Talk:Argument from anecdote

This isn't actually a fallacy, except under certain rare circumstances. A fallacy is an error in logic. If the anecdote transgresses an actual fallacy, such as "I got sunburned, this proves that all people in the sun will get sunburned the exact amount I was," then that commits the fallacy of hasty generalization, or it can commit the fallacy of false extrapolation (if a part is so, the whole is so, which does not logically follow).

However the idea that if someone has a personal experience and uses it as evidence, it thus is a logical fallacy simply isn't true.

If I say "I think that these new light bulbs can short out before their normal usage period because it happened to me." Then that argument is still logically valid. There is nothing logically invalid about using personal experience as evidence for something.

It is not illogical to believe personal experience, nor is it illogical to hear the testimony of another person as evidence for a thing. (This is what our court system is based on.)

Another problem with this fallacy is that people can use anecdotes as proof over and above better methods of evidence. For instance someone could say that they've had a bad experience with Canada's health system to prove the system in Canada is worse than that of the US. This could be empirically false because the anecdote is simply one experience rather than a cohesive set of data. But this is an error of empiricism, not an error of logic.

As such this fallacy needs a serious re-write or people with think that any mention of a personal experience as evidence is logically fallacious (which it isn't). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:152:4C7C:1D0:B012:22F8:4F2E:E214 (talk) 01:31, 26 June 2024 (UTC)