However no direct evidence of these IKBs has been yet obtained thus allowing to leave the door open to other mechanisms that are less assumption-hungry.

Intelligent Knowledge Based Systems (IKBS) or Artificial Intelligence (AI)

My own view is that while that type of system will be important in the future it may not have the central role assumed for it by John Alvey - hence my plea For more resources to be devoted to looking at real user needs and trying out alternatives to the IKBS approach.