Comments on: Health Care: Enough with the Anecdotes http://www.healthcarebs.com/2007/03/23/health-care-enough-with-the-anecdotes/ Cleaning the Augean Stables of the Health Care Debate Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:43:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 By: Catron http://www.healthcarebs.com/2007/03/23/health-care-enough-with-the-anecdotes/#comment-46 Catron Wed, 28 Mar 2007 22:59:12 +0000 http://www.healthcarebs.com/2007/03/23/health-care-enough-with-the-anecdotes/#comment-46 That quote was included among a wide variety of observations that Jeff made on his weblog. I neither “offered” it in my post nor relied on it to support my argument. Anecdotes are legitimate if used to augment objective data. It is the reliance on them as the primary foundation of an argument that I object to. And, speaking of "creating embarassments," your last sentence should end with the adverb "seriously" rather than the adjective "serious." That quote was included among a wide variety of observations that Jeff made on his weblog. I neither “offered” it in my post nor relied on it to support my argument. Anecdotes are legitimate if used to augment objective data. It is the reliance on them as the primary foundation of an argument that I object to.

And, speaking of “creating embarassments,” your last sentence should end with the adverb “seriously” rather than the adjective “serious.”

]]> By: piglet http://www.healthcarebs.com/2007/03/23/health-care-enough-with-the-anecdotes/#comment-44 piglet Wed, 28 Mar 2007 20:48:48 +0000 http://www.healthcarebs.com/2007/03/23/health-care-enough-with-the-anecdotes/#comment-44 On March the 17th, you offered this as an enlightening post about Canadian health care: “My father is a textbook example in many year battle against Cancer.” I think your remark is absolutely to the point: <i>“The reliance on anecdotes by various partisans in the debate is, sad to say, due to intellectual laziness. It’s much easier to discuss the problems that Aunt Mabel had with some hospital in Dubuque than to pore over dry statistics relating to such things as per capita health care expenditures and their relationship to outcomes.”</i> Nice embarassment you’ve created for yourself. With posts like that, nobody will ever take you serious ;-) http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2007/03/arguing_health_.html On March the 17th, you offered this as an enlightening post about Canadian health care: “My father is a textbook example in many year battle against Cancer.”

I think your remark is absolutely to the point: “The reliance on anecdotes by various partisans in the debate is, sad to say, due to intellectual laziness. It’s much easier to discuss the problems that Aunt Mabel had with some hospital in Dubuque than to pore over dry statistics relating to such things as per capita health care expenditures and their relationship to outcomes.”

Nice embarassment you’ve created for yourself. With posts like that, nobody will ever take you serious ;-)

http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2007/03/arguing_health_.html

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