# Academic Slop

## Working definition
Academic slop is an underconstrained narrative wearing the credentials of a constrained inference. It joins real dots with citations, equations and institutional signals while leaving too many incompatible causal structures consistent with the evidence.

## Core tests
- What observations would count against the proposed mechanism?
- Which rival models are observationally equivalent?
- Were comparisons specified before the striking example was selected?
- Does improved fit identify mechanism or only increase flexibility?
- What does the model actually rule out?