73 – The Fallacy of the Anecdotal Evidence

In this episode, Peter and Sonny dissect how a single personal story does not create a general claim. Data does. Our experience does not determine reality, nor does it create data. They illustrate the issue with the failed Miami-Dade Heat Ordinance.

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Transcript

Sonny Maken 0:09

Welcome to the Obvious Podcast, episode number 73. My name is Sonny Maken.

Peter Dyga 0:15

And I'm Peter Dyga, president and CEO at ABC Florida East Coast.

Sonny Maken 0:20

Happy Friday.

Peter Dyga 0:21

Happy Friday, Sonny. You're listening to the Obvious Podcast where all opinions expressed are our own, unless we say otherwise.

Sonny Maken 0:28

Thank you for staying online. I completely enjoyed love the show.

Peter Dyga 0:31

Subscribe on any major podcast platform or watch us in action on YouTube. Follow the Obvious Podcast on Instagram, X, TrueSocial, and TikTok. All the links you need are in the show notes. And of course, you can reach out to us anytime at theobvious@abceastflorida.com. . And if you're enjoying the ride, help others find us by leaving us a review wherever you listen. That's real. Happy Friday.

Sonny Maken 0:55

Happy Friday. By the way, Mr. Producer has told me TikTok is on fire.

Peter Dyga 0:59

Yeah. Right. I probably I don't even think I've gone there. I should. I'd probably get upset. Are we trying to upset? Are we Yeah? We'll get a good laugh. So all right. Anyway, check us out. Are people calling us Nazis or something? I don't think I could handle that. Well, get you get ready. If not, they will be.

Sonny Maken 1:22

Is it US owned yet or is it still Chinese owned? TikTok?

Peter Dyga 1:26

I know they reached a deal. I know they reached a deal. I wonder whatever.

Sonny Maken 1:29

Yeah. All right. So you know what I wanted to talk to you about was and I see this in social media all the time, and I see it as a massive danger to good leadership, right? Okay. Because we deal with a lot of leaders, obviously, right? And I call it I call it, well, this is what I call it, and I'm sure that there might be a different term for it, or there might not be. The fallacy of the anecdotal evidence. Okay. Right? And what got me really thinking on this, remember a few weeks ago the whole thing happened when the the Minneapolis daycares and you know, and people were like there was like no money. I mean, it was a massive billion, multi-billion dollar fraud. And so you if you read the stories on the internet and you read the comments attached to the stories, there's obviously the whole spectrum is represented in the comments, but there was always a few. Well, I don't believe this because I have a great Somali neighbor, you know, or my cousin's best friend is Somali, and they're amazing people. And you know, this can't be this can't be the reality.

Peter Dyga 2:33

So what do you mean by anecdotes or a fallacy? Like I mean, because for those people, that's that's that's right. That's reality.

Sonny Maken 2:41

It's reality that that one uh story, personal story, but like a personal story doesn't create a general claim, right? Like data to me creates a general claim. Personal stories are just that, they're personal stories. So I'm sure there were a lot of Germans during the Holocaust who helped well, I don't I have no idea what the data on this is, but I'm sure there were Germans who helped Jews escape.

Peter Dyga 3:06

Sure.

Sonny Maken 3:07

Right? Sure. But that doesn't mean that the whole of sort of German culture and what the German army did is sort of uh mitigated by that.

Peter Dyga 3:16

Yeah, sure.

Sonny Maken 3:16

And I see a lot of that in leadership, you know, because this is my experience, this is reality.

Peter Dyga 3:22

And I just that's the key, I think. That's the key, right? Because I'm trying to, because it's uh I get your point. And you're right. One day set of data point, one data point is cannot be the basis, you know, for making an argument or trying to you know substantiate a claim. Because that to me is that to me is the the the key point. Right.

Sonny Maken 3:41

That my reality doesn't create data, right? My experience doesn't create data just because I've had a great experience. I mean, a common one is restaurants, right? Like That's a great yeah. Somebody can go to a restaurant, have a really good experience.

