Recent years have seen a growing number of empirical studies that examine negative entrenchment and statistical preemption as mechanisms of frequency-based learning in second language (L2) acquisition. As the body of research expands, there is a need to take stock of how these mechanisms have been studied and what kinds of evidence have accumulated. This scoping review analyses 24 empirical studies published between 1993 and 2024, focusing on the range of target structures, language backgrounds, task types, and reported outcomes. While both negative entrenchment and statistical preemption have received empirical support, null results were also frequently reported. Crucially, these null results are not confined to specific methodological choices or task types. This review, therefore, examines the conditions under which such mixed findings emerge and shows that they arise at the intersection of L1 influence and broader universal constraints. Building on this analysis, the paper proposes several methodological directions, including simulation-informed Bayesian modelling as an integrative approach and experimental paradigms carefully designed to isolate mechanisms as a disentangling approach. It also highlights the need for greater transparency in sample-size determination, preregistration practices, and other measures that enhance the reliability of future research.

ABSTRACT Evidence resistance occurs when individuals fail to update their beliefs in ways recommended by the evidence. Scholars representing a range of disciplines have offered various explanations of evidence resistance, including motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, and distrust toward sources of evidence. Even when taken together, these explanations do not fully account for evidence resistance as it manifests in the real world. I argue that a key causal factor in certain important cases of evidence resistance is suspicion about the way in which the evidence is controlled. Among other merits, this explanation explains how distrust can cause resistance to certain kinds of evidence and not others, why conspiracy theorists are especially prone to evidence resistance, and why novel technologies, especially generative artificial intelligence, promote resistance to certain kinds of evidence.

In this article, I argue that patients' testimonial knowledge is assessed with a default evidentialist approach. I primarily support this claim by drawing from work on physicians' accounts of assessing the trustworthiness of patients' testimony. Furthermore, I explicate a three-tiered evidence-ranking approach within these physician accounts and detail how it resembles existing hierarchical evidence-ranking frameworks in medicine. I then discuss the role that aperspectival objectivity plays in this evidentialist approach and highlight some tensions that emerge. Next, I identify some practical, epistemic, and ethical consequences of said evidentialist approach and end on potential strategies for mitigating the potential negative consequences. The account I detail ultimately reveals much of the epistemic complexity surrounding patients' testimonial knowledge as a kind of evidence.

Abstract This article provides an introduction to the Italic peoples known as the Aequi and Aequiculi. Emphasis is placed on the archaeological evidence because in recent decades fieldwork has significantly increased the body of archaeological data available about Aequian territory. In an attempt to contribute to the archaeological framework for understanding the Aequi and Aequiculi, we focus on the question of identifying places of religious significance, which do not seem to have left an obvious mark in the archaeological record. We review evidence from a sample of sites – Sant’Erasmo (Borgorose, Rieti), Alzano (Pescorocchiano, Rieti), Sant’Angelo di Civitella (Pescorocchiano, Rieti), Carsòli (L’Aquila), and Monte San Fabrizio (Rocca di Botte, L’Aquila) – and we analyze this evidence in light of approaches that have previously been proposed for recognizing Aequian religious sites. We conclude that such sites can successfully be identified based on: 1) a topographical relationship with nearby hilltop settlements; 2) signs of ancestor worship associated with burials; 3) and/or evidence of continuity with Roman-period religious sites. The presence of polygonal masonry terracing is a less certain indicator, and we argue that this kind of evidence should not be interpreted indiscriminately as a sign that any Aequian site was religious in nature.

