Posted: Jun 11, 2010 1:01 am
DST70 wrote:Huh?anecdotal evidence is no substitute for actual peer reviewed scientific analysis
What I was trying to say is that personal testimony covers a huge range of experience. There's the kind of reporting that you can correct with reference to an error in perception/memory e.g. eyewitness testimony. But there's also more direct and intimate first person accounting that's not always easily explained with reference to generalised data.
It counts as weak evidence though in the sense that the scientific data is not supportive. So there's a discrepancy between the two types, at least it seems to me. The placebo effect is obviously not always plausible to many of those with certain strong cases of non-scientific testimony.
David
Overwhelmingly convincing personal experience told us the earth was flat. Science told us it was spherical. Which was more reliable?