Peter Dyga 3:54

That's what I think I hate about the media. I'm sorry, I got really oh my god, I had a uh you know, somebody I considered a a decent friend over the years really give me a hard time for using the word hate. You know, you can hate the group or the the the behavior, you know, but not the individual. Anyway, that's for another show. I mean you can hate the institution. But anyway, I just caught myself, you know, that I I think that's what I really dislike or hate about the in general the overall media, right? Because that's what they do. They take they take anecdotal stories and they try to make a trend out of it. They try to make an issue out of it. Exactly. Or they try to make it a you know a larger scale problem. That's what they do all the time. Yep. Uh in particular, I've noticed over the last, and I know this was on the point of the show, but in particular, you know, I I don't know that other people recognize this, but every story the local media, especially, does on the police or law enforcement is always negative. Great example. Always negative.

Sonny Maken 4:50

Of anecdotal evidence being disguised as fact.

Peter Dyga 4:54

Right.

Sonny Maken 4:54

Right.

Peter Dyga 4:54

Or often So they go and find one little story of something, and even if it's not what it appears to be, they will spin it as such. But to the greater point, that's an anecdotal story. It's not looking at overall data where you know, 95% or whatever, you know, whatever the number is of typical police encounters are anyway. It's yeah, and it ties perfectly right back to what we saw happening in recent weeks in Minnesota, Minneapolis, and whatnot. Same same thing, right, with the controversy there. Yeah.

Sonny Maken 5:23

Right? So the reason I wanted to talk about this is well, you know, you your story is a reason? Do we have to have a reason? Well, one is to entertain and enlighten our audience. How does this apply to ABC? Exactly, Sonny. How does it apply to ABC? We deal with a lot of leadership, right? We make we have boards for everything, we have committees for everything. And I think one of the things that we have to be always on the lookout for is to remind our boards, remind our leaders, remind our committees not to make decisions based on anecdotal evidence. Yeah. Right? That's great. Not to make decisions based on your own personal experience. That's great. You gotta look at the other word for that. Conflict of interest. Exactly. Kind of, right? Are they kind of tied? Of course. It is absolutely conflict of interest because you're taking your own sort of experience. Now, I'm I'm not saying their experience is illegitimate. Right. Right. Or even wrong. Or it could be spot on. Right. But that cannot be the basis of how you govern uh in your leadership roles.

Peter Dyga 6:26

This is a pretty profound uh assertion we're making here. So, you know, because then otherwise, how do you do it? It's an important point. Otherwise, how do you do it? A lot of people are probably asking that.

Sonny Maken 6:35

You do it based on facts, data, and on the recommendation of the people that are actually in the leadership roles who are actually doing the implementation of what you've asked them to implement.

Peter Dyga 6:46

Right.

Sonny Maken 6:47

Right? So the idea that if we go to our board and we say we need we would like for you to make a decision based on this, and they have questions, right? Greater than their lived experience is our experience implementing whatever whatever the issue is that we're talking about.

Peter Dyga 7:04

Sure, sure.

Sonny Maken 7:05

That's kind of that's what I really wanted to talk about because I feel like that in leadership, I think most leaders really succumb to this fact. They because of their own lived experience and their own lived um evidence, uh uh or not really their own evidence, but you know what I mean, the fact that they've kind of been through it themselves. Then they will take that and they will just sort of superimpose it on ever on all other decision making.

Peter Dyga 7:30

And that's to you know, that's it could be right. And that's not like to not be expected, right? Right. I mean, you know, that's the human experience. The human experience. So, but so then how would you balance, you know, the I don't know, there's is there any value in the you know, a human experience, the anecdotal experience, you know, and how would you balance that with you know running to make sure that overall larger decisions and planning is not just basically.

Sonny Maken 7:57

I think one of the ways you really should, especially as a leader, balance it. So there's something called availability bias. I did some research on this topic, so availability bias basically says one of the reasons you assume it's true and correct is because it's easier for you to remember. So things that are harder for you to remember um don't fall under the availability bias, so you will not sort of subscribe to that. So the the access to that memory or access to that experience is is what makes it makes it feel that it's true. Right? So I think if you are sitting in a in a in a boardroom or in a in a committee and or in your corner office and trying to make a decision, it has to be based on sort of the big picture, like the plethora of information available. Including, and I'm not saying uh personal analysts have to be excl excluded for it, but they can't be the driving force of decision making. You know, because I think that's what really leads to the conflict of interest. And when you say, and we should clarify, there's way more conflict of interest than just sort of financial.

