Lots of our positions on issues are based on anecdotes. This or that happened to myself or a friend... and therefore I feel such and so.
Someone demonstrated this on a Facebook post of mine recently. What I and an article I posted said negatively regarding Evangelicals wasn't true because... he knows Evangelicals who aren't that way. Of course, if most Evangelicals were like the ones he knows... we wouldn't have Trump.
I don't own a gun. A gun enthusiast friend of mine told me, "If someone breaks into your house, you are gonna wish you had a gun!"
He's right. In such a moment, I will wish I had a gun.
But that does change the reality of the odds... therefore, it does not change my decision regarding gun ownership. The odds say that a gun in my home will hurt or kill an innocent person loooong before it ever protects me from a criminal.
If someone tells me, "I will give you a thousand dollars if you roll 1-4 on a die or I will give you a thousand for a 5-6 roll, but you can only choose one option" - I would choose the 1-4. Yes, if I roll a six I will have a pang of regret. But, given another opportunity, I would still choose the 1-4. Someone telling me that when they rolled they got a 5 would not change my decision.
Humans often ignore hard math due to anecdotes. This is a bug, not a feature.
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