# Sincerity and Correctness Need Separate Evidence ## Claim Whether someone means a stated belief and whether they are right are two questions with separate evidence, and establishing one settles nothing about the other. <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> ## Scope & conditions - Costly, career-affecting action is good evidence of sincerity and no evidence of correctness — a resignation shows conviction, not that the conviction is warranted. - The conflation runs both directions: dismissing a claim because the speaker benefits from it is the same error in reverse. - Most useful where insider testimony is the only available evidence, which is exactly where the two get merged. - Does not say sincerity is irrelevant — it is strong evidence about what the speaker actually believes, which is often the question being asked. ## Evidence From coverage of Anthropic insiders stating existential risk beliefs on the record, including a resignation and named on-record statements. ## Links - [[Experience and Its Causal Interpretation Require Separate Tests]] — the same split applied to a felt experience and the explanation offered for it - [[A Checkable Admission Outranks an Unmethodical Number]] — what to track instead when sincerity is established and correctness is not - [[A Costly Mechanism Is Better Evidence of Belief Than a Statement]] — the evidence that does establish sincerity, and its limit - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Evidence & Claims Literacy MOC]] — the claims-literacy thread on separating what evidence establishes.