Empirical Framing Bias as a Structural Constraint on Knowledge Production Author:

This paper introduces Empirical Framing Bias, a structural bias affecting the evaluation of scientific and conceptual work under conditions of uncertainty. The bias operates when epistemic value is inferred primarily from empirical formatting, methodological familiarity, or disciplinary signaling, rather than from the internal coherence or explanatory potential of a contribution.The article argues that this bias is not merely cognitive or institutional, but structural: it functions as a constraint on the accessibility of certain classes of inquiry within research systems. Drawing on prior work on irreversible dynamics and the closure of future possibilities, the paper situates Empirical Framing Bias as a specific manifestation of a more general mechanism governing the selective accessibility of epistemic paths.This framework helps explain why conceptually rigorous contributions may be filtered out prior to substantive evaluation, and why innovation is often recognized only ex post, after dominant frameworks encounter systemic limits.