> and so they show that the system is working - they are exceptions that prove t... | Hacker News

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		jedmeyers on May 15, 2015 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Medicine Hat becomes the first city in Canada to e... > and so they show that the system is working - they are exceptions that prove the rule. What does this even mean? How do exceptions prove the rule?

learnstats2 on May 15, 2015 [–]

From Wikipedia: "the presence of an exception applying to a specific case establishes that a general rule exists." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exception_that_proves_the_rule

The fact that the parent is complaining about a small number of exceptional cases proves that the system works well in the general case.

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