User talk:Yankeeharp
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Anna Frodesiak (talk) 14:06, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
Dear Anna, Thanks for the offer, but I am very lost about how this works. I'll try to read a little bit more about it. I didn't realize there was a reply function here. I hope I am replying in the manner you are requesting.
Peace and love, Charlotte Yankeeharp (talk) 20:53, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
P.S. (to Anna)
[edit]| I'm beginning to understand a little more of how this works. Could you tell me:
Who wrote the title "Right but unencyclopedic" on Bob's talk page? You or Bob? Is it addressed to me in particular or the world in general? What is the text referred to as "it" in the line: "I have to say that it's true.[3] It really hits the nail on the head, but I think I understand why you reverted it: " on Bob's talk page? Is there some way that I should have been able to figure this out myself? ThanksYankeeharp (talk) 11:19, 16 June 2013 (UTC) |
Please see User talk:Bobrayner#Right but unencyclopedic. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 14:06, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
Anecdotes are small stories, intended to entertain but not intended to be a vehicle of a statement of fact. Testimonials are witness statements, intended to convey a fact that the person stating it is averring is true, and that there is an unspoken covenant that the witness will continue to state this as a fact in the future. When someone refers to a medical testimonial as an "anecdote", they are trying to disparage or belittle the testimony, to imply that it is just an amusing story and not to be taken as truth, or that there is any credibility of the person relating it.
The practice of calling medical testimonials "anecdotes" began around 1910, about the time of the Flexner report, as a way for the "mainstream" medical disciplines (approved by Flexner) to try to eliminate their competition. Prior to Flexner, the main path to becoming a medical doctor involved collecting testimonials (from satisfied customer/patients) saying that so-and-so had cured them of something or whatever the testimonial was testifying to. As the big medical schools began, they wanted to discredit the idea that testimony by people was a better gauge of a doctor's ability than the education and doctorate degrees given (sold) by the big medical schools.
Testimony by witnesses is evidence. Most alternative medical practices are based on observation and testimony and so are "evidence-based", even if that evidence was not gathered by empirical experiments performed using the scientific method.