Sciencepost
A hybrid of goalpost‑moving and proofposting that weaponizes the demand for “scientific proof.” The perpetrator sets an impossibly high bar—often requiring standards that are inappropriate for the field or impossible to meet—and then declares that the target’s failure to produce such “proof” demonstrates that they are unscientific, fraudulent, or delusional. Scienceposting is especially common in debates about qualitative research, indigenous knowledge, and emergent fields, where the demand for RCTs or replication is used to dismiss whole domains of inquiry.
Example: “She presented decades of observational data; he demanded a double‑blind trial. When she explained why that wasn’t feasible, he declared her work ‘unscientific.’ Sciencepost: using unrealistic standards to exclude legitimate knowledge.”
Sciencepost by Abzugal April 1, 2026
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