First off, anecdotal evidence isn’t always someone’s personal story. It can also refer to isolated or unverified examples that, by themselves, don’t prove much. A single puzzle piece might be interesting, but it doesn’t complete the bigger picture. Imagine a friend claims their lucky charm brought them good luck. Fun as it is, that doesn’t actually prove the charm works.

Now, let’s not dismiss all observations. Repeatedly seeing something in nature can indeed prove it exists. But drawing broader conclusions requires more than one observation. For example, bats and birds both fly, so it’s easy to assume they share a common flying ancestor. Yet deeper study reveals they evolved from different non-flying ancestors. While evidence shows specific things, connecting those dots for larger claims requires much more.

Evaluating anecdotal evidence is a type of Idea Evaluation. Idea evaluation is one of the Five Thought Tools of the TST Framework. For a deep dive, take the 9-minute deep dive: Idea Evaluation: The Scholarly Review Process.