I17. Criteria for the Scientific Status of Cross-Domain Regularities in Vitology: Support, Restriction, Refutation, and Replication

This article formalizes criteria for assigning scientific status to candidate cross-domain regularities in Vitology and defines the conditions for support, restriction, non-support, refutation, and replication.

I16 previously introduced the scientific-status scale S0–S5. I17 supplements it with an independent evidence-level scale L0–L5:

L0 — Conceptual

L1 — Formalized

L2 — External Evidence

L3 — Empirically Supported

L4 — Independently Replicated

L5 — Cross-Domain Replicated

The article distinguishes the scientific status of a claim from the level of evidence available for that claim. Multiple conceptually similar publications do not constitute a direct empirical test; one positive experiment does not establish a reproducible regularity; and within-domain replication does not demonstrate cross-domain universality.

Seven admissible outcomes are introduced:

SUPPORTED; PARTIALLY SUPPORTED; RESTRICTED; REDUCIBLE TO ESTABLISHED SCIENCE; NOT SUPPORTED; REFUTED; OPEN.

Particular attention is given to the distinction between non-support and refutation. Refutation requires a sufficiently discriminating test of a necessary prediction of a specified version of a hypothesis.

The article also introduces replication levels R0–R5 and the principle of reversibility of scientific status: scientific status may decrease when stronger contradictory evidence becomes available.

The central formula of I17 is:

Breadth of Scientific Claim ≤ Breadth of Independent Evidence

I17 is intended to prevent arbitrary advancement of Candidate Regularities of the Source of Life to higher scientific status and to establish an evidence discipline for the subsequent cross-domain validation program I18–I29. 

Keywords: Vitology; viability; scientific status; evidence level; cross-domain regularity; support; restriction; refutation; non-support; replication; reproducibility; Scientific Subtraction; S0–S5; L0–L5.