Anecdotal evidence

"I find atheists and skeptics who attempt to marginalize anecdotal evidence interesting. Most of them seem to have no problem believing the anecdote that the Gettysburg Address was *actually* delivered, for example. Denial via appeal to the anecdotal nature of a data point simply postpones the acquisition of knowlegde. It’s like a convenient little gris-gris that intellectually cowardly people often use to ward off that which blatantly contradicts their worldviews." - cl

This is an interesting statement I read here: http://thewarfareismental.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/hey-atheists-its-right-here/

While I know that anecdotal evidence is not invalid, it is highly questionable. Especially now-a-days, I know that I unknowingly remember things differently than they happened. Try keeping a journal for a week, and be sure to write in it each day. Then a few weeks after you finished writing, try to recall what you wrote/what happened. Write it down. Then actually take a look at the journal. Compare the two. You'll be surprised how many differences there are between the journal and what you remember a few weeks later.

But you will get the "gist" of it.

And because of that I don't know how reliable anecdotal evidence is. I'm not saying "All people are fooling themselves" it's not that at all. It's just the way memory works. It's not perfect.