The Disproportional Power of Anecdotes
Farnam Street (Shane Parrish) · 2018
"Anecdotes carry emotional weight far out of proportion to their statistical significance, leading us to overgeneralize from tiny, unrepresentative samples — a bias that shapes everything from personal judgments to public policy built on compelling but non-representative single stories."
An anecdote is a single vivid story; because it's memorable and emotionally engaging, it tends to carry more persuasive weight in our minds than dry, larger-sample statistical evidence, even though a sample size of one (or a few) is a poor basis for generalizing about a whole population or predicting future outcomes.
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Second-Order Thinking
"First-level thinking says 'and then what?' once. Second-level thinking keeps asking."