Regardless, it’s important that people document and collect such anecdotal evidences (assuming it’s done somewhat properly and not cherry picked)
In my book, pure numbers can’t capture the complex realities that people face in their lives.
In my book, pure numbers can’t capture the complex realities that people face in their lives.
People can write a blog if they want to document their own stories. We don't need to use taxpayer funds to go interview them and we definitely do not need to be trying to draw scientific conclusions from small handfuls of people's anecdotes
When it was noticed that people working with cows (and who were therefore often exposed to cow pox) didn’t seem to get chickenpox, this seems to me an example of a collection of anecdotes, and yet it was evidence.
A research project that produces a small collection of anecdotes is not scientific research, it is journalism. There's nothing wrong with that. Those anecdotes might be important to share, they might be interesting to hear, they might be historically relevant. But we cannot draw scientific conclusions from them, which is what we should expect from scientific research projects