What to Do
Separate the record from the story about the record. List what is observed, what is corroborated, what is inferred, what is hypothesized, and what is unknown. List your own assumptions separately and mark which ones, if wrong, would collapse the case.
How It Fails
Starting from the conclusion. The worked presumption case shows how a prior belief hardened into a presumption and moved the burden of proof.
Check
- Each starting fact is tagged with its evidence state
- Assumptions are written out, not held in the head
- The load-bearing assumptions are marked
- Nothing inferred is recorded as observed