But I don't equate the default assumptions with self-evident ones. I say they may include newfound self-evident claims and common knowledge. The point is that it would take a revolution in knowledge to overturn the relatively new assumption that the universe is much larger and older, for example, than it was thought to be by virtually everyone for thousands of years before the Scientific Revolution.

I agree it would be presumptuous to say that whatever's passed all the rigorous epistemic tests is necessarily or permanently true. But my first article on this series has already taken proof and necessity off the table in the empirical realm. We're dealing here only with probabilities. The self-evident claims in science are the mathematical tools that are necessary by stipulation to get the ball rolling.