| Anecdotal Evidence |
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When used in Advertising or promotion of a product, service, or idea, anecdotal evidence is often called a Testimonial . The term is also sometimes used in a legal context to describe certain kinds of Testimony . What constitutes anecdotal evidence is sometimes disputed on Scientific or Philosophical grounds. INTRODUCTION In all forms of anecdotal evidence, testing its reliability by objective independent assessment may be in doubt. This is a consequence of the informal way the information is gathered, documented, presented, or any combination of the three. The term is often used to describe evidence for which there is an absence of documentation. This leaves verification dependent on the credibility of the party presenting the evidence. SCIENTIFIC CONTEXT In science, anecdotal evidence has been defined as:
Anecdotal evidence can have varying degrees of formality. For instance, in medicine, published anecdotal evidence is called a Case Report , which is a more formalized type of evidence subjected to Peer Review . ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE AND FAULTY LOGIC Anecdotal evidence is often unscientific or Pseudoscientific because various forms of Cognitive Bias may affect the collection or presentation of evidence. For instance, someone who claims to have had an encounter with a supernatural being or alien may present a very vivid story, but this is not Falsifiable . This phenomenon can also happen to large groups of people through Subjective Validation . Anecdotal evidence is also frequently misinterpreted via the Availability Heuristic , which leads to an overestimation of prevalence. Where a cause can be easily linked to an effect, people overestimate the likelihood of that the cause does have that effect (availability). In particular, vivid, emotionally-charged anecdotes seem more plausible, and are given greater weight. A related issue is that it is usually impossible to assess for every piece of anecdotal evidence, the rate of people not reporting that anecdotal evidence in the population. A common way anecdotal evidence becomes unscientific is through Fallacious reasoning such as the '' Post Hoc '' fallacy, the human tendency to assume that if one event happens after another, then the first must be the cause of the second. Another fallacy involves Inductive Reasoning . For instance, if an anecdote illustrates a desired conclusion rather than a logical conclusion, it is considered a Faulty or Hasty Generalization . {Link without Title} For example, here is anecdotal evidence presented as proof of a desired conclusion: :"There's abundant proof that God exists and is still performing miracles today. Just last week I read about a girl who was dying of cancer. Her whole family went to church and prayed for her, and she was cured." Anecdotes like this are very powerful persuaders, but they don't actually prove anything in a scientific or logical sense. {Link without Title} Anecdotal evidence cannot be distinguished from Randomized Placebo -controlled Clinical Trial s can confirm a Hypothesis . Sites devoted to Rhetoric {Link without Title} often give explanations along these lines: :Anecdotal evidence, for example, is by definition less statistically reliable than other sorts of evidence, and explanations do not carry the weight of authority. But both anecdotal evidence and explanations may affect our understanding of a premise, and therefore influence our judgment. The relative strength of an explanation or an anecdote is usually a function of its clarity and applicability to the premise it is supporting. {Link without Title} LAW Witness Testimony is a common form of Evidence in law, and law has mechanisms to test witness evidence for reliability or credibility. Legal processes for the taking and assessment of evidence are formalized. Some witness testimony could be described as anecdotal evidence, such as individual stories of Harrassment as part of a Class Action Lawsuit . However, witness testimony can be tested and assessed for reliability. Examples of approaches to testing and assessment include the use of questioning, evidence of corroborating witnesses, documents, video and forensic evidence. Where a court lacks suitable means to test and assess testimony of a particular witness, such as the absence of forms of corroboration or substantiation it may afford that testimony limited or no "weight" when making a decision on the facts. SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE AS LEGAL EVIDENCE In certain situations, scientific evidence presented in court must also meet the legal requirements for evidence. For instance, in the United States, expert testimony of witnesses must meet the Daubert Standard . This ruling holds that before evidence is presented to witnesses by experts, the methodology must be "generally accepted" among scientists. In some situations, anecdotal evidence may meet this threshold (such as certain case reports which corroborate or refute other evidence). Miller and Miller (2005) list five standards of proof, by level of evidence: Citing situations involving adverse drug reactions, Miller and Miller outline three events related to administration of the drug which can prove specific causation:
Altman and Bland argue that the case report or statistical outlier cannot be dismissed as having no weight: "With rare and uncommonly occurring diseases, a nonsignificant finding in a randomized trial does not necessarily mean that there is no causal association between the agent in question and the disease." (Altman 1995) Miller and Miller conclude: "Most medical evidence does not meet the scientific standard of proof; and, as in law, it should be judged by a standard of proof appropriate to the fact or point in question. An 'anecdotal' case report can provide evidence of probative value, just like eyewitness testimony in a murder trial. And it can be similarly tested, by second opinions, re-examination, laboratory tests, and follow-up." REFERENCES
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