Evidibility

Evidibility is a term used to describe the degree to which a proposition, claim, or dataset can be supported by accessible and verifiable evidence. It concerns how visible, traceable, and robust the supporting information is. While not a standardized term across disciplines, evidibility is used in science, law, journalism, and data governance to discuss the strength and transparency of evidentiary support for conclusions.

Common indicators of high evidibility include data availability and provenance, transparent methodologies, reproducibility of analyses, independent corroboration, and clear reporting of uncertainty. Conversely, low evidibility arises from opaque methods, inaccessible data, conflicting results, unverifiable sources, or undisclosed biases. In practice, evaluators may rate evidibility using checklists, quality scores, or open-data standards, recognizing that different domains have different thresholds for what counts as adequate evidence.

In science and medicine, evidibility informs evidence hierarchies and guideline development. In law and policy, it shapes burden of proof and decision-making. In journalism and research, improving evidibility involves preregistration, peer review, data sharing, and transparent reporting. Challenges include data privacy, proprietary constraints, and the complexity of systems where complete verification is difficult or costly.

Evidibility is related to, but distinct from, evidentiality in linguistics and from epistemic justification. It is a pragmatic quality that can vary with context and standards, rather than an absolute truth value of a claim.