It's a common mistake for people to confuse statistics with truth.
Truth is what happens. It is one person's experience (as every person's perspective is unique). It is one potential data point in a statistical analysis, if such an analysis is done. The other data points can't disprove this one data point. It still remains true no matter what the other data points look like. People seem to forget this fact when they dismiss "anecdotal evidence".
As for statistical analyses, these are only meaningful when ALL THE APPROPRIATE VARIABLES are included in the analysis, not just one explanatory variable and the dependent variable. Many researchers don't seem to realize this, as their grounding in statistics is superficial, at best.
Also, statistics never proves anything conclusively. It can't. That's not it's job.
As I said, something is real if it happens, not because some statistical analysis (which is probably done shoddily) shows some relationship between two variables (or not).
Truth is what happens. It is one person's experience (as every person's perspective is unique). It is one potential data point in a statistical analysis, if such an analysis is done. The other data points can't disprove this one data point. It still remains true no matter what the other data points look like. People seem to forget this fact when they dismiss "anecdotal evidence".
As for statistical analyses, these are only meaningful when ALL THE APPROPRIATE VARIABLES are included in the analysis, not just one explanatory variable and the dependent variable. Many researchers don't seem to realize this, as their grounding in statistics is superficial, at best.
Also, statistics never proves anything conclusively. It can't. That's not it's job.
As I said, something is real if it happens, not because some statistical analysis (which is probably done shoddily) shows some relationship between two variables (or not).
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