Quote:
Originally Posted by Disinfo Agent
Exceptions do not prove rules, they disprove them, even in statistics. If the law is statistical, then "exceptions" will turn up with a low frequency, which can quantified and checked against observation. If the observed proportion is inconsistent with the theoretical predictions, then something is wrong.
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I think this is exactly
Warren Platt's meaning. In the phrase "the exception that proves the rule", the verb "to prove" is used in the same way as it is used in the phrase "proving ground" -- meaning "to test".
The exceptions
test the statistical rule: if they turn up in the wrong proportions, then the rule fails the test; if they turn up in the expected proportions, the rule passes the test.
Grant Hutchison