[spunkets]

"Sentences in text books and news articles don't say, "It is irrefutable fact that..." They say, "Most stars are binary systems." "Gobal warming is..." etc."

The reader is assumed to be an intelligent rational agent. THe limitation always implied is "thought to be". If one really understands this, they can know and understand things. If they can not, understand it, they will never be able to grasp, "strength of the evidence".

[edsheppa]

The reader is assumed to be an intelligent rational agent.

That's a very poor assumption. But even if it weren't, it would, on its own, be insufficient to justify the practice.