Forum Post: Anecdotal Minds: They think they think!

In the mid 1970s we heard the horror story of how a woman put her cat [or small dog depending on who was telling the story] in a microwave to dry it. Forty years later an ex repeated it for me. I said that was an urban legend. "Oh no!" she responded quickly, "My friend knew the lady who did it."

We were standing beside one another when we heard that story for the first time. The person who had repeated it to us didn't claim to know the dog cooker. But time and imagination insert details to lend validity to the things we choose to believe.

I recently had cataract surgery. A few days later I was offered anecdotal evidence that two out of three cataract surgeries go bad. In my case, as my ophthalmologist warned, it was several days before much improvement was noticed and vision in the eye did seem worse the day after surgery. Maybe my informal informant talked to her sources too soon after the procedure. Certainly the polling, including my data contribution and results so far, has too small a sample to draw any conclusions. Much more information is needed here.

But most people don't ask questions about the evidence presented in the anecdotes.

Sadly, it seems that anecdotal evidence rules the hearts and minds of most Americans. Even morons like Donald Trump seem to know how to play the fools who never bother to check the validity of the hear say claims like, "liberals want to traffic your children and tax you out of home and life itself." Such are the unsubstantiated claims that keep the parasites at the top of the food chain in power.

https://www.facebook.com/kaiser.ag/posts/4563169400390042 Video link https://youtu.be/7zNRgzub97s