primeideal | Mr. Bad Example

In one of Martin Gardner's math columns, he wrote about inductive reasoning and the difficulties trying to generalize from very abstract, closed systems to the real universe. Scientists observe many similar phenomena, and then they try to form rules or hypotheses that explain the overarching pattern. When you make a hypothesis like "All X are Y," then finding a single case of an X that is not Y would falsify the theory, but each individual discovery of a new X that is Y doesn't prove the theory conclusively, only adds more evidence. Gardner cites Paul Berent for examples of how this can go wrong:

A man 99 feet tall is discovered. He is a confirming instance of "All men are less than 100 feet tall," yet his discovery greatly weakens the hypothesis. Finding a normal-size man in an unlikely place (such as Saturn's moon Titan) is another example of a confirming instance that would weaken the same hypothesis.

I think I sometimes have this problem in social settings. I make a new acquaintance. Hypothesis: we have things in common and we can maybe become friends. Evidence: they like talking about baseball, I also like talking about baseball, good! That's a step in the right direction. Another piece of evidence: they complain about a politician I don't like and voted against. This should be another piece of evidence in favor of the hypothesis, but I feel like when I update my probabilities, the hypothesis is now less likely to be true. There's a higher chance that this person has exacting litmus tests for ideological purity, and even if I don't disappoint them on this axis, I will on some other issue, so I might as well get it over with now and back away before either of us are burned further. Obviously this creates lots of problems, like, I don't want to play devil's advocate and defend the politician who I didn't even vote for...

Multiply this by a higher scaling factor if there's a risk that the other person is being hyperbolic/sarcastic/deliberately doomerist for the purposes of ???/The Neurotypicals Are At It Again.