Salt Lake City high schools are reportedly considering whether or not to implement weapon detectors in schools in an effort to reduce crime. One school board member, Mohamed Baayd, voted against the move for a surprising reason.

"Walking through a weapon detector is emotionally exhausting," Baayd said. "I am speaking from my own experiences. I walk through TSA, and I have to prepare myself two days in advance."

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I have sympathy for Baayd's fear and exhaustion, but his comments are a good reminder that we shouldn't base policy changes on "lived experience."

For one thing, lived experience is by definition personal. Each of us has our own experience, and these experiences do not necessarily correlate. Consider race relations as an example. John McWhorter, associate professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, famously claimed, "In my life, racism has affected me now and then at the margins, in very occasional social ways, but has had no effect on my access to societal resources."

On the other side, Chris Lebron, associate professor of philosophy at Johns Hopkins, described being black in America like this: "Every day you feel like you're living with a knee on your neck."

What are we to do with such vastly different experiences? What about when we multiply the problem out and recognize that there are as many black "lived experiences" as there are black people, all of them unique? 

One solution would be to synthesize hundreds of "lived experience" accounts into an accurate picture of the situation. That's what one of my friends who teaches at minority schools does; if more folks did that, it would be a huge step in the right direction. Unfortunately, that level of synthesis is relatively rare. A large chunk of our public discourse is driven by viral stories or isolated anecdotes, such as those of McWhorter or Lebron, which may not paint an accurate picture of the underlying reality of, for instance, racism in the United States.

The second reason to be skeptical of lived experience is that our perceptions of the world are not always accurate. A study published by the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute asked survey respondents questions about racism that they experienced in their daily lives, as well as about how often they felt sad or depressed. The study found that "those who report being sad or anxious at least half the time are far more likely to report experiencing racism and discrimination." Study author Eric Kaufmann notes, "While it is not impossible that whites and blacks who experience racism report more sadness, the more likely explanation is that certain psychological states are correlated with reporting more negative experiences."

We certainly shouldn't dismiss every story of racism as a manifestation of mental illness, nor should we fall into the pernicious trap of pathologizing people who see the world differently from us. But human beings vary in how closely our experience of life reflects the underlying reality, and that truth holds across all race and gender lines.

I've seen this in my own life. Mental illness is a rupture in our ability to perceive reality accurately. When I was suffering from intense depression, for example, my brain told me every day that I was terrible at my job and that people close to me would live better lives if I died. Was my lived experience valid? Sure. Did it accurately map onto objective reality? No. As an article in the National Institute of Mental Health puts it, "Depression tends to make people think more negatively about themselves and the world." 

Or, to put it another way: The terror that Baayd experiences at going through a metal detector is a valid feeling, but it may have more to do with his own psychology than with an objective reality of metal detectors as terrifying implements. Assuming that his experience is widely shared could lead us to make some poor policy decisions. (As mental illness proliferates across racial and gender lines, the danger of relying too much on a small number of "lived experiences" to understand the world becomes correspondingly greater.)

Individual experience can be a useful supplement to tools such as mass surveys and peer-reviewed studies. Qualitative information such as interviews and one-on-one conversations (what some academics call "warm data") can make a strong addition to quantitative data. These interviews can help us to fill in holes in surveys, see the humans behind the research, and, in sufficient numbers, help us to catch flaws in our thinking. But it's important not to elevate lived experience too highly in the epistemological hierarchy. Anecdotes make a poor foundation for public policy.

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Julian Adorney (@Julian_Liberty) is a writer and marketing consultant with fee.org and contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He has previously written for National Review, the Federalist, and other outlets.