Category: Papers

We present a taxonomy of six dismissal categories, an asymmetry index, and the Van Zuilen Standard for evaluating whether dismissals meet the same evidentiary bar as the claims they challenge. Applied to 11 cases across 40 years, the framework reveals consistent structural asymmetry across two scientific domains.

When early Earth biosignature claims are dismissed, the dismissal standard is almost never as rigorous as the claim standard. We document this asymmetry across 40 years of published research and name the threshold where it closes: the Van Zuilen Standard.