Plausibility Ranking

Plausibility Ranking

Score candidate explanations on three dimensions — evidence consistency, parsimony, and explanatory scope — then weight and rank them to produce a priority list.

HARD-GATE

Not satisfied → stop, return error: at least 2 candidate explanations are needed to rank.

Pipeline

1. Precondition check: verify completeness of the candidate explanation list
2. Evidence-consistency score (0-10): degree of agreement with known evidence
3. Parsimony score (0-10): number of assumptions the explanation requires (fewer = higher score)
4. Explanatory-scope score (0-10): how many related phenomena it can explain (not just the current anomaly)
5. Weighted ranking: default weights 0.5/0.3/0.2 (evidence/parsimony/scope), adjustable
6. Output ranked list + rationale

Output Format

{
  "weights": {"evidence": 0.5, "parsimony": 0.3, "scope": 0.2},
  "rankings": [
    {
      "rank": 1,
      "explanation_id": "E1",
      "statement": "...",
      "scores": {
        "evidence_consistency": 8,
        "parsimony": 7,
        "explanatory_scope": 6
      },
      "weighted_score": 7.4,
      "rationale": "Why this ranks here",
      "key_weakness": "Main reason it might be wrong"
    }
  ]
}