blowing the impact of a punchline, Monkey.]

[[Nothing to see here?]]

“The quality of seeming or felt to be true even if not necessarily true”

“Truthiness” embodies a useful and important concept different from truth or truthfulness and I wish strongly to assert the truth of this not its truthiness.

Personally, I think that a balance of conservatism and liberalism is necessary in any stable construct whether it’s politics, religion, or film production. Someone needs to be pushing for things to improve and someone needs to be pushing back to be sure the baby isn’t thrown out with the bathwater or funds thrown after projects that aren’t going to go anywhere.

Some conservatives are. Some liberals too. As it happens the skeptics of my acquaintance (read: in my experience ) tend toward conservative economics and liberal social values. To quote some blogger I read from time to time, “Most human characteristics fall into a bell shaped distribution, with some having more or less than others. Variability is the norm…”

Any who let their labels do their thinking for them are the ones who are reality and data averse.

Not only is it difficult to think rationally and avoid the numerous logical fallacies to which we are prone, I wonder if it is impossible for some.

I’d say it’s impossible for us all. To paraphrase someone or other, we can avoid some of the fallacies all of the time, and all of the fallacies some of the time, but none of us can avoid all of the fallacies all of the time.