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Anecdotal Evidence |
| Description: | ||
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| The argument draws a conclusion from cases specifically chosen to support the conclusion (often while ignoring cases that might tend to undermine the conclusion). | ||
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| Examples: | ||
| "Criminals are never given the punishment they deserve. Just look at that guy who tried to kill that little girl. After the plea bargaining, he practically got off scot free!" | ||
| "Abortion is morally wrong. In one case a woman had an abortion merely so her pregnancy would not interfere with a trip to Europe that she and her husband were planning." | ||
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| Discussion: | ||
| There is, of course, nothing wrong with presenting
representative cases to illustrate an inductive conclusion properly drawn
from a fair sample. The representative case serves to put a human face on
what would otherwise be just a mass of cold statistics. However, it is the
inductive argument as a whole (i.e. all those cold statistics) that
justifies the conclusion. The anecdote merely illustrates and humanizes the
properly drawn conclusion. The fallacy of Anecdotal Evidence mimics this legitimate use of illustrative story-telling. It presents us with a case that puts a human face upon a conclusion. The fallacy of Anecdotal Evidence errs, however, in using the single case in place of the properly conducted study. The fallacy implies that the anecdote is illustrating a properly drawn conclusion, when in fact it is attempting to replace the proper inductive argument altogether. In some ways this fallacy is similar to Uncharacteristic Sample and also to Hasty Generalization. Like Uncharacteristic Sample, the sample is not adequately diverse, and so is unrepresentative of the class it is chosen to represent. Like Hasty Generalization, the sample is (usually) too small to support a general conclusion. However, I treat this as a separate fallacy in the Circularity category. The implication of an anecdote is that it is just one representative instance, and that many other instances could be cited as well. If this presumption is true (and often it isn't), then the reasoning is neither hasty nor uncharacteristic. However, it is still circular, since the anecdote is offered as a "sample" only because it supports the desired conclusion. |
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| Classification: An inductive Fallacy of Circularity. | ||
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| Source: In Novum Organum, 1620, Francis Bacon describes the tendency to pick out evidence that supports ones own preconceptions. | ||
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