Skip to content

Epistemic Rigor Index (ERI): Auditing Methodology

The Epistemic Rigor Index (ERI) is an objective, 100-point forensic rubric deployed by ScientismVsScience.org to audit origins claims, peer-reviewed literature, and academic textbooks. Operating with an "Underwriters Laboratories" inspection posture, the ERI isolates empirical benchtop data from promissory philosophical naturalism (Scientism).

The 5 Auditing Pillars (20 Points Each)

Pillar 1: Thesis Precision & Logical Coherence (20 pts)

  • Evaluates whether models maintain precise chemical/physical terminology without shifting definitions mid-argument.
  • Standard Deduction: -2 to -5 pts [Semantic Boundary Shift] for equating computer equilibrium models or single-molecule stabilization with complete historical systems.

Pillar 2: Epistemic Demarcation: Fact vs. Presupposition (20 pts)

  • Enforces strict boundaries between repeatable laboratory data and promissory naturalism.
  • Standard Deduction: -3 to -5 pts [Unstated Worldview Conflation] when authors invoke "Scientism of the Gaps" (assuming an unguided naturalistic mechanism must exist even when laboratory chemistry fails).

Pillar 3: The Russell Charity Mirror (20 pts)

  • Measures whether the author genuinely understands and steelmans opposing technical critiques.
  • Named after Bertrand Russell's maxim: understanding how an opposing view came to seem true before critiquing it.
  • Standard Deduction: -3 to -5 pts [Caricature / Strawman] for dismissing opposing researchers as ignorant or dishonest.

Pillar 4: Blind Spot Candor & Explanatory Accounting (20 pts)

  • Audits whether the paper candidly discloses its own lethal chemical barriers (mass-action loss, water activity, enantiomeric cross-inhibition, rapid degradation).
  • Standard Deduction: -4 to -6 pts [Model Anomaly Dismissal] for ignoring known physical bottlenecks.

Pillar 5: Pedagogical Utility & Classroom Candor (20 pts)

  • Evaluates how the research is communicated to students and the public.
  • Standard Deduction: -4 to -5 pts [Non-Empirical Discursive Pressure] when tentative hypotheses are packaged into high school and college textbooks as unquestionable historical facts.