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Reasoning error · logic
Moving the goalposts occurs when a claim is protected from disconfirmation by replacing an agreed or implied evidence criterion with a new, stricter or different criterion after the original one is satisfied.
Explore connections →Standards sometimes should change. A better measurement, discovered confounder or newly identified failure mode can justify a stricter test.
The key distinction is whether the revision is evidence-based and prospective, or whether it is introduced only to prevent an unwanted result from counting.
Research basis
Classic evidence that beliefs or impressions can persist after their original evidentiary basis has been discredited; this is a related persistence mechanism, not a formal definition of moving the goalposts.
Finds substantial belief updating under clear evidence in several studies, a useful caution against treating belief perseverance as inevitable.
Investigation ↔ Learn
The staging claim conflicts with several independent evidence streams: third-party radio tracking, lunar samples studied outside NASA, hardware still used for lunar laser ranging, and later orbital images matching the recorded landing sites.
Field experiments on Rapa Nui have shown that a heavy moai-shaped replica can be raised upright by staged leverage and stone supports. These demonstrations reject categorical physical impossibility, but do not reconstruct the precise historical raising process at every ahu.
The categorical impossibility of transporting the moai is contradicted by multi-ton physical experiments and transport-road archaeology. Specific techniques, exceptionally large statues and corrected dataset denominators remain subject to historical investigation. The separate question of erecting moai on ahu platforms is treated independently.