Science can illustrate but never substantiate its claims with emotional individual cases

Evidence

The journalist Sebastian Herrmann advises in his book “Starrköpfe überzeugen” (Convincing stubborn people) to tell good stories with simple contexts, to connect one’s message with positive feelings and to rely on the “emotional force of the individual case” and avoid statistics . This is problematic for the representation of scientific points of view, because in order to avoid subjective biases in science, it is precisely solid statistics that are decisive. On the other hand, only existential statements (“There is one …”) and no generalizations (“For all … applies …”) can be derived scientifically from individual cases. Thus, science can at best illustrate its results with emotional individual cases, but not substantiate them. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 247

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Captures a core epistemic tension: persuasive storytelling and scientific rigor pull in opposite directions, with existential vs universal statements as the crisp boundary.