Value of anecdotal evidence

[Godron]

I'm pretty sure people (or at least, I) tend to make assumptions about cultures, races, or pretty much anything in response to the stories we here about those things. If I hear a lot of stories about Islamic terrorism, I get a prejudice against Muslims. I currently have a possibly stupid prejudice against immigrants because of the many stories of immigrants dealing drugs in Burnley, especially since they used my old house there to launder money/drugs. Unfortunately, I don't know of any statistics ATM to back that prejudice up, hence the "possibly stupid". My question is: if we here lots of anectodes which support a particular fact, is that grounding believing that fact?

If you here lots of stories which suggest a fact, then surely that must mean something? For anecdotal evidence to be meaningless, the number of anecdotes must bear no statistical correlation with anything. For example, the ratio of stories heard about immigrants dealing drugs in Burnley to the number heard about natives dealing drugs must be very different to the true ratio of immigrant drug dealers to native drug dealers.

I hope that made sense. If it's not appropriate for this section, please move it somewhere else. I though it was somewhat relevant to that buisness with Nemesis and the Somalians.

 

[Nemesis6]

I think I read about Burnley on a website called "ChavTowns", so I think immigrants is the least of your problems. Anyway, to make a long and complicated story short, I live besides a self-proclaimed "free-town" in Denmark, formerly a haven for drug-dealing since it was not regulated by the police. After police action was taken, warfare ensued between immigrant gangs - Yep, Arabs and Pakistanis and some Hell's Angels members. Anyway, people were wounded in shootigns and a person was actually killed in crossfire in one incident. I see these guys most of the time when I walk around, and many of them have been asking me if I want to buy pot, hinting at me(gesturing smoking), etc, and I have some negativity towards them. But here's the thing: You have to realize that they're gonna end up in jail. Same happens for everyone that does stuff like that. Take comfort in that.

People do stupid shit, but... Well, let me give you an example: Break.com
They always post pictures of white dudes doing stupid shit like jumping into walls or some wierd shit like that. Then, finally, when a black dude does something, all the racist creeps come out. When we're not exposed a lot to different people acting like us, we tend to see them as idiots or disgraces to their race. Of course, we conveniently forget that time when "Chucks" accidentally walked into that glass-door, thinking nothing was there.

Break.com is just so flaky! Wait, what were we talking about? Oh yeah. My point is: Remember that white people do the same things. Some people say "we're all the same". I say we aren't, but we actually are when it comes to stupid shit like dealing drugs and crime, aren't we? :-|

By the way, you have Chavs in Burnley, right? If you speak ****wit, communicate to the Chavs the impression that there are "muzzies" around. Then tell the Arabs or Pathans or... whatever that the Chavs drew Muhammed. All out war, and problem solved for the remnants of your town.

 

[Stigmata]

Lots of anecdotal evidence doesn't override the fact that it's anecdotal. For all you know it could be the same two or three stories repeated over and over in different ways.

 

[Jintor]

Only valid if it happened to you and even then not really.

 

[kineaesth]

However, it's like a stereotype- they're often based on fact, just blown out of proportion.

 

[Godron]

It's also possible I suppose for anecdotes to be exagurated, repeated and created more often depending on people's overall feelings about something. And of course, those feelings will be largely generated by anecdotes.
Then there was the MMR scare, where there were anecdotes about kids developing autism after the MMR jab. There were many similar stories, but these came from all over the world, not from a small population, meaning that they amounted to nothing statistically. Of course people neglected that, and acted like that number of cases would occur among a small sample of children.
The thing is though, that all the ways people have mentioned (and whatever other ways there are) for anecdotes to provide a poor reflection on reality, must be enough to mean that anecdotal evidence bears no correlation to statistical evidence - only then is it completely meaningless. I just find it hard to believe that the frequency of a phenomenon wouldn't correlate at least a bit with more stories of that phenomenon occuring.

And Nemesis, this isn't really a thread about immigrants, I was just using that as an example.