Agreed that just distilling the main point would do no better, and quite possibly worse.

It might be more helpful if you identified particular passages that seemed to cloud your understanding.

I didn't mean to suggest it was particularly cloudy; it was more meant as an admission of personal failing.

That said, most of my confusion stemmed from thinking you were introducing a new claim when you were actually introducing an alternate framing of the same claim. Were I editing this for publication I would recommend clearly labeling and separating those framings -- e.g., the probability-mathematical discussion vs. the real-world background -- and adding a brief introduction summarizing the basic argument.

Aka "tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em, tell 'em, and then tell 'em what you told 'em."

Do you suspect them of having strong evidence for either?

Nope. I know absolutely nothing about this case other than what you present here, and what you present doesn't suggest any such evidence.