Definition
An anti-pattern where a metric is treated as settling a question it was built to inform. A burden ratio, a friction budget, a safety-case result, or a diagnostic score records what an instrument observed; it does not establish that the person it decides about is wrong. Citing a passing score against an objection converts a measurement into a verdict, and the verdict is reached by a party that did not have to live the outcome being measured.
STD-02 §5.4 holds that a measurement the challenged party did not produce is evidence and not a bar. Where a score and an account conflict, the conflict goes to a named reviewer holding authority to resolve it.
It is the technocratic failure mode that exhaustion-biased instrument enables from the other side. That term covers an instrument that under-reports because collecting it cost the subject. This one covers an instrument that is accurate and is then cited as though accuracy ended the argument. An instrument can be well built and still be the wrong authority.
Hypothetical example
- A deployment reports a burden ratio of 6.8 against a ceiling of 7.2, and an operator's account of how long a form actually takes is closed on that basis.