Quality of evidence

People have a tendency to give more credence than they should to the apparent strength of evidence in the course of evaluating claims and issues and insufficient attention to the quality of evidence.

For example, when trying to judge a state’s high school graduation rate giving consideration to factors such as the number of well-known universities in the state, though there is little relation between that evidence and the rate of students graduating from high school. Whatever the evidence on whether the state has a good eduction system, the number of well-known universities in the state counts as poor evidence concerning achievement in high schools.

(see also: independent evidence, proof»prove, self-correction, argument, (hidden) assumptions, establish, support, ground, verification, justification, controversies)