Statements in versus debating

There is a worrying trend in vs debating these days in which any statement is taken immediatly as both definitely true, and also definitely literal. This is definitely a newer development, it used to be that statements were viewed with suspicion and you had to provide extra effort into showing their accuracy. Here I'm going to give my personal guidelines for what statements I use and what I don't, along with a few examples at the end. 

When I am assessing a statement, I assess it through the lense of 3 criteria, which can be positive, neutral or negative. As any negative factor can cast serious doubt on a statement's usage, I give -2 for each negative, +1 for each positive, and +0 for neutral. A statement that has negative points can never be used. A statement with 0 points, either neutral in all regards or positive in two but negative in the third, I consider only "possible" and would only use it as support for something with better evidence. Something with 1 point, having 1 positive regard and neutral in both others, I consider probable, and will state that it is probably or most likely the case that it is true though still view it as not ironclad. +2 is pretty certain and +3 is just clearly the case. The three regards are

1: Truthfulness: How likely is it that the character's words are true and literal. This is positive if the character in question is characteristically honest and direct in their words. This is negative if the character in question is generally deceitful (or has reason to be dishonest) or may be using a figure of speech or hyperbole. This is neutral if character's personality is unknown or doesn't lean particularly one way or the other. 

2: Evidentality: How likely is it that the character is likely to know what they are talking about (related to where their information comes from.) This is positive if there is reason to think the character would know about the subject in question. This is negative if there is no way for the character to verify their own statement or there is other reason to think they wouldn't know. This is neutral if a character's source of information is unknown, or if it's unknown how well known a fact in-universe is.

3: Consistency: How consistent is the information with other facts given. Positive means that the statement fits in nicely with other sources, corroborates other data, or explains things without explanation. Negative means that the statement contradicts other statements or worse other demonstated things. Neutral is if the statement is basically in a vacuum, without much else to tell if it's consistent, or if fits most data nicely but contradicts a few things.

So I'm going to be showing a few character statements and how I assess them using this. First I'm going to start with 2 statements from my favorite series that happen to be about a similar thing that statements are often used for, and so make for a good demonstration. 

Here we see Usagi see a bus go into a hole in the wall that appeared. The Black Hole statement is actually a mistranslation, but regardless it would still not be very credible. Truthfulness is probably positive actually; Usagi is a truthful person speaking to herself here so she has no reason to lie. Evidentality is clearly negative however. Usagi would have no way to confirm that's a black hole, and beyond that she's a poor student at school who would have no way of knowing what one looks like. She isn't even sure of it herself, as she asks it to herself as a question. Consistency is also negative, the portal shows no effects of being a black hole; it's visible, it does not emit radiation, it has no space-time dilation and a normal bus goes through it fine. Overall it's score is -3, very clearly not true.

Here we see King Endymion describe Nemesis as being a black hole, though formed of a planet rather then a star. This is an example of the inverse. Truthfulness is positive; King Endymion is a truthful person who is telling the Senshi about the enemy they will have to face and has no reason to lie or be metaphorical (and gives specific scientific reasons to show it's not metaphorical.) Evidentality is positive, King Endymion uses advanced computers of the far future to determine Nemesis' nature and gives again scientific explanations of what they know about Nemesis. Consistentcy is also positive; they give the exact traits of a black hole; that it distorts spacetime, that it emanates massive radiation, sucks in light (which is the definition of a black hole), invisible to the naked eye. which remain consistent throughout the arc. Overall this would be a +3, which shows that is an extremely credible statement.

This is a statement from One More Day in Marvel Comics where Mephisto stated that in nearly all of infinite realities Peter Parker ends up alone which I used to state the possible level of Peter's bad luck. Truthfulness is negative, Mephisto is a deciever known for his trickery and has reason to be manipulating Peter here. Evidentality is positive; Mephisto given his cosmic status and his awareness of suffering and torment, would likely be aware of how many of Peter's realities he ends up alone. Consistency is also positive as Peter is supernaturally unlucky canonically and this wouldn't be out of place, especially as early Mephisto had shown numerous alternate Peters who ended up unlikely alone. As such the net is 0 and I only used it as a possibility.

Here we have the famous Cell solar system statement. Truthfulness is probably neutral. Cell has a minor characterization of deceitfulness but he is in a hysteric power-rush so how truthful he is being is unknown. Evidentality is also neutral. Cell just attained this form but is technically a biological super-computer and ki users seem to possess some knowledge of how strong their power is, so it's ultimately again unknown if he knows his capacity well enough to judge. Consistenty is positive; there are guidebook statements supportive of the statement and it fits the general powerscale up to this point. As such it has a total of +1 and seems probably true.

This is the statement that got me to make this because I found it crazy people were taking this at face value. Blight here claims that the Presence fears Blight and does not have the ability to destroy him. Truthfulness is negative; Blight is mankind's conceptual shadow, every vile thought of humanity, and has no character for personality, plus has reason to be decietful here in intimidating his enemies making them think it's hopeless to fight. Evidentality is most likely negative. Blight has no way of knowing about the Presence's full capacity and the basis he makes it on is that he still exists at all which is shown to be a false reasoning (as the Presence states he allows Blight to exist for mankind's free will.) You could say it's neutral since we don't know to what extent Blight knows of Presence. Consistency is also negative. The Presence and the Phantom Stranger both say the Presence could defeat Blight and destroy him, but doesn't to give humanity free will. The Presence also has a character of not controlling people, giving them free will, and it is eventually his will given form, the embodied spirit of redemption that defeats Blight. This statement's score is -6, -4 if taking second to be neutral which is very clearly negative.