Thanks for the welcome. I understand that Hard Rationality is often not readily applicable and you are tempted to make do with what you have, such as in forensics.

The issue I have with this approach is that "the most effective means available" is not really effective, unless the issue is either clear-cut (shoelaces are either tied or untied) or not very important (what's the worst that can happen if wrongly reflected light makes you mistakenly believe that your shoelaces are tied?).

My concern (summarized in the last paragraph of my original comment) is that people naturally and subconsciously gravitate toward collecting evidence (comparatively easy) instead of building testable models (hard). This issue probably deserves a separate thread, unless it has already been discussed, in which case I'd appreciate a link.