Peter Dyga 9:01

I think most people think conflict of interest they just think it's financial. And that's kind of to your your your point that you just made, I think. So, but yeah, if we were to to talk or uh try to make this nexus a little uh spend a little more time doing that between conflict of interest and relying on anecdotal and uh experiences or whatnot, uh that's to me very important. Because my my what I've learned over the years is when you start to talk about conflict of interest, yes, people immediately think of financial conflicts of interest. There's no conflict of interest. I'm not making any money on the internet. Exactly. Like that's not Yeah, but there's so many different conflicts of interest. You know, when you understand and always keep in mind the definition, you know, it doesn't necessarily mean financial, it just means personal interests over uh the collective or the organiz. It's weird, it almost sounds communist, right? So but you know, you you need to have the organization's best interests as opposed to your personal interest. So in some ways it is very anti, you know, well when it comes to um you know governing an organization, it's one thing, but when it comes to governing our economy or our uh our country, exactly, but even our country, you know, right? You know, I mean I don't we're really getting far streamed now. But I don't one of the conclusions I've kind of made in my life, I think, although I'd I'll I'd better be careful about saying that, right? Because I'm open to and I've changed, you know, uh but that the difference between the left and the right really isn't uh for the most part, uh although sometimes I really question this, but isn't really wanting the best for overall society. All right. So a communist like Mandami or socialist or whatever, you know, I'm just looking for the collective good. The the what's this the thing that's getting so much the warmth of collectivism over the frigidity of uh individualism? Indivalism, right? So, okay, all right, fine, you know, but you know what? Uh Trump probably feels the exact same way. I mean, he says every decision he makes is thinking about the good of the country. You know, so they're not that far apart in that. What the where where the political spectrum differs is how to achieve it. Yeah. How to get there. And sometimes what interests they think are, you know, like um a big one for the president recently, which by the way, I read an again, we're all all over today. But that's part of that's part of this beauty of the show, isn't it? It's been on in the news a lot about the whole Greenland, you know, actually from the beginning of his presidency, I think, and then it kind of spikes and then goes away for a little bit, but it's been spiking lately. And and sure enough, I read this uh story on the Daily Mail or you know, some European uh publication about Denmark's um CIA or whatever they call their intelligence agencies, actually in that a year ago came out of a report about how China and Russia are trying to, I don't want to say overtake or overcome, but but basically to control dominance, control Greenland, to control dominance. So, you know, it's like I'm I'm reminded of those memes, you know, Trump was right about everything, you know, it appears he's right about this too. But what's driving him? It's driving him is his interest in the United States, the long-term interest of the United States. So in any event, I think that's why he can pick up the phone, as I it was recently reported too, that I think uh when Pocahontas, I'm sorry, what's her name? Um isn't it uh Elizabeth? Senator Warren. Elizabeth Warren. Oh that's that's great. Uh whatever marketing, if I can remember Pocahontas, but not Senator Warren. So I think she had said a thing about affordability and whatnot at some speech that she gave, and uh the president called her up. You know, and that's what I love about him. You know, he called her up, he's because you and I agree on affordability, but I bet you his conversation was about you know why your policies don't get us there? Here's why. Yeah. You know, and he would have just used anecdotal evidence to kind of close the loop. You know, I think we have uh a lot of data, a lot multiple sets of data points.

Sonny Maken 13:02

Yeah.

Peter Dyga 13:02

Not just our experience.

Sonny Maken 13:04

Now, when Elizabeth Warren says she's for affordability, or Gavin Newsom says she's for affordability. He's sorry, he's for affordability. Sorry, I didn't mean a misgender. Yeah, I didn't mean a misgender, the governor of California. There is a I think an inherent like we all know, like, hey, blue states are more expensive. New York, uh, California, Massachusetts, Illinois are more expensive. Some people could have that anecdotal experience. Of course. But then if you pull the data, housing costs, right, food costs, fuel costs, they're always higher in blue states. Always. And data backs it up. So you can have something you feel anecdotally, and because my gosh, when I went to California a couple of years ago, um seven seven forty-nine I paid for gas in uh near Big Sur. I was driving from the Pacific Coast uh from uh LA to San Francisco. What year was this? This was pre-COVID. Pre-COVID 739 or 789 I paid at this one gas station. And I was like, what the you know? And I had never seen I'd never seen $5 gas.

