"The plural of anecdote isn't data"

Posted Feb 24, 2014 20:45 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: "The plural of anecdote isn't data" by anselm
Parent article: Debian TC vote on init system coupling

>> On the other hand, not all types of »evidence« are the same.

Yup. But the advantage of a first-hand account is that you can go back and verify it. Okay, you might not be able to repeat it (the sciences of eg biology and astronomy often suffer from this where they can only observe, not experiment), but if you have a reliable witness or account then it is extremely dangerous to ignore it.

At an absolute minimum you need to take it seriously and explain it.

Cheers,
Wol