ABSTRACT Resemblance theories are a popular way of accounting for music’s capacity to be expressive of emotions. According to such theories, musical expressiveness depends on a perceived resemblance between music and human expressive behavior, both vocal (prosodic features, expressive vocalizations), and bodily (gestures, posture, deportment). This article asks whether the available evidence from the field of music psychology supports resemblance theories over their competitors, and answers the question in the negative. I divide the relevant scientific literature into two areas. The first consists in studies that show structural analogies between musical structures and expressive behavior. The second posits causal mechanism that link our experience of expressive music to the way we experience human expressive behavior. I show that neither kind of evidence should ground a preference for resemblance theories over competing views. In the final part of the article, I ask whether the same evidence could be used to settle an issue internal to the resemblance theory, that is, the relative importance to our experience of expressive music of vocal vs. bodily emotional expressive behavior. I conclude that an answer to this question depends on how exactly we interpret some of the resemblance theory’s commitments.

Background:There is increasing evidence that menstrual changes (MC) should be considered as an adverse event resulting from COVID-19 vaccination. However, the contributing health factors are still poorly understood.Objectives:The aim was to analyze the characteristics and factors influencing MC after the administration of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 vaccine.Design & Methods:A retrospective observational study of currently menstruating women (N = 14,550) in Spain was conducted during the month of December 2021 using an online survey. Among others, general characteristics of the menstrual cycle, medical history, and adverse events following vaccination—including MC—were recorded. Bivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the influencing factors.Results:45.0%—50.9% of respondents reported experiencing mostly transient MC after both doses of COVID-19 vaccine, including different spotting (41.6%—49.0%), longer periods (26.5%—29.5%) and/or heavier flow (28.7%—31.6%). Binary logistic regression analysis showed that some of the inter-individual factors that may be involved in this unexpected event are age (dose 2: adjusted odds ratio (aOR): 1.02; 95% confidence intervals (CI): 1.02–1.03), heavy menstrual flow (dose 1: aOR: 1.12; 95% CI: 1.00–1.25), use of short- (dose 1: aOR: 1.38; 95% CI: 1.24–1.54) to medium-term contraception (dose 1: aOR: 1.31; 95% CI: 1.09–1.57), number of previous pregnancies (dose 1: aOR: 1.11; 95% CI: 1.03–1.19), pre-existing diagnoses of certain clinical conditions—including endometriosis (dose 1: aOR: 1.33; 95% CI: 1.11–1.59)—and suffering from other vaccine adverse events.Conclusion:Currently menstruating women may experience MC after COVID-19 vaccination. Further research is warranted to address the influencing factors, considering their heterogeneity according to the geographical background of the target population. This kind of evidence could prove instrumental in the context of future viral outbreaks, helping healthcare professionals to provide scientifically up-to-date information to patients for making informed decisions regarding their well-being, particularly in societies where menstruation remains a taboo subject.

Disciplinary argumentation is a discursive practice that involves inquiry, construction and communication of knowledge. Far from being an homogeneous practice, scientific disciplines “vary as much in the kind of problems that they inquire into as in the forms of argumentation that they adopt” (Hyland 2012:31). Given that academic discourses are privileged ways to integrate apprentices in their disciplinary and professional communities (Parodi, 2010), learning this practice becomes specially relevant for the effective inclusion of new members. In this paper we present an analysis of written works of advanced students in Educational Psychology and Chemical Engineering of UNPA, focusing on the main argumentative schemes that they elaborate, the kind of evidences that they use and the ways in which they dialogue with their discursive tradition. The analysis shows certain distinctive notes on how students construe a disciplinary identity.

