[yuan43]

I think the problem might be with your word "legit." What do you mean by it?

The idea of "legit" does not exist in science. There are hypotheses, created by observation of some phenomenon and an attempt at generalization. There are tests of the hypothesis, which are experiments aimed at disproving it. There's also accumulation of evidence against a hypothesis. Those that don't fall over due to contradictory evidence endure.

Just like nobody rings a bell at the top of a market, nobody blows a horn to announce the arrival of scientific truth. It's all subject to being overturned at any time by new evidence.

When encountering a new paper, this background process is running. Where along the trajectory does this paper lie? Is it contradicting previous findings? If so, how strong is the evidence? How reasonable are the experimental methods? How consistent with the evidence are the conclusions? Was a falsifiable claim ever formulated and/or tested in the first place?