Why does claims vs evidence fail?

The most common reason claims vs evidence fails: Believing you've separated claims from evidence because you added a citation. A claim with a footnote is still a fused object — the citation decorates the claim rather than standing as an independent evidence node. True separation means the evidence exists as its own addressable object that can be linked to multiple claims, evaluated independently, and updated without touching the claim it currently supports.

The fix: Find three notes in your system (or three beliefs you hold strongly) where a claim and its evidence are fused into a single statement. For each one, split it into two separate objects: (1) the claim, stated as a declarative sentence, and (2) the evidence, stated as a factual observation with its source. Then draw the link between them and ask: does this evidence actually support this claim? You will likely find at least one case where it does not.

The underlying principle is straightforward: A claim and its supporting evidence are different objects that should be stored separately.