investigation-counter-hypothesis

What problem does it solve?

Prevents the confirmation trap by forcing you to produce and evaluate serious alternative explanations for the same observations, so you can decide which hypothesis the evidence actually supports.

Core Features & Use Cases

• Counter-hypothesis generation: Produces 3-5 genuinely different rival hypotheses (not straw men) such as reverse causation, common cause, selection bias, measurement artifacts, confounds, and base-rate/coincidence alternatives.
• Evidence-fit assessment: Compares how well the original and each rival explain the cited observations and identifies what each would require to be true.
• Discriminating evidence and decisive test: Determines what single observation would most cleanly rule hypotheses apart and proposes the most efficient investigation to narrow credibility.
• Use cases: When you have a claim and want to stress-test it against skepticism (e.g., diagnosing why a metric changed, interpreting surprising events, evaluating causal explanations in research or decision-making, or steel-manning the most plausible alternative before acting).

Quick Start

Use the skill to generate 3-5 rival hypotheses for my claim and then identify the decisive test that would most efficiently discriminate between the best rival and my original hypothesis.