re: #187 lanaty

Dear GOP/Tea Party,

As the driving force of anti-science nonsense in this country, you are not allowed to invoke “science” to support your claims. Increase funding for the sciences first, maybe get a B.S. in something other than BS, and then you can claim to interpret scientific research.

Signed,
Someone who loves science

P.S. The plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data’.
P.P.S. [Link: xkcd.com…]

Actually, this (bolded) is false though the intent is correct. It’s always caused me to twitch and I think folk here will actually understand why. Individual datum are anecdotes.

The problem with anecdotes is that they’re rarely randomly selected, and usually their sample size is far too small.

It’s not that they’re not data, it’s that they’re not ENOUGH data.