How Anecdotal Evidence Can Undermine Scientific Results

A great article by Michael Shermer. I highly recommend it to everyone.

My favorite line:

“The reason for this cognitive disconnect is that we have evolved brains that pay attention to anecdotes because false positives (believing there is a connection between A and B when there is not) are usually harmless, whereas false negatives (believing there is no connection between A and B when there is) may take you out of the gene pool.”