> these papers keep stapling on broad philosophical claims about whether models can “really reason” that are just completely unsupported by the content of the research.

Usually there may be some interesting ideas hidden in the data but the paper's methods and scope weren't even worthy of a conclusion to begin with. It's just one data point in the vast sea of scientific experimentation.

The conclusion feels to me like a cultural phenomenon and it's just a matter of survival for most authors. I have to imagine it was easier in the past.

"Does the flame burn green? Why yes it does..."

These days it's more like

"With my two hours of compute on the million dollar mainframe, my toy llm didn't seem to get there, YMMV"