The Law of Prevalence: Anything people have a strong incentive to hide will be many times more prevalent than it seems.
At the risk of being overly pedantic, I suspect that this may mislead people to think that anything that people have a strong incentive to hide is present. Although I think very few people would be willing to admit that they have a sexual fetish specifically and solely for the eastern fence lizard, I expect that there are zero people who do (if that doesn’t seem unlikely enough, make the condition more specific). Strictly speaking that doesn’t invalidate the Law of Prevalence, since zero times anything is zero, but I think it conflicts with the general impression that the Law gives. And it’s not only cases with zero instances although that’s the most common; I expect that there are many fetishes that only one person has (I’m aware of at least one I’ve encountered that I’d give good odds is unique).
I think I’d expect the Law to typically be true in cases common enough that you’ve run into them more than once. But I think many traits which people would have strong incentive to hide are nearly or entirely nonexistent.
At the risk of being overly pedantic, I suspect that this may mislead people to think that anything that people have a strong incentive to hide is present. Although I think very few people would be willing to admit that they have a sexual fetish specifically and solely for the eastern fence lizard, I expect that there are zero people who do (if that doesn’t seem unlikely enough, make the condition more specific). Strictly speaking that doesn’t invalidate the Law of Prevalence, since zero times anything is zero, but I think it conflicts with the general impression that the Law gives. And it’s not only cases with zero instances although that’s the most common; I expect that there are many fetishes that only one person has (I’m aware of at least one I’ve encountered that I’d give good odds is unique).
I think I’d expect the Law to typically be true in cases common enough that you’ve run into them more than once. But I think many traits which people would have strong incentive to hide are nearly or entirely nonexistent.