I'll never understand how people think a personal anecdote contradicts a more general point attained by evaluating collected data that would include those anecdotes.

e.g. The claim: Planes are a very safe way to travel.

Followed by someone jumping up to say: I know a person who was injured in a rough landing.

Note I'm not claiming either the individual or family is the atomic unit here just pointing out that your contribution doesn't contradict or even narrow the argument.

HN commenters do this all the time. A lot of people here treat comments as mathematical or logic proofs. They see a statement like "Planes are a very safe way to travel", and their minds go to:

∀x(X(x)⟹(Y(x))

and then they make it their mission to find the falsifying x sub 0 example.