Skip to content

R0050/2026-03-31/Q002/H3

Statement

A small number of disciplines contribute specific genuinely novel concepts, while most disciplines' contributions are already captured by the nine baseline frameworks through either direct inclusion or close analogy.

Status

Current: Supported

The evidence shows a clear two-tier pattern: (1) disciplines whose core concepts are already captured (Bradford Hill, OCEBM, CASP, SIFT, CRAAP) and (2) disciplines with genuinely novel contributions (legal evidence law, engineering safety analysis, and to a lesser extent historical source criticism). Auditing standards occupy an intermediate position — they formalize evidence sufficiency in ways that parallel GRADE but with a distinct reliability hierarchy.

Supporting Evidence

Evidence Summary
SRC01-E01 Legal standards of proof hierarchy introduces policy-driven probability thresholds
SRC02-E01 Legal evidence law contributes admissibility gating, adversarial testing, privilege
SRC03-E01 Auditing formalizes evidence sufficiency with context-dependent reliability
SRC04-E01 Bradford Hill is largely subsumed by GRADE/IPCC
SRC05-E01 FMEA contributes multi-axis quantitative risk scoring
SRC06-E01 OCEBM is a precursor to GRADE
SRC07-E01 Source criticism contributes authentication-before-evaluation
SRC08-E01 SIFT/CRAAP are pedagogical simplifications

Contradicting Evidence

No evidence directly contradicts H3. All evidence is consistent with the two-tier pattern described above.

Reasoning

H3 is supported because the evidence reveals a clear pattern: disciplines that share epistemological roots with science (epidemiology, EBM) have concepts already captured by the nine frameworks. Disciplines with fundamentally different operating constraints (law: adversarial fairness; engineering: quantitative risk management) contribute genuinely novel concepts. This makes intuitive sense — the nine frameworks are derived from scientific and intelligence traditions, so disciplines in those traditions are already represented.

The specific novel contributions are:

  1. Legal evidence law: Admissibility gating (excluding relevant evidence for procedural reasons), privilege doctrines (deliberately subordinating truth to other values), adversarial testing (cross-examination as reliability mechanism), burden shifting, and the weight vs. admissibility distinction.

  2. Engineering safety (FMEA): Three-axis quantitative risk scoring (severity x occurrence x detection), formalized detection probability as a distinct evaluation dimension, and action priority as an alternative to single-score risk ranking.

  3. Historical source criticism: Authentication-before-evaluation (external criticism must pass before internal criticism begins), the formal distinction between document genuineness and content truthfulness.

Relationship to Other Hypotheses

H3 is the nuanced middle ground between H1 (too many) and H2 (none). The evidence clearly supports that some but not all disciplines contribute novel concepts.

ACH Consistency

Rating Count
Consistent 8
Inconsistent 0
N/A 0