BackgroundMechanistic evidence is evidence about how an intervention works. A 2023 Cochrane review, which was restricted to randomised controlled trials (RCTs), concluded that evidence on the efficacy of face masks was weak, conflicting and non-definitive. A 2024 narrative review, which included RCTs plus mechanistic evidence on masks and mask mandates, concluded that evidence of efficacy was strong, consistent and definitive. These strikingly contrasting conclusions reflect differences in how evidence is valued. Orthodox synthesis methods (e.g. those used for Cochrane reviews, informed by GRADE criteria) classify mechanistic evidence as lower quality than RCT evidence, but this position has been challenged by (among others) philosophers, non-RCT researchers and advocacy groups. We seek to include mechanistic evidence in a systematic review of mask efficacy.MethodThree overlapping work packages (methodology, review, philosophical analysis) will run concurrently. We will extend and refine the philosophical approach of Evidential Pluralism, which has been applied in a technique known as EBM+, to develop Systematic Review+ (SR+). SR+ will use Bayesian methods to support judgements of whether and to what extent interventions are effective. We will apply SR+ to face mask (and mask mandate) efficacy studies purposively selected for their epistemic contribution (the most robust and influential studies in each evidential category). We will consider whether SR+ adequately addresses philosophical objections to orthodox systematic review, including epistemological (does it adequately incorporate mechanistic evidence into reviews of efficacy?) and ethical (does it adequately address epistemic injustice, in which someone is wronged in their capacity as knower?).DiscussionWe hope to produce a robust synthesis of evidence on face masks that will inform policy and a general methodology for incorporating mechanistic evidence into systematic reviews. We also hope to contribute to the scholarly literature on the philosophy of causality. Causal claims generally require at least two kinds of evidence: associative (to show that a change in one phenomenon is associated with a change in another) and mechanistic (to be confident that observed associations are causal). We hypothesise that orthodox systematic review, enhanced with mechanistic evidence, will be able to support stronger and more nuanced causal claims.Systematic review registrationINPLASY202550024, INPLASY202540045.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13643-025-02973-2.

Toomey et al (2024) found that US participants were more likely to follow a medical treatment preference-expressed after substantial cognitive decline-of a third person rather than their own future self. This correlated with a greater tendency to see the third person as still their true self. We hypothesised that the greater epistemic access one has to one's own true self as opposed to others might drive this difference. A codebook designed to capture different kinds of evidence and reasoning was developed, and participants' explanations for their treatment decisions in Toomey et al's study were coded and qualitatively analysed. In first-person cases, participants were more likely to explain their treatment decision with reference to perceived direct access to their own true self. In contrast, in third-person cases, participants more often relied on proxies or heuristics, such as the presumption that an expressed preference is an authentic one or that preferences expressed with greater cognition tend to better reflect the true self. These findings support the hypothesis that differential epistemic access to the true self in first- and third-person cases may drive different medical treatment decisions. Participants may be trying to follow the patient's 'true' or 'authentic' preference in all cases, but relying on different kinds of evidence in so doing.

The White-spotted spinefoot S. canaliculatus, is an economically important marine fish in South China and featured by possessing poisonous glands in its fin spines. However, the unavailability of the S. canaliculatus genome has been a serious obstacle to genetic breeding as well as basic researches such as uncovering genomic basis underlying its toxigenic glands. Here, we presented a chromosome-level genome assembly coupled with good annotation of S. canaliculatus using multiple omics technologies. The assembled genome size was 547.39 Mb, with a contig N50 and scaffold N50 length of 21.41 Mb and 21.79 Mb, respectively. Approximately 95.32% (521.76 Mb) of assembled sequences were placed into 24 pseudochromosomes with the support of Hi-C contact map. Furthermore, around 16.37% of the genome was composed of repetitive elements. The quality of the assembly assessed using BUSCO showed that 98.6% of BUSCO genes were identified as complete. 25,323 protein-coding genes were predicted after integration of three kinds of evidence, of which 96.96% were functionally annotated in at least one of nine protein databases. In sum, the chromosome-level genome assembly and annotation provide fundamental resources for genetic breeding and molecular mechanism related studies of S. canaliculatus.

Abstract This essay examines Jerrold Levinson’s hypothetical intentionalism with respect to the following two objections raised by actual intentionalists: (1) it is arbitrary to exclude certain kinds of evidence, such as the author’s pronouncements of intention, when hypothesizing about authorial intention; and (2) there exist counter-examples. I argue that these objections fail to establish that actual intentionalism is superior to hypothetical intentionalism and that hypothetical intentionalism is more plausible than actual intentionalism. I also suggest, however, that hypothetical intentionalism has difficulties when applied to truth in fiction and thus may not be a complete theory of literary work meaning broadly construed.

