The issue with the Rare Earth is that it is the antithesis of the Principle of Mediocrity, also known as the Copernican Principle, which is an important concept in scientific philosophy. Broadly speaking, it goes like this. If you have only one example of something then assume that it is typical of its type. One can think of it as a variant of Occams Razor (good ole _lex parsimoniae_). In terms of probability, you are far more likely to be right if you assume ordinaryness rather than uniqueness. Hence Copernican, since Copernicus in 1543 demonstrated the principle by moving the Sun, rather than the Earth, to the center of the universe. I do not believe that If you have only one example of something, then assume that it is typical of its type is mathematically valid. Or to put it another way: the Law of Large Numbers dictates that the more sample points, the better. With a singleton set (n=1), you cant really *conclude* anything, other than that the sample size was not large enough, therefore we cannot logically conclude anything -- there simply isnt enough data. OTOH, my reply _could_ be so much drunken cognition. ///End of Line.
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 09:59:49 +0000
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