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Back to the Pirie text:
PIRIE, MADSEN (2006)(2015) How To Win Every Argument, Bloomsbury, London.
The author explains an anecdote is a particular story. (41). In contrast, a general assertion explains what occurs in general. (41). An anecdote does not prove or demonstrate the general assertion wrong, but only that something happened in a particular case. (41). The counter-example does indeed prove or demonstrate the general assertion is not universal. (41). The anecdote does not disprove the general assertion. The anecdote does not disprove what generally happens. (41).
'To counter an argument of principle with a few contrary cases is to enter the fallacy of anecdotal reasoning'. (42)
Anecdotal fallacy has similarities to accident fallacy, also in Pirie's text and discussed on this site in two articles. Both involve general and specific cases and arguments. The philosophical red flag that comes to mind is the danger of making what is specific, general and what is general, specific.
Cited
Internet Encycolpedia of Philosophy
'Anecdotal Evidence
This is fallacious generalizing on the basis of a some story that provides an inadequate sample. If you discount evidence arrived at by systematic search or by testing in favor of a few firsthand stories, then your reasoning contains the fallacy of overemphasizing anecdotal evidence.
Example:
Yeah, I've read the health warnings on those cigarette packs and I know about all that health research, but my brother smokes, and he says he's never been sick a day in his life, so I know smoking can't really hurt you.'
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Overruling general knowledge and argumentation via specific anecdotal argument.
Yes, I know cigarettes supposedly according to medical science cause lung and other cancers, but both my Grandpa's smoked like fireplaces and each lived to 90 years old plus and so I smoke everyday.