Peter Dyga 14:12

Good thing they're further working class. Because if they weren't, what would we be paying? What would they be paying out there? And it's like Is this connected at all with there was uh I posted actually an article which was one of the every once in a while I come across something and I usually post must read. You know, I don't do that with every but there's some that are just so profound in my opinion. And it was talking about the the real problem we have today is the the loss of um reasoning, you know, and logic and and and uh there's emotionalism, right? Emotionalism, you know, and this is a kind of related, you know, in a way. It's like relying on anecdotal information rather than data. No amount of data you can present it to somebody if they're gonna just rely on their anecdotal experience or an emotion. No unfortunately today, I think in the past, if you could have you know people were still um valued reasoning, yeah you know, the ability to reason through uh you know an issue or a problem. But to nowadays it's just to hell with to hell with the data points.

Sonny Maken 15:11

Yeah. Remember that lady who was shot in um Minneapolis? Mm-hmm. Good. Uh good.

Peter Dyga 15:19

Everybody remembers that name.

Sonny Maken 15:21

Yes.

Peter Dyga 15:21

Because it's an easy name to remember, I guess. Well, it's because that's what the media want us to remember. Right. But nobody remembers the victims of violence or you know, anyway.

Sonny Maken 15:32

But I remember uh when that story happened, and I have a habit of trying to kind of watch Fox News and MSNBC and and CNN. And one of the news I always watch is is ABC because I grew up watching ABC News.

Peter Dyga 15:45

Right.

Sonny Maken 15:46

And even when I was young, I was like, man, this doesn't feel right. But I had no obviously. What's going on with CBS, by the way? There's a lot of controversy about them lately. Yeah. Kind of like re- uh set or something. Yeah, because they they are under new ownership, so they brought this Oh really. I pissed off at him for some reason.

Peter Dyga 16:03

Yeah, and the and the lady De Broad, she's not some like cookie-right winger. I mean she's just a that's the unfortunate what happens with this is now the the moderates look like right? This is kooky-right wingers. Right. Right, right.

Sonny Maken 16:15

Um and I think one of the reasons they hate her so much is because she's Jewish. And I think she has taken a lot of grief for that.

Peter Dyga 16:22

Because that's one of those uh third rails, is that the right term?

Sonny Maken 16:26

But it's one of those one of those um The amount of anti-Semitism I've seen online now, it's just mind-blowing. It is mind-blowing. I mean, it's insane how much you see that. And you see it from the left, not from the right. And she has taken a lot of heat for you know, they've they've called her all sorts of like Zionists and I think there's uh hints or hints of it on the right.

Peter Dyga 16:46

Yeah, yeah. Um Candace Owens has kind of lost her mind on it completely.

Sonny Maken 16:50

Yeah. And anyway, so the whole idea of of For another show. Yeah, maybe. So the ABC News. I'm watching the story on um Good, who has just been killed. Uh-huh. And if all you watch is ABC News, you would you would think this would be this is what the guy said. And I'm gonna find the link for the for the actual story and and and post it in the show notes. Right. The the reporter actually said that she had just dropped her kids off to school and was going home. Unemployed mother of whatever, you know, it's like Maryland debt. But how do all these unemployed people uh who are on welfare need day cares? Like that's another question I think.

Peter Dyga 17:24

That's a great question that was brought up in the whole Somali thing. Right? Like if you don't if you are Speaking of data, I mean it's like 80% of them are on welfare. Yeah. Why do they need day cares? Right? If they're home, right.

Sonny Maken 17:35

It's just it's it's not anyway. Data, right? There's I saw a meme about that, and a guy's holding up a sign. Data doesn't matter. We want to feel good. Exactly. And he said uh our neighbors, we love them. But it's misplaced empathy, it's toxic empathy, right? It's just this insane idea of empathy. Like minorities can do whatever they want. There's no standard to hold them to. And I used to see this in high school. Like, I remember this, we should do an episode on this. Um I took a class in anthropology, right? And uh my prof my teacher was like, Yep, all cultures are the same. I'm like, What are you talking about?

Peter Dyga 18:09

What topic did this teacher?

Sonny Maken 18:10

Uh anthropology. It was an anthropology professor, uh uh teacher. Right? So that's just ironic. And it was just like, what? And then we were reading about these cultures. Study cultures and cultures and the differences and the differences, you know. And the similarities, perhaps, but you know. Anyway, it was just an insane uh idea. And I think that's kind of morphed into this.

