ANECDOTAL

EVIDENCE FALLACY

MADE BY:
AISHITA
VIHAAN
 Examples of Anecdotal Fallacy

The car accident

My aunt got into an accident, the car rolled four times, twisted twice, but she still survived with only a few
scratches even though she wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. Had she worn a seatbelt, it could have been worse.
Hence, seatbelt isn’t necessary while driving.

The chain-smoker

A kid told that his grandfather was a chain-smoker, but he lived for 90 years. Hence, smoking is not harmful

The phone

I was once brought a phone and it broke within two days, so phones are not worth it.
 Dangers

A person falls prey to the anecdotal fallacy when they choose to believe the “evidence” of
an anecdote or a few anecdotes over a larger pool of scientifically valid evidence. The
anecdotal fallacy occurs because our brains are fundamentally lazy. Given a choice,
the brain prefers to do less work rather than more

Anecdotal evidence lacks verification and is largely based on very limited context.
Where only one or a few anecdotes are presented, there is a larger chance that they may
be unreliable due to cherry-picked or otherwise non-representative samples of typical
case
 Furthermore, cognitive biases and logical fallacies are two distinct concepts, but they are often
found together distorting your objectivity when constructing arguments. In this instance, the
primary cognitive bias of influence is the availability heuristic. Recalling your own experience or
the experience of those close to you, biases your objectivity towards this evidence as it must be
more important since it is easily recollected. In fact, the idea that there is most likely scientific
evidence available on a topic doesn't enter most peoples' calculus when weighing the evidence.
THANK YOU