E01¶


Research	R0002 — Research Standards for AI-Assisted Writing
Run	2026-03-13
Claim	C003
Source	SRC02
Evidence	SRC02-E01
Type	Factual

Seven Primary Plus Three Supplementary Terms

URL: Not captured — experimental run

Extract¶

The IPCC likelihood scale has seven primary terms and three additional terms used when appropriate, totaling up to ten terms depending on how they are counted:

Seven primary terms: Virtually certain, Very likely, Likely, About as likely as not, Unlikely, Very unlikely, Exceptionally unlikely.

Three supplementary terms: Extremely likely (95-100%), More likely than not (>50-100%), Extremely unlikely (0-5%).

Counting these together yields ten terms. The claim of "nine" does not precisely match any standard count. If "More likely than not" is excluded (as some formulations do), nine terms remain. This is plausible but the standard IPCC guidance presents seven primary terms with supplementary additions.

Relevance to Hypotheses¶

Hypothesis	Relationship	Strength
H1	Contradicts	Moderate — standard count is not nine; nine requires selective exclusion
H2	Supports	Strong — confirms the count differs from the standard presentation
H3	Contradicts	Moderate — a likelihood scale does exist, just with a different count

Context¶

The IPCC guidance presents the likelihood terms as a flexible vocabulary, not a fixed-length scale. The notion of counting "points" imposes a rigidity that the IPCC framework does not have. The claim's "nine-point" characterization reflects a specific counting method that excludes one supplementary term.

Notes¶

The counting ambiguity is genuine — reasonable people could arrive at seven, nine, or ten depending on inclusion criteria.