Photo ID 280792184 © Jj Gouin| Dreamstime.com Abstract Healthcare providers should advocate for human and civil rights. They ought to recognize injustices that unfairly disadvantage certain groups of people and work to improve broader conditions that affect health. Healthcare systems have historically undervalued and even excluded certain voices from the creation of an evidence base for care, furthering health disparities for members of these groups. This is a form of testimonial injustice. Trans people experience a particular form of testimonial injustice in healthcare settings when evidence and expertise related to their lived experience are excluded from consideration, as was the case with the 2024 Cass Review. Such exclusion can lead to mistreatment and harm. Providers must be vigilant in recognizing and addressing testimonial injustice against trans patients and the health disparities it can cause. Introduction Trans individuals (people who identify as transgender, transsexual, or whose gender identity is different from the sex they were assigned at birth) face many barriers to health care. The lack of competent, knowledgeable providers poses a significant barrier to gender-affirming care, as well as other forms of everyday health care for trans people.[1] Addressing this challenge requires health professionals to actively oppose structures that perpetuate epistemic injustice, which Miranda Fricker defines as “wrong done to someone specifically in their capacity as a knower.” Testimonial injustice (a kind of epistemic injustice) undermines collective understanding of marginalized perspectives through systemic misrepresentation or dismissal of marginalized individuals’ experiences or contributions.[2] Testimonial injustice contributes to unjust conditions for accessing care and results in poorer health outcomes for transgender individuals. As professionals committed to ethical and equitable patient treatment, we believe it is imperative that healthcare providers recognize and carefully consider the experiences and expertise of trans people in order to address injustices experienced by trans people in healthcare settings. Through an analysis of the Cass Review, we demonstrate how a flawed interpretation of available evidence and the dismissal of trans testimonies generates an injustice that results in significant and unwarranted restrictions on gender-affirming care. Testimonial Injustice Trans people regularly experience testimonial injustice in health care. It occurs when providers inappropriately discount their patients’ accounts — for example, by refusing to believe patients when they say that they are trans or gender non-conforming. This results in prejudiced assumptions about health behaviors or needs, bias and stereotyping that influence clinical judgment, and harm in the form of worse physical and mental health outcomes.[3] Testimonial injustice takes several pernicious forms. For example, a Black woman whose reports of high postpartum pain are disregarded by her providers because of her Blackness has suffered testimonial injustice when she receives lower doses of pain medication compared to other postpartum patients at the same hospital.[4] Her attestation of pain, an experience at once personal and universal, has been inappropriately regarded as insufficiently credible, resulting in harmful and unequal postpartum pain management. Testimonial injustice harms the physical, mental, and social well-being of trans people, worsening health outcomes caused by systemic barriers and discriminatory practices. Negative healthcare experiences, along with mistreatment from providers, lead to disproportionately high rates of depression, psychological distress, and suicidal ideation among trans patients.[5] These harmful interactions lead to lower healthcare utilization and delayed treatment. Trans people are also less likely to receive preventative cancer screenings, including for cervical, breast, and colorectal cancers.[6] These disparities, compounded by the accumulation of daily stress from discrimination, contribute to not only an increased risk of cancer but also to worse cancer outcomes.[7] Trans people are diagnosed at later stages, they are less likely to receive treatment for cancer and also have higher mortality rates for certain cancers.[8] Similar disparities are seen in cardiovascular health;[9] trans people are at greater risk for heart attacks.[10] They are also more likely to have multiple concurrent chronic conditions, including coronary heart disease, asthma, arthritis, diabetes, cancer, stroke, kidney disease, etc.