No. Anecdote, ἀνέκδοτον, is a story that points to some abstract idea, commonly having something to do with morals. The word means 'not given out'/'not-out-given'. Data is the plural of datum, and arrives in english not from greek, but from latin. The root is however the same as in anecdote, and datum means 'given'. Saying that 'not-given' and 'collection of givens' is the same is clearly nonsensical.
A datum has a value and a context in which it was 'given'. What you mean by "points" eludes me, maybe you could elaborate.
Except that the plural of anecdotes is definitely not data, because without controlling for confounding variables and sampling biases, you will get garbage.
Based on my limited understanding of analytics, the data set can be full of biases and anomalies, as long as you find a way to account for them in the analysis, no?
The accuracy of your analysis becomes limited to the accuracy of how well you correct for the biases. And it's difficult to measure the bias accurately without lots of good data or cross-examination.
Garbage data is still data, and data (garbage or not) is still more valuable than a single anecdote. Insights can only be distilled from data, by first applying those controls you mentioned.
Or you can apply the Bezos/Amazon anecdote about anecdotes:
At a managers meeting "user stories" about poor support but all the KPIs looked good from the call center so Jeff dials in the number from the meeting speaker phone, gets put on hold, IVR spin cycle, hold again, etc .... His take away was basically "if the data and anecdotes don't match always default to the customer stories".
No, Wittgenstein's rule following paradox, Shannon sampling theorem, the law that infinite polynomials pass through any finite set of points (does that have a name?), etc, etc. are all equivalent at the limit to the idea that no amount of anecdotes-per-se add up to anything other than coincidence
Without structural assumptions, there is no necessity - only observed regularity. Necessity literally does not exist. You will never find it anywhere.
Hume figured this out quite a while ago and Kant had an interesting response to it. Think the lack of “necessity” is a problem? Try to find “time” or “space” in the data.
Data by itself is useless. It’s interesting to see peoples’ reaction to this.
@whatnow37373 — Three sentences and you’ve done what a semester with Kritik der reinen Vernunft couldn’t: made the Hume-vs-Kant standoff obvious. The idea that “necessity” is just the exhaust of our structural assumptions (and that data, naked, can’t even locate time or space) finally snapped into focus.
This is exactly the kind of epistemic lens-polishing that keeps me reloading HN.
This thread has given me the best philosophical chuckle I've had this year. Even after years of being here, HN can still put an unexpected smile on your face.
Anti-realism, indeterminancy, intuitionism, and radical subjectivity are extremely unpopular opinions here. Folks here are to dense to imagine that the cogito is fake bullshit and wrong. You're fighting an extremely uphill battle.
In the formal, information-theory sense, they literally don't, at least not on their own without further constraints (like band-limiting or bounded polynomial degree or the like)
