[thelettere]

Have value how? How is it not in fact the very opposite of valuable (in cases where there is some empirical knowledge)?

I enjoy anecdotes occasionally as well, but here's a thought: if all you have is personal experience (i.e. you have no familiarity with the accumulated knowledge on the subject) - maybe you should listen rather than speak. Speaking then is akin to spitting in the face of the countless individuals who spend their lives investigating these questions, acting as if they and their work basically does not exist. It muddies the waters - particularly in light of our cognitive biases - and often misinforms where it should enlighten.

How is that moving the conversation forward? If this were a literal watercooler, than that's one thing - but this is forever archived material. The written word has always historically had a higher bar than spoken word (a tradition that the internet has undermined, and to our detriment) - and for a reason.

If we're all just here to entertain each other before we pass into oblivion, then that makes some sense. But the dominant narrative here is not of that kind, but of a belief in progress and the future.

If that is in fact an genuine wide-spread belief here, then these kind of threads are in service to the exact opposite of such beliefs. I'm not saying that anecdotes have no place, but only in the context of some conversance with the knowledge base - or in cases where the question has not been tested or is untestable.

Unless of course we want to just drop the pretenses, embrace our irrationality and start regular threads on medicinal leeches, communications with the dead, and phrenology. But somehow I don't see that happening anytime soon.

[DiggyJohnson]

Personal experience is the medium of life itself. I’m surprised to hear you give it so little space in the discussion. I weigh personal experience (especially multiple anecdotes from credible sources) about as high as I weigh expert opinion. Just a question: are you a young person? I’ve just seen the experts be pants on head wrong many times, and that has an effect. I’ve also specifically been burned by overconfident doctors, so add that to the important anecdote pile.

If the science doesn’t align with the anecdotes (on any topic that isn’t partisan politics), then that makes me want to investigate the science, not toss out the anecdotes.

[thelettere]

You're the one talking like a young person (and I'm firmly in middle age, thank you very much).

You do know what the world looked like when we relied entirely on anecdotes for knowledge? If that's the world you want to live in, then all power to you.