[11] Clearly, there are significant and life-threatening gaps in care for trans people. These disparities result in worsened health outcomes, increased mistrust, and preventable deaths. A key factor in addressing these disparities is awareness of testimonial injustice: providers must recognize how their personal interactions with trans individuals, in the context of broader systemic barriers to adequate healthcare, can contribute to harmful practices and negligent care. In what follows, we argue that testimonial injustice contributes to trans peoples’ well-documented experiences of healthcare discrimination. The Cass Review The 2024 Cass Review (“the Review”), an independent review of gender treatment for trans youth commissioned by the National Health Service (NHS) in England, has caused significant harm to young trans people in the UK. The NHS ordered the Review, comprising of six systematic reviews, after concerns arose regarding an increase in referrals for trans care associated with doubts about its scientific rationale. The Review’s recommendations stem from a narrow reading of the evidence base for gender-affirming care and have resulted in significant restrictions on puberty-suppressing medication, hormone therapy, and care availability for trans youth in the UK.[12] Professional organizations and transgender health providers have widely criticized the Review’s findings. They assert that it contains many errors that “conflict with well-established norms of clinical research and evidence-based health care” and “raise serious concern about the scientific integrity of critical elements of the report’s process and recommendations.”[13] For example, the Review claims that referrals for trans care have grown exponentially (even while most transgender adolescents in the UK are not referred for care, and an expert critique of the Review led by the Integrity Project at Yale University found that the exponential growth is likely the result of double-counting referrals). This critique observes that the Review makes the provision of gender-affirming care appear “rushed, careless, and common,”[14] despite a waiting time of over two years for the assessment. Further, of the patients seen during the Review’s period of study, only 27 percent were referred to endocrinology for consideration of medical intervention. The Review includes an unsubstantiated concern that early supportive interventions such as puberty blockers necessarily result in irreversible effects. Puberty blockers, or gonadotropin releasing analogue (GnRHa), cause a temporary downregulation of the production of estrogen or testosterone when used during early puberty.[15] When prescribed for cis (people whose gender identity corresponds to the sex they were assigned at birth) and trans youth alike, they pause puberty (i.e., delaying development of secondary sex characteristics) reversibly. Reproductive function is restored if endogenous puberty resumes.[16] This therapy alone does not typically cause permanent physical changes, and when treatment is stopped, puberty resumes.[17] GnRHa medications are commonly used in treatment for precocious puberty in cisgender youth without impairing reproductive development or function, and research has demonstrated that puberty was continued within one year after GnRHa discontinuation.[18],[19] Long-acting GnRHa usage is also routinely seen in fertility preservation as the only medical option to preserve ovarian function in patients with cancer.[20] Indeed, after starting GnRHa medications, the collection of sperm or ova for reproductive purposes is a well-established option.[21] Studies have consistently shown that puberty blockers lead to positive outcomes for trans youth, including significant improvements in overall functioning, reductions in depressive symptoms, and lower lifetime rates of suicidal ideation.[22] The Review’s approach to the evaluation of evidence led to the exclusion of substantial peer-reviewed evidence in support of puberty blockers and hormones, including evidence regarding the lived experiences of trans youth. For instance, the authors deemed only one of the 50 studies in the systematic review of puberty blockers to be “high quality.” This is not a value-neutral or inevitable way to frame these studies. Rather, the research studies excluded from the Review because of “low evidence” were often qualitative or observational investigations that had no control group, while the ones considered “high quality” tended to be randomized controlled trials (RCTs).[23] However, discounting observational studies inappropriately treats transness as exceptional because observational studies constitute much of the evidence that guides clinical care for all fields of medicine.[24] Indeed, the World Health Organization published a series of papers in 2019 on the value of including qualitative studies in the development of clinical guidelines, arguing that “Qualitative evidence is crucial to improve the understanding on how, and whether, people perceive health interventions to be effective and acceptable. It is also essential to understand the factors influencing the implementation of health policies and interventions.” In other words, this kind of evidence provides context and reasoning that frame, rather than flattens, the complexity of human experiences that shape and

