[loceng]

I'd argue qualitative data is far more valuable than mass quantitative data, the problem is that's expensive and difficult to gather accurately - especially on a timescale that is longer than the only the 2 weeks that many if not all behaviour changing psychotropic medications required for 'adequate' research under heavily controlled environment before unleashing them onto the masses.

Statistics can point you into a direction, however it won't account for nuances in most or perhaps all cases.

[killjoywashere]

I am inclined to disagree. The N=1 anecdotes only become interesting against the rich background data. "Compared to what?" is the critical question to ask. Always.

[loceng]

Using this as a counterargument is absurd - it's not reasonable to assume qualitative data is compared and contrasted in a vacuum by itself; this is a good example of how perfectionism and statistics leads to failure.

[Ericson2314]

This could only possibly be true if we understood way more already.

[loceng]

I'm not claiming there isn't already base knowledge, this isn't referencing scenarios meant to be seen or understood in a vacuum.