There is an important difference between the white crow scenario and, for example, the story told by Mark Twain. The white crow can be studied. New ideas for what observations to make on this creature can be carried out. The white crow is an inexhaustible subject, at least so long as it lives or is preserved; more so if more such creatures are found, and if no more are found, what use was it?
But what can you do with a singular story? Twain and all the witnesses are long dead, and no new observations can be made. All we have is his anecdote and whatever confirmatory recollections may have been recorded by the others in his story.
Another example of the anecdote vs. the continual stream of data is Millikan’s oil-drop experiment to measure the charge of an electron. There are mentions in his notes of some oil-drops giving an apparent fractional charge. Interesting if true — quarks can have a charge of ±1/3 or ±2/3 — were these unconfined quarks? But as far as I know, no-one has seen free fractional charges since then. The observation dwindles into history as just a tantalising anecdote, while the electron charge has been measured more and more precisely.
But what can you do with a singular story? Twain and all the witnesses are long dead, and no new observations can be made. All we have is his anecdote and whatever confirmatory recollections may have been recorded by the others in his story.
It is, in principle, reproducible and testable. Ask every husband, wife, sibling, parent to a soldier involved in an ongoing conflict (such as Russia/Ukraine war, Israel/Palestine war) to record those “sentiments of dread for a loved one”. See if it matches with recorded casualties.
There is an important difference between the white crow scenario and, for example, the story told by Mark Twain. The white crow can be studied. New ideas for what observations to make on this creature can be carried out. The white crow is an inexhaustible subject, at least so long as it lives or is preserved; more so if more such creatures are found, and if no more are found, what use was it?
But what can you do with a singular story? Twain and all the witnesses are long dead, and no new observations can be made. All we have is his anecdote and whatever confirmatory recollections may have been recorded by the others in his story.
Another example of the anecdote vs. the continual stream of data is Millikan’s oil-drop experiment to measure the charge of an electron. There are mentions in his notes of some oil-drops giving an apparent fractional charge. Interesting if true — quarks can have a charge of ±1/3 or ±2/3 — were these unconfined quarks? But as far as I know, no-one has seen free fractional charges since then. The observation dwindles into history as just a tantalising anecdote, while the electron charge has been measured more and more precisely.
It is, in principle, reproducible and testable. Ask every husband, wife, sibling, parent to a soldier involved in an ongoing conflict (such as Russia/Ukraine war, Israel/Palestine war) to record those “sentiments of dread for a loved one”. See if it matches with recorded casualties.