This study examines what kinds of evidence are used and valued in advancing the goals of health psychology and behavioral medicine. As no systematic analysis of the prevalence and scholarly impact of different research designs appears to be available, the present research addressed three questions: How often are observational and experimental designs used in psychological research on health? Has the prevalence of these designs changed over time? And what is the scholarly impact of research using observational versus experimental designs? All quantitative, empirical studies published in six prominent journals between 2012 and 2016, and during the first six months of 2024 were coded for use of observational and experimental designs. Citations were identified using Scopus. Observational studies were 2.3 times more prevalent than experimental studies during the period, 2012-2016 (69.4% vs. 30.6%) and were even more common in the first half of 2024 (77.1% vs. 22.9%). Citation rates for observational and experimental studies were equivalent (M = 31.2 and 33.0, respectively). This study indicates the prevalence and scholarly impact of different research designs in health psychology and behavioral medicine and offers a starting point for discussions concerning the optimal balance between observational and experimental research. The findings invite researchers to contemplate and debate what proportion of observational and experimental studies will best promote the goals of our field.

More and more, automated decision systems are being used in Human Resource Management (HRM) to screen resumes, rank candidates, decide who gets promoted, and predict who is likely to leave the company. Even if these tools make things more efficient, they often make it harder for people to question, fix, or challenge decisions, which might be unfair, unclear, and legally accountable. This study examines contestability in automated HR decisions by developing and assessing appeal systems that facilitate substantive dispute, evidence submission, and review. Contestability is defined as a socio-technical capability comprising three dimensions: informational access to decision factors, evidentiary access for submitting corrections or contextual information, and revision authority that delineates who reviews appeals and the standards under which decisions may be revised. Phase 1 uses a mixed-methods designscience approach to find out what kinds of evidence are admissible, what kinds of operational limits there are, and what kinds of contestation needs there are by interviewing applicants, employees, recruiters, and HR compliance officers. Phase 2 analyzes different appeal designs by running controlled trials that look at procedural fairness, trust, privacy concerns, and how well people accept the results. Phase 3 tests good designs in fake recruiting and promotion instances to see how well they fix mistakes, how long it takes to get back to work, and how outcomes change for different groups. Keywords: contestability, automated HR decisions, algorithmic recourse, procedural justice, Explainable AI (XAI), algorithmic governance

A controversy on the degree of marine influence in the paleoenvironments represented by many Paleozoic stegocephalian-bearing fossiliferous localities has persisted for decades. Many authors have equated the absence of a typical stenohaline marine fauna with freshwater environments, but this ignores continental salt lakes and the many transitional environments (deltaic, estuarine, lagoonal, and some epicontinental seas that receive much freshwater influx, like the Baltic Sea) that separate typical marine environments from freshwater environments. This is problematic because it seems plausible that many of the late Paleozoic sediments that have been preserved were deposited on coasts in deltas and estuaries. The author had compiled a dataset of paleoenvironmental interpretations of Devonian to Early Permian stegocephalian (“tetrapod”)-bearing fossiliferous localities in 2010. How have these interpretations withstood the test of time, especially in the face of new results from different kinds of evidence? An updated dataset and a new literature review show that the case for a marine origin of stegocephalians has strengthened, especially through additional discoveries or reinterpretations of fossils that suggest marine influence in various classical vertebrate-bearing Permo-Carboniferous localities traditionally interpreted as freshwater, and a recent analysis of stable isotopes in Late Devonian localities.

A controversy on the degree of marine influence in the paleoenvironments represented by many Paleozoic stegocephalian-bearing fossiliferous localities has persisted for decades. Many authors have equated the absence of a typical stenohaline marine fauna with freshwater environments, but this ignores continental salt lakes and the many transitional environments (deltaic, estuarine, lagoonal, and some epicontinental seas that receive much freshwater influx, like the Baltic Sea) that separate typical marine environments from freshwater environments. This is problematic because it seems plausible that many of the late Paleozoic sediments that have been preserved were deposited on coasts in deltas and estuaries. The author had compiled a dataset of paleoenvironmental interpretations of Devonian to Early Permian stegocephalian (“tetrapod”)-bearing fossiliferous localities in 2010. How have these interpretations withstood the test of time, especially in the face of new results from different kinds of evidence? An updated dataset and a new literature review show that the case for a marine origin of stegocephalians has strengthened, especially through additional discoveries or reinterpretations of fossils that suggest marine influence in various classical vertebrate-bearing Permo-Carboniferous localities traditionally interpreted as freshwater, and a recent analysis of stable isotopes in Late Devonian localities.

