Originally Posted by
Maartenn100
You call an eye witness testimony of many people "woo!-laden anecdotes". That's not only disrespectful, that's also not true. What's wrong by the way with an anecdote?
I want to call it the anecdote fallacy. It's the fallacy wich says: "it's an anecdote, so it must be wrong." Or 'the professor eye witnessed the experiment, so he must be wrong because eye witness testimony is not reliable'". That's a fallacy.
You are indulging in a straw person argument. It should go over there under the windmill, with the others.
What is "wrong" with an anecdote is that it is untestable and subjective. An anecdote may serve as the basis for beginning to examine a phenomenon, but it is not, cannot be, evidence that the phenomenon does, in fact, exist.
Are you familiar with Simmons' Gorilla?
Are you familiar with confirmation bias?
Are you familiar with eh Texas sharpshooter fallacy, and the New Mexico Tourist fallacy?
...those are only a few things "wrong" with
pretending that an anecdote is objective evidence.
As far as "the professor"; if what she "witnessed" in the "experiment" is never duplicated, is never repeated, and can not ever be experienced by anyone else, then, yes, her "eyewitness anecdote" is "wrong".
Kinda like all those who have"eyewitnessed" 'Squatch.