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<blockquote data-quote="sabrinathecat" data-source="post: 6220097" data-attributes="member: 89838">So, at what point is my or someone else's personal experience shifted from the category of &quot;uninformed&quot; or &quot;anecdotal&quot; to &quot;fact&quot; and/or &quot;evidence&quot;?Several times, people have said to me &quot;Your opinion is uninformed&quot; or &quot;You're basing your opinion on too small a data sample.&quot; So, where's the dividing line? Sure, prejudices may filter my interpretation of experiences, but they, in turn, were formed from, guess what, previous experiences. So, if I (or anyone else) form opinions at all, wow, they are based on prejudices created by our experiences.Same as absolutely everyone else. So, where is the dividing line?Now, In my experience, based on the fact that my father had a doctorate and taught as a university professor, and my own misguided sojourn into attempting to teach, I believe it would be a good idea for any teacher to spend time in any other profession, just to give them a connection to the decisions and experiences of other people. (I also think it would be a good idea for would-be parents to have to spend some time working with and hopefully teaching children before they start breeding them.) Academic Professors in particular, generally need more exposure to &quot;real life&quot; and the types of decisions made by the 'average' person. (Put another way, they need to get a grip or be hit with a clue stick) The petty bickering and mindless one-up-manship--ug. Sorry, I don't enjoy arguing, and the notion of arguing about something that is truly academic and pretty much totally pointless... And yet, that was what these people thrived on.Is this uninformed rambling? Is this a statistical anomaly? Is this too small a pool of data to be anything more than anecdotal? Maybe in a scientific or statistical sense, but for forming an opinion, no, it is pretty much the same data that everyone else works with when they form an opinion.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="sabrinathecat, post: 6220097, member: 89838"] So, at what point is my or someone else's personal experience shifted from the category of "uninformed" or "anecdotal" to "fact" and/or "evidence"? Several times, people have said to me "Your opinion is uninformed" or "You're basing your opinion on too small a data sample." So, where's the dividing line? Sure, prejudices may filter my interpretation of experiences, but they, in turn, were formed from, guess what, previous experiences. So, if I (or anyone else) form opinions at all, wow, they are based on prejudices created by our experiences. Same as absolutely everyone else. So, where is the dividing line? Now, In my experience, based on the fact that my father had a doctorate and taught as a university professor, and my own misguided sojourn into attempting to teach, I believe it would be a good idea for any teacher to spend time in any other profession, just to give them a connection to the decisions and experiences of other people. (I also think it would be a good idea for would-be parents to have to spend some time working with and hopefully teaching children before they start breeding them.) Academic Professors in particular, generally need more exposure to "real life" and the types of decisions made by the 'average' person. (Put another way, they need to get a grip or be hit with a clue stick) The petty bickering and mindless one-up-manship--ug. Sorry, I don't enjoy arguing, and the notion of arguing about something that is truly academic and pretty much totally pointless... And yet, that was what these people thrived on. Is this uninformed rambling? Is this a statistical anomaly? Is this too small a pool of data to be anything more than anecdotal? Maybe in a scientific or statistical sense, but for forming an opinion, no, it is pretty much the same data that everyone else works with when they form an opinion. [/QUOTE]

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