[exmadscientist]

I'm actually the anti-rubric guy! What matters to me is whether your arguments are appropriate to support your conclusions. Not whether you jump through the right hoops.

This guy played it straight: these measurements, this result, that conclusion. But the evidence chain was bad: results couldn't be derived from those measurements, and conclusion couldn't be derived from those results. So I called it out.

This is literally my day job, so I don't really like seeing poorly reasoned research, and maybe I'm more sensitive than most. But if you're going to play it straight, I think you should get it right. If that means you use a lot more weasel words, so be it -- if something is your opinion I can't argue with it. But when you state it as a fact, you better be able to back it up.