Evidence and uncertainty
A useful answer shows both its support and its limits.
Ask Cougar follows a discipline: keep user-provided facts, model interpretation, assumptions, and unresolved uncertainty distinct enough that a reader can challenge each one.
Evidence is the support, not the conclusion
Evidence is the material offered in support of a statement. In this beta, the model can reason over facts supplied in the conversation, but it does not retrieve or verify current external sources. A model statement without a governed citation is analysis, not verified evidence.
Interpretation connects evidence to meaning
An interpretation explains why a piece of evidence may matter. It should remain separate from the evidence itself because another reader may accept the same support but question the proposed explanation or its relevance.
Uncertainty belongs in the answer
Uncertainty identifies what is unknown, weakly supported, dependent on an assumption, or outside the example. Naming it helps prevent a conditional conclusion from sounding more certain than its support allows.
- Missing information can limit what the evidence establishes.
- Competing explanations can fit the same observations.
- An assumption can fail even when the supporting evidence is accurate.
- New evidence can strengthen, narrow, or invalidate a conclusion.
Invalidation conditions make revision explicit
An invalidation condition states what would cause a conclusion to be reconsidered. It can be a changed assumption, contradictory evidence, a missed constraint, or a threshold that was not met. Stating these conditions turns revision into part of the reasoning rather than treating it as a failure.