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DanArmak comments on Useful Questions Repository - Less Wrong
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That's the rebuttal I thought about too. In particular, the heuristic "if someone is vocal against gays, they are likely to be gay" (whether or not it's true) may arise in practice from the heuristic "if someone is vocal about gays, whether for or against, they are likely to be gay".
I had the impression it arose from the heuristic "If someone makes a verbal status attack a low effort way to handle it is to attempt to reverse it". See also the ingenious reply to "X" that is "Your mom X".
This is what I was trying to avoid with my asterisk, i.e., just talking about stealing candy does raise the probability they stole the candy. But once they're talking, confessing raises the probability they did it so not confessing should lower it.
On reflection, when my original question was designed to help make situations clearer, using an example that I felt I had to asterisk probably wasn't wise.
Even if this is so, the total evidence that they're talking + they're denying may still raise the probability they stole the candy.
We rarely know that people express strong opinions about homosexuals, without also knowing what their opinions are. The difference with your example of the candy is that your wife initiated the talk with your son; your son didn't come forward himself and declare out of the blue, "I am against stealing candy!"