That Shit Never Happened To Me

* From “The A**HOLE’S Guide To Arguing (Or, How To Succeed In Politics)”

Using anecdotes to persuade people is something that we all do. Advertisers love arguments in this form, because while they may give people the wrong impression, they are technically not misleading. Share on X

It is simply that the assumption behind these arguments are misleading. And advertisers make good use of this fact to blur the lines between what is, and is not, a false claim.

Let me show you what I mean.

“You know, I used to be stiff everywhere that I didn’t want to be stiff. If you know what I mean. But now since I’ve used the Hunk-in-the-bunk Tea, those aches and pains are a thing of the past. And I no longer have dead wood. I have morning wood. And my wife, she just couldn’t be happier. So why don’t you give it a try, and see if it’ll work for you too.”

The fact that the Hunk-in-the-bunk Tea is just normal Earl Grey with a twist of lemon, does not matter. The guy could still be telling the truth, that since he began drinking the tea he has been getting a stiffy. What is questionable here is whether the tea had anything to do with it. (This may also double as a ‘false cause’ fallacy.)

Maybe he started working out more, or discovered Viagra around the same time he started using the tea. The advertisers will not tell us that. Only that the guy is happy with the product.

In the above example, the advertisers were passing off an anecdote as ‘proof’ that their product works. Below is an example of how an anecdote is being used in an effort to debunk scientific facts and statistics.

“You hear all this crap about how smoking is bad for you. That if you smoke then you are going to get asthma and cancer, and your schlong will stop working. Well, I’ve been smoking 40 a day for the past 50 years, and that shit never happened to me.”

So the 40-a-day guy got lucky. That does not prove that the statistics are wrong and that smoking is not bad for you, any more than the Hunk-in-the-bunk’s anecdote proves that his favourite tea gives men morning wood. One single anecdote does not constitute evidence.

One feather is not a chicken.

© Merlyn Gabriel Miller