>Unless you're Sherlock Holmes, or know the person and their wardrobe intimately, you literally cannot discern anything of value from a one-time viewing of them.

You'd be surprised. People discern things of value from a one-time viewing of another person constantly. It's evolutionary wiring. From a glance, people can tell whether they others are rich or poor or middle class, their power status within a situation (e.g. a social gathering), their sexual orientation (studies show the gaydar exists), whether they're a threat or crazy or rapey or neurodiverse or meek and many other things, whether they're lazy or dilligent, and lots of other things.

>Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes, as George Carlin pointed out, it's a big fat brown dick.

What black and white thinkers miss is this doesn't have to be accurate all the time to exist and be usable. Just a lot more often than random chance.

And it has nothing to do with the comical Holmes "he had a scratch mark on his phone, so he must be alcoholic" level inferences: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKQOk5UlQSc