Based on Article 351 (Paragraph 1) of the Criminal Code on ordinary persecution where in this article persecution is divided into three parts, namely ordinary, mild and severe persecution as in the case that I took to make this thesis with case number 2/Pid.B/2019/PN. In this case, the panel of judges sentenced the perpetrator of persecution to 10 months imprisonment, while the sentence that should have been imposed on the perpetrator of ordinary persecution was 2 years and 8 months by considering various kinds of evidence and factors of persecution, This study aims to analyze cases of persecution that refer to Article 351 of the Criminal Code (KUHP) in Indonesia. In this analysis, we identify the elements necessary to determine whether an act can be classified as maltreatment under Article 351 of the Criminal Code. This research involves a case study and analysis of the Depok district court decision, as well as referring to applicable laws and regulations. The results of this analysis may provide a better understanding of the application of Article 351 of the Criminal Code in cases of maltreatment and its implications for the criminal justice system in Indonesia. Keywords: Maltreatment under Article 351 of the Penal Code

Text-mining was piloted in an evaluation of the Human Rights-Based Approach in Finland’s development cooperation. Textual and numerical evidence was extracted from project documents using rules-based, machine learning and topic modelling techniques. This practice-oriented article exemplifies considerations for evaluation managers from a civil servant’s perspective. It discusses obstacles to engaging with these techniques identified by literature. It demonstrates the feasibility of piloting new technologies for public administrations with limited human resources, emphasising guidance from the evaluation manager, staff training and early collaboration with data scientists and partners. Text-mining offers new ways of generating and analysing data. The limitations call for mixed-methods, evaluative judgement by evaluators and human oversight by the evaluation manager. Although resource-intensive, employing these methods does not require one to become a data scientist but to understand what kind of evidence can be generated. Management propositions are provided.

This article examines how radiological images became accepted by courts as visual evidence of death in the 20th century. Initially conceived as a speciality of photography, X-rays confounded courts, eliciting a range of judicial responses, from outright refusal to consider the images as any kind of evidence, to mocking them as cheap parlour tricks for an unwitting public, to recognising them as more reliable than the testimony of the expert witness. The article contends that courts moved towards recognising X-rays as proof of death only by both affirming forensic radiology's promise of ‘mechanical objectivity’ while acknowledging its reliance on the fallibility of ‘human subjectivity’. We suggest that this history has broader implications in socio-legal studies for comprehending how the invention of novel optical techniques continues to problematise legal epistemologies of death in the 21st century.

Many questions about educational topics—such as the effectiveness of teaching methods—are of causal nature. Yet, reasoning about causality is prone to widespread fallacies, such as mistaking correlation for causation. This study examined preservice teachers’ ability to evaluate how various types of evidence provide adequate support for causal claims, using psychology students as a comparison group. The experiment followed a 2 × 3 mixed design with the within-participant factor evidence type (i.e., anecdotal, correlational, experimental) and the between-participants factor study field (i.e., teacher education, psychology). Participants (N = 135) sequentially read short texts on three different educational topics, each presenting a claim and associated evidence. For each topic, participants indicated their claim agreement, and evaluated the convincingness of the argument and the strength of the evidential support. Results from mixed ANOVAs displayed main effects for evidence type on the convincingness of the argument and strength of evidential support, but not on individual claim agreement. Participants found experimental evidence to be more convincing and to provide stronger support for causal claims compared to anecdotal evidence. This pattern occurred similarly for both student groups and remained stable when controlling for cognitive and motivational covariates. Overall, preservice teachers seem to possess a basic understanding of different kinds of evidence and their differential strength in supporting causal arguments. Teacher education may build upon this foundational knowledge to enhance future teachers’ competencies in critically appraising evidence from educational research and relating it to school-related claims and issues.