Feed Forward Cousin Predictors

In the past few weeks there has been mention of evidence and personal experience and where these two converge. I think that provides a very welcome podium for the presentation of this theory.

The idea here is… In the general population (non-experts) anecdotal evidence from a relatively close source is the strongest version of support for a theory. At this point in the week I don’t intend to address whether or not this is appropriate, I will let the conversation of the involved commenters mold and shape the outcome of that discussion.

Wikipedia says that anecdotal evidence has two distinct meanings. When I mention anecdotal evidence I mean something like this.

""Evidence, which may itself be true and verifiable, used to deduce a conclusion which does not follow from it, usually by generalizing from an insufficient amount of evidence. For example "my grandfather smoked like a chimney and died healthy in a car crash at the age of 99" does not disprove the proposition that "smoking markedly increases the probability of cancer and heart disease at a relatively early age". In this case, the evidence may itself be true, but does not warrant the conclusion.""

In this situation and will most anecdotal evidence the situation may not be untrue, it probably did actually happen, but the conclusion is not always directly related or directly supported by the evidence. Often the “evidence” is applied without considering the other possible causative factors involved and so the anecdote is considered the only possible cause for the effect seen.

Again, using the great source for all things reliable, Wikipedia, they further shed light on what I consider the great confirmatory source of all things true, the anecdote.

""An anecdote is a short tale narrating an interesting or amusing biographical incident….An anecdote is always based on real life, an incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, in real places.""

Appropriately, the best way I see to expose this idea is with an example. The example I will use involves the many wives tales that surround the declaration of an unborn babies gender like the ones seen here.

My own anecdotal evidence involves my recently born niece. After 2 ultrasounds and no confirmation of the babies sex the speculation and predictions began. My cousin Shannon provided this anecdotal evidence. All we have to do is get Molly (her daughter) to come over and play with Shawna (sister-in-law/mother-to-be). If Molly wants to play with her then the baby will be a girl. If Molly is not interested in her then it will be a boy. Then confusion ensued.

...“Wait… is that right? No… if Molly goes to her that means it is a boy because that means she is attracted to the opposite sex. Wait… No… Okay, I remember. Molly loved Amber when she was pregnant and Amber had a girl. That must be it.

And so we solved the mystery. With anecdotal evidence. I didn’t mention that even before Amber got pregnant Molly already loved her? This made no sense to me. There is no evidence or support for why this would work and I refuse to believe it. But Shannon (a nurse) stands by her predictor.

How about this?
You have to lose a game late in the season in order to be able to win the national championship in college basketball. This may have some truth to it and a lot of people could explain WHY this is good, but the reason people believe is because this happened to their team. Prime example is UNC 2005. UNC lost to Georgia Tech in the ACC tournament and then went on to beat Illinois in the championship. How about this year? We lost in the ACC tournament and finished with the championship. Because it happened again this will reinforce the theory. This is the feedforward part. If your personal anecdote supports an idea, and then you see another anecdote that agrees with your original theory the confirmation is accelerated precisely because “anecdotal evidence from a relatively close source is the strongest version of support for a theory.” Even if a great basketball coach like Roy Williams himself says that losing a game does not help a team you will adamantly disagree because at this point the anecdotal evidence has gained control of your critical thinking and will override any expert opinion or reliable evidence. My point with this example is not whether or not this predictor is valid, the issue is that the strongest reason people believe theories is because they have their own personal anecdotal support.

So what does this mean?
Here on this blog we are trying to find themes, theories, and formulas to help us understand people and the lives they live. Where does anecdotal evidence weigh in? Is it welcomed like strong support or is it looked down on as subjective personal experience that lacks reasoning in order to sustain an argument?

I don’t know. Do you?

I also would encourage you to post other feedforward cousin predictors that I have not mentioned here.