Red-Team a Claim

Red-Team a Claim

Try to break the lab's own conclusion. An unattacked finding is not yet a finding, and the point of this pass is to fail — the ones that survive a real attempt are the ones worth reporting.

When to use

• A findings row is about to move to defended.
• A conclusion feels obviously right. That feeling is the trigger, not the exemption.

Steps

1. Attack the evidence first. Is the source primary? Was it read? Does the passage cited actually say this, or a narrower version of it?
2. Attack the inference. Does the evidence support the claim, or something adjacent that sounds the same? Correlation stated as mechanism is the commonest one here.
3. Look for the missing arm. What would this look like if it were false, and has anybody gone to find that?
4. Check the sample and the scope. How far does this generalise, and where has it silently been generalised past?
5. Try to construct a counter-example. Compute one if the analyst can.
6. Record the attempt in attacked_by — what was tried, what survived, and what did not. Where the finding does not survive, move it to refuted with the reason, which is worth more to the lab than a missing row.

Output

The findings row updated with what was tried and what held, moved to defended or refuted. "I could not find a problem" is a legitimate result and must say what was actually attempted, or it is indistinguishable from not having looked.