this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2025
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A friend of my wife and I got a pit bull a couple months ago. She was going on and on about how sweet he is and how he would never hurt anyone. Last week, it mauled her roommate. Nearly took his hand off while he was changing into his work clothes. His career is likely over and she's still defending the dog.
I think that dog is legally required to be put down no?
I have no idea. I know the city animal control has it now. She is trying to get him released, though.
I guess it depends on where you live yeah...
Lets hope it doesnt get to hurt anyone again.
And even with this personal evidence, you get defenders downvoting the story - not because it doesn't add to the discussion, buy because it doesn't suit their narrative.
I hope the roommate is able to find a good surgeon and get the help he needs, that sounds terrible if it could call for a career change.
I think you and I have different ideas about what the word "evidence" means. A story told by a random user about something that happened to their friend's roommate is not really something I consider or weigh heavily when evaluating things. There could be relevant details omitted from the story, or it could be invented whole cloth, in any case, it isn't statistically significant.
So you've never heard the term "anecdotal evidence" then. I said it adds to the discussion and doesn't deserve downvoting by pitbull white knights, not that it needs to be booked into evidence for the supreme court case to decide the fate of all pit bulls.
As I recall, it is generally brought up to point out how worthless it is in any particular debate.
But, go on....
Yeah Lemmy would be a great place if nobody ever discussed a personal story about how they were affected by a topic being discussed.
Your comment ignores all context of the thread, congrats.
Discussion is fine. Trying to pretend it proves your point is not.
Yes, I have in fact heard that term, which is exactly why I know that anecdotal evidence is not valid.
What does invalid evidence add to the discussion, exactly?
There are people in this thread who are arguing for legislation restricting ownership of pitbulls. We are in the court of public opinion, which may be less formal than the supreme court, but still has the capacity to influence public policy. So it seems reasonable to apply a very basic standard of evidence, above that of stuff that random people claim happen to their friend's roommate.
Not really commenting on the claims made in this argument, but this is anecdotal evidence. Meaning that someone who claims all pitbulls are sweet and docile because of their personal experience is just as valid of an argument as someone saying all pitbulls are bad because of their personal experience.
I don't really care about pitbulls one way or the other, but I find it worrying that a lot of the times the debates against the breed follow similar argument structures to those utilized by racist pulling up FBI crime stats about black people.
Personal evidence is anecdotal, I never said it wasn't? There is nothing wrong with someone sharing a personal story to add to the discussion was my point.. Which I thought I made clearly.
Ah yes, 'being cautious about dog breds bred over a hundred years of more for violent traits is much the same argument as being cautious about black people' false equivalence again.
Right, but you were dismaying people who refute your anecdotes "because it doesn't fit their narrative", which is a perfectly valid thing to do with anecdotal evidence, as it is itself an attempt to build a narrative.
Racist would often say the similar things about black people in America. Slavery lasted well over a hundred years and slave owners would often have slaves who were brought up to be prize fighters.
No, I wasn't. I was pointing out how pathetic it is that people downvote comments that they don't like because it doesn't fit their narrative - downvotes are for comments that don't add to the discussion, and personal stories are absolutely valid.
Am I writing in a coded language that's hard to decipher?
Lol, what are you the mayor of reddit? You don't get to decide how people utilize this platform.
This is Lemmy, not Reddit. Lol are you lost?
Lol, my point was that it was a reddit ass comment. Nobody here cares about the "rules" about up votes or down votes.
There's always a tool that wants to be faux intelligent and inject a racist flavor into every discussion.....
There's always people trying to defend the use of racist dog whistles.
This is not a thread of statisticians. This is a thread of people sharing experiences about dogs. Expect people stories aka "anecdotal".
My contributions are not anecdotal
https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/resources/dog_bite_risk_and_prevention_bgnd.pdf
Then also expect people to dismiss that anecdotal evidence as irrelevant
The word you're looking for is anecdote
https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/resources/dog_bite_risk_and_prevention_bgnd.pdf