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They're not talking about extrapolating from one mistake though. They're talking about drawing one observation from a population of an unknown distribution. At
by eckesicle 6y ago
They're not talking about extrapolating from one mistake though. They're talking about drawing one observation from a population of an unknown distribution. At that point that single observation the only estimate of the quality of the entire book. If you decide to not sample further (that is find other chapters in the book of which you are an expert) then the conclusion that the book is trash is the only rational one.
(If you want to read more about this then google "single observation unbiased estimator")
- drivebycomment 6y ago> If you decide to not sample further (that is find other chapters in the book of which you are an expert) then the conclusion that the book is trash is the only rational one. That's exactly the wrong kind of extrapolation I'm pointing out. If you found a flaw in one chapter, the book can be trash, and the chance of it being trash is definitely higher than without any other data, but whether the absolute chance of it being trash is sufficiently high enough can only be determined based on the nature of the flaw, and even then, the confidence for that conclusion can't be really that high.