[jpetito]

"Under the heading of 'How Should One Handle Assumptions:' "

"Perhaps more than anything else, the Walker spy case is a study in assumptions. Time and again, individuals made decisions based on assumptions that proved to be woefully incorrect. In many cases, these assumptions were based on nothing more than wishful thinking, or on the fact that it would be very convenient if certain things were true. There is little or no evidence that decision makers attempted to verify or falsify them, even when such an attempt would be easy to make.

...Another military truism is that successful planners must clearly distinguish between facts and assumptions. All real-world plans will require some assumptions, as information will never be perfect. However, a successful planner will then try to verify or falsify his assumptions, continuing to do so until successful--either proving the assumption true, making it into a fact, or proving it false. 3"

From chapter Educator Bias, in Ditching Shop Class; How Educators Feed the Achievement Gap