You’re right that strictly, “skeptical we should conclude ¬P” isn’t the same as asserting P. But I do think it carries implicit signal: people who push back on a conclusion of ¬P often aren’t ambivalent on the point. If you’d written “I don’t think we can conclude either way”, I’d have agreed with you. That is one of the points of my piece
So I do think your phrasing is evidence of something, even if not a positive claim. And that “something” is the discourse pattern I am pointing at.
You’re right that strictly, “skeptical we should conclude ¬P” isn’t the same as asserting P. But I do think it carries implicit signal: people who push back on a conclusion of ¬P often aren’t ambivalent on the point. If you’d written “I don’t think we can conclude either way”, I’d have agreed with you. That is one of the points of my piece
So I do think your phrasing is evidence of something, even if not a positive claim. And that “something” is the discourse pattern I am pointing at.