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I’ve always understoof this to be a line used originally by Frank Kotsonis, and this is backed up by the "Quotes about Data Processing" website,
http://www.sysprog.net/quotdata.html.
This view is supported, at least to some degree by a number of other sources:
http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/abot/fulltext.00008707-200407000-00022.htm
is probably the most credible of those.
You can find this quotation attributed to him by numerous other websites, but few of these appear to have any more credibility than those cited above.
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Sources: http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/abot/fulltext.00008707-200407000-00022.htm, http://www.sysprog.net/quotdata.html.
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The plural of anecdote is not data. (Frank Kotsonis)
There are two implications of, "The plural of anecdote is not data," that need addressing:
- The first is that personal, remembered, and other unpublished accounts are useless in refuting published data, and entirely irrelevant to a contested assertion. That's simply wrong; data is usually collected in the first place because anecdotal evidence flagged something as worthy of investigation. Anecdotes are not data, but they play an important role in contributing to knowledge. An anecdote is a form of information. It is a form of evidence, to be given its due weight.
- The second implication of the phrase is that data alone can prove something as true, while anecdotes cannot. Absurd! (But specious, I admit.) The truth is that neither data nor anecdotes prove anything. Scientific theories are never, ever, ever proven. They can only be disproven. A good scientific theory is merely one which best fits, interprets and explains available scientific data. "Scientific proof" is a misnomer, as this writeup by pimephalis explains well. Uninterpreted data, all by itself, is actually worth less than anecdotal evidence; anecdotes at least offer an explanation for a given case, while uninterpreted data, alone, is meaningless.
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Sources: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=163824, www.sysprog.net/quotdata.html
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According to this post from linguistlist.org’s American Dialect Society listserv, the original quote from Raymond Wolfinger in 1969-1970 was "The plural of anecdote is data." (emphasis mine)
On Tue, 6 Jul 2004 [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Nelson W. Polsby PS, Vol. 17, No. 4. (Autumn, 1984), pp. 778-781. Pg.
> 779: Raymond Wolfinger's brilliant aphorism "the plural of anecdote is
> data" never inspired a better or more skilled researcher.
I e-mailed Wolfinger last year and got the following response from him:
"I said 'The plural of anecdote is data' some time in the 1969-70 academic
year while teaching a graduate seminar at Stanford. The occasion was a
student's dismissal of a simple factual statement--by another student or
me--as a mere anecdote. The quotation was my rejoinder.
Since then I have missed few opportunities to quote myself. The only
appearance in print that I can remember is Nelson Polsby's accurate
quotation and attribution in an article in PS: Political Science and
Politics in 1993; I believe it was in the first issue of the year."
I also e-mailed Polsby, who didn't know of any early printed occurrences.
What is interesting about this saying is that it seems to have morphed
into its opposite -- "Data is not the plural of anecdote" -- in some
people's minds. Mark Mandel used it in this opposite sense in a private
e-mail to me, for example.
Fred Shapiro
This asserted original is actually far more in line with the scientific method, wherein hypotheses are formed on the basis of observed data.
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Sources: linguistlist.org
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