academic-verify — Trace Claims to Source Data
Convention: see conventions/quality.md for citation rules; every verdict cites the source data, not just the author's claim about the source data.
Convention: see conventions/brain-first.md for the lookup chain. This skill enforces brain-first by checking existing brain pages before issuing a fresh web search.
What this is
A claim-verification flow for academic / research statements. When a book, article, or speaker cites a study or quotes a number, this skill traces the claim through:
claim → publication → methodology section → raw data source → independent verification
At each step, it answers:
- Where does this number come from? (Self-generated? Survey? Government data?)
- What's the baseline? (Reduction from what? Over what time period?)
- Is the raw data available? (Public? Proprietary? "Available on request"?)
- Has anyone independently verified it? (Replication study? Government audit?)
- Are there confounding factors? (Other interventions, policy changes, COVID, sampling bias?)
- Is the comparison fair? …