Peter Dyga 18:33

Can you think in your short, relatively short um life experience at ABC of I don't know, some examples where you might, you know, where it was important or we successfully made sure that we made decisions based more on, you know, data. Yeah. You know, as a lot of people. I can think of the meetings with our volunteer uh you know, input and their their leadership and their support and whatnot. Because again, nothing at nonprofits or associations can be done without the support of the the volunteer leadership, whose primary goal is you know, obviously good strategic planning and governance and and financially making sure that we have the money to achieve the goals that they've set out for us. So can you think of an example? I mean, I can give you a great example.

Sonny Maken 19:16

My um early in my career here, my immediate county came out with a bill and they called it their heat ordinance. And if you read the bill, it only covered uh construction and agriculture. Like all other industries were exempt.

Peter Dyga 19:32

Didn't it cover Didn't even cover their own employees, postal employees, anybody who works out?

Sonny Maken 19:44

So then we were like, what the hell?

Peter Dyga 19:48

Do as I say. Right. Not as I do.

Sonny Maken 19:50

And then the first question was okay, how many construction workers are dying in heat-related accidents?

Peter Dyga 19:55

And it was like Yeah, there was one or I don't know, locally. Nationwide or nationwide.

Sonny Maken 20:02

One locally, and it was even questionable whether because he had like drug issues and all of that stuff. I mean, the whole policy was based on one anecdote, and they came out with it.

Peter Dyga 20:13

Yeah.

Sonny Maken 20:13

And we were like, this you can't do this. This is insane.

Peter Dyga 20:16

Right.

Sonny Maken 20:16

You have no data to back this up. And they had no data to back it up. Right, right. You know?

Peter Dyga 20:20

So you think it was defeated primarily because of the lack of data, or was it something else? Yeah.

Sonny Maken 20:25

It was defeated because we have a robust government affairs program. We've been fighting bad policies for a long time. Good partners. Good partners. Absolutely. Um, a lot of elected officials supported us, you know, and we went to them and we showed the elected officials who supported us. Look at this data. This is why you need to oppose this. It's you're trying to solve a problem. It's not even a problem.

Peter Dyga 20:47

That's a great example. I was thinking, thank you, but I was thinking more, and I don't mean to put you on the spot, but you know, something more association, more you know, wonky association-esque, something internally, a decision, a strategic direction, yeah, or whatever that that uh might have gone in a more anecdotal uh direction or evidence direction, and instead cooler heads looking at data and looking at long, you know, maybe provision.

Sonny Maken 21:13

I I got one like resonating in my head.

Peter Dyga 21:15

I just don't don't want to say we didn't even I mean I didn't give you a forewarning, but you don't want to say. I don't want to say all right.

Sonny Maken 21:23

So can you do it in a way to I can do it in a way. I think it was it was a disagreement with a board member. Um the the board member reacted with a lot of uh emotional it was an emotional response. And then and then understandable emotional response, right?

Peter Dyga 21:40

Because uh anecdotally it kind of So far so good, because I'm not sure I made the connection yet.

Sonny Maken 21:46

So if I haven't, so it was an emotional reaction from a board member, and the board member reacted. And when the preponderance of evidence was shown to the to the entire board, um the issue. Kind of went away.

Peter Dyga 22:01

That's a good example.

Sonny Maken 22:12

There were multiple data sets. There were historical data sets. There were impact data sets. There were effective data effectiveness data sets. Right. There was governance data sets, like how a lot of these things had been approved by the board.

Peter Dyga 22:24

And by the way, this isn't anything negative. This is part of management. This is part of life. This is part of, you know, probably everybody who's listening in their daily business. We all react. We all react based on anecdotal evidence. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And we all should strive to make sure that it's more data-driven. And that sometimes is a is a real challenge.

Sonny Maken 22:58

I thought it was interesting. Just as leaders to be always be m to be aware of how we are approaching decisions, right? Yep. And to not allow our own biases and our own conflicts of interest and our own anecdotal fallacies affect us. That's all. Great subject, Sonny. So bring us home. All right. Thank you for joining us. Oh yeah, I gotta tell you this. For comments, and we hope you have some, send us an email at the obvious at abceflorida.com.

Peter Dyga 23:27

Thanks for listening and honoring us with your time. We look forward to sharing another episode with you next Friday.