Science vs Folk Wisdom

The Economist has an excellent passage on scientific method buried within a broader piece about the general state of the world economy. 

"The problem is that anecdotal evidence often seems much more compelling than dry statistics. Man seems to have a tendency to impart information in the form of a story. This is often known as the availability heuristic and leads to arguments like "Smoking's not dangerous. My mother smoked 40 cigarettes a day and lived to 90." (Indeed, Mr Akin used the formulation "from what I understand from doctors", an anecdotal approach.)

[...]

Official data are often flawed and need to be revised; we should always be on the lookout for rogue items that stand out from the general trend. But economic statistics are (generally) honest attempts to make sense of vast, complex systems. They offer a more robust view of the world than your brother-in-law or the story your neighbour heard at work."