Epistemic Packaging Error: When Demonstrations Are Sold as Proof

This publication introduces and formalizes the concept of epistemic packaging error—a failure mode in modern science communication where experiments that demonstrate internal consistency with a theory are rhetorically reframed as proof of that theory. Using a recent optics experiment related to the Terrell–Penrose effect as a case study, the analysis distinguishes between simulation, synthesis, and measurement, showing how pre-assumed parameters (such as Lorentz contraction) can be mistaken for observed outcomes once compressed through titles, thumbnails, abstracts, and platform incentives. Rather than attributing the error to malice or incompetence, the document situates epistemic packaging error within a broader system of attention gradients, production velocity, and communicative compression affecting both popular science media and academic dissemination. The result is a generalizable diagnostic framework for identifying when model validation is misinterpreted as ontological proof.