But I agree with you that it's not binary when the issue is, as with autism, human brains.

I think nearly always when you have operationalized scientific vocabulary you have more than two significant layers. Whether you speak about questions like changes in unemployment, genetic effects on illnesses or IQ, the layer between the common understanding of the term and the operationalized version is there.

Economics quesitons such as "Did China's GDP rise" or "Did inflation rise?" simply boil down to more than two layers. People who are not conscious of the different layers and who only distinguish between the binary of what's in their head and what's out there can make reasoning mistakes. As an economist I wouldn't expect you to make those reasoning mistakes about China's GDP or inflation as you are trained to reflect about those concepts but people who aren't trained in economics frequently make mistakes because they are not conscious of the abstractions and you might make the mistake in other areas where you aren't trained to reflect about the area in you try to reason with the binary model in those areas as default.

Yes, but they are using words in ways that would confuse people not familiar with academic speak.

In the podcast you stated that you don't think those people believe in their own numbers. It's also not simply academic speak given that there are enough awareness course to teach every college student what the term is supposed to mean. Yesterday I put a bounty on Skeptics on the question. A new answer comes to the conclusion that it if you count incapacitated sexual assault than you get near the 1 in 5 statistics.

Really, if the definition is the legal one?

I ask Kendra to outline her position herself.