> The recent medical controversy over whether vaccinations cause autism reveals a habit 
of human cognition -- thinking anecdotally comes naturally, whereas thinking scientifically 
does not. 

> Our brains are belief engines that employ association learning to seek and find patterns. 
Superstition and belief in magic are millions of years old, whereas science, with its methods 
of controlling for intervening variables to circumvent false positives, is only a few hundred 
years old. 

from
"How Anecdotal Evidence Can Undermine Scientific Results, Why subjective anecdotes often 
trump objective data" By Michael Shermer. August 2008 Scientific American Magazine

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