> I shouldn't need to say this, but the plural of a terrifying anecdote is not data I hear this repeated a lot, and I think people parrot it without really und

> I shouldn't need to say this, but the plural of a terrifying anecdote is not data I hear this repeated a lot, and I think people parrot it without really understanding what they say. I'm not saying that this particular article is presenting properly sampled data, but in reality, a lot of social sciences collect their data by sampling a population and pulling together a plurality of "anecdotes". That's basically the definition of data. An anecdote _is_ data. Whether or not it's statistically significant depends on the plurality, and sampling procedures, but to call it not "data" is quite unwarranted. If you believe in western medical science, then you had better believe in anecdotes as data, because to this very day, medical journals report single case studies as data and evidence for dissemination across the medical community.