How historians present a strong inference without claiming proof

Clarke avoids putting reconstructions he cannot prove into books because later readers may rely on them without retaining the qualifications. A spoken explanation gives him room to identify the surviving clues and distinguish his inference from a documented conclusion. His example concerns Cammell Laird and Royal Navy references to prior strike-carrier experience before HMS Ark Royal. He infers that an unfinished Admiral-class battlecruiser was the possible subject because it appears to be the only hull fitting the description. He has not found the document needed to establish that identification, so the proposed conversion remains a hypothesis.