I have a Ph.D. in physics and I was familiar with most of these terms when I was still in primary school (I was about 5 years ahead with my maths).

I'm not doing statistics with just one degree of freedom. Sample size is not relevant here. And you can twist the concept of sample size such that you can say that all your knowledge about the world is just one data point. Just digitize it and represent it as a point in a multi dimensional vector space. What matters is the information contained in the data. Google for Shannon entropy or Shannon information to learn more.


What matters is the probability. In this case it is the probability of finding yourself in a ''backward'' civilization vs, the probability of finding yourself in a rational civilization. These probabilities could, in principle, be calculated from first principles using only the laws of physics, without any further observations.