There is a lot of debate in the comments to recent posts about whether the argument from ID is circular. I thought it would be worth calling this out as a separate item.
I plead that participants in this discussion (whether they comment here or on UD):
- make a real effort to stick to Lizzie’s principles (and her personal example) of respect for opposing viewpoints and politeness
- confine the discussion to this specific point (there is plenty of opportunity to discuss other points elsewhere and there is the sandbox)
What follows has been covered a thousand times. I simple repeat it in as rigorous a manner as I can to provide a basis for the ensuing discussion (if any!)
First, a couple of definitions.
A) For the purposes this discussion I will use “natural” to mean “has no element of design”. I do not mean to imply anything about materialism versus supernatural or such like. It is just an abbreviation for “not-designed”.
B) X is a “good explanation” for Y if and only if:
i) We have good reason to suppose X exists
ii) The probability of Y given X is reasonably high (say 0.1 or higher). There may of course be better explanations for Y where the probability is even higher.
Note that X may include design or be natural.
As I understand it, a common form of the ID argument is:
1) Identify some characteristic of outcomes such as CSI, FSCI or dFSCI. I will use dFSCI as an example in what follows but the point applies equally to the others.
2) Note that in all cases where an outcome has dFSCI, and a good explanation of the outcome is known, then the good explanation includes design and there is no good natural explanation.
3) Conclude there is a strong empirical relationship between dFSCI and design.
4) Note that living things include many examples of dFSCI.
5) Infer that there is a very strong case that living things are also designed.
This argument can be attacked from many angles but I want to concentrate on the circularity issue. The key point being that it is part of the definition of dFSCI (and the other measures) that there is no good natural explanation.
It follows that if a good natural explanation is identified then that outcome no longer has dFSCI. So it is true by definition that all outcomes with dFSCI fall into two categories:
- A good explanation has been identified and it is design
- No good explanation has yet been identified
Note that it was not necessary to do any empirical observation to prove this. It must always be the case from the definition of dFSCI that whenever a good explanation is identified it includes design.
I appreciate that as it stands this argument does not do justice to the ID position. If dFSCI was simply a synonym for “no good natural explanation” then the case for circularity would be obviously true. But is incorporates other features (as do its cousins CSI and FSCI). So for example dFSCI incorporates attributes such as digital, functional and not compressible – while CSI (in its most recent definition) includes the attribute compressible. So if we describe any of the measures as a set of features {F} plus the condition that if a good natural explanation is discovered then measure no longer applies – then it is possible to recast the ID argument this way:
“For all outcomes where {F} is observed then when a good explanation is identified it turns out to be designed and there is no good natural explanation. Many aspects of life have {F}. Therefore, there is good reason to suppose that design will be a good explanation and there will be no good natural explanation.”
The problem here is that while CSI, FSCI and dFSCI all agree on the “no good natural explanation” clause they differ widely on {F}. For Dembski’s CSI {F} is essentially equivalent to compressible (he refers to it as “simple” but defines “simple” mathematically in terms of easily compressible). While for FSCI {F} includes “has a function” and in some descriptions “not compressible”. dFSCI adds the additional property of being digital to FSCI.
By themselves both compressible and non-compressible phenomena clearly can have both natural and designed explanations. The structure of a crystal is highly compressible. CSI has no other relevant property and the case for circularity seems to be made at this point. But FSCI and dFSCI add the condition of being functional which perhaps makes all the difference. However, the word “functional” also introduces a risk of circularity. “Functional” usually means “has a purpose” which implies a purpose which implies a mind. In archaeology an artefact is functional if it can be seen to fulfil some past person’s purpose – even if that purpose is artistic. So if something has the attribute of being functional it follows by definition that a mind was involved. This means that by definition it is extremely likely, if not certain, that it was designed (of course, it is possible that it may have a good natural explanation and by coincidence also happen to fulfil someone’s purpose). To declare something to be functional is to declare it is engaged with a purpose and a mind – no empirical research is required to establish that a mind is involved with a functional thing in this sense.
But there remains a way of trying to steer FSCI and dFSCI away from circularity. When the term FSCI is applied to living things it appears a rather different meaning of “functional” is being used. There is no mind whose purpose is being fulfilled. It simply means the object (protein, gene or whatever) has a role in keeping the organism alive. Much as greenhouse gasses have a role in keeping the earth’s surface temperature at around 30 degrees. In this case of course “functional” does not imply the involvement of a mind. But then there are plenty of examples of functional phenomena in this sense which have good natural explanations.
The argument to circularity is more complicated than it may appear and deserves careful analysis rather than vitriol – but if studied in detail it is compelling.
Joe,
I would be willing to submit a 6000 word essay for posting at UD but I need to know that KF is also willing to submit a similar essay justifying empirical evidence of the “designer scheme for origins” from OOL on.
This could be interesting as this site could host KF’s essay and UD could host mine.
That way, we could each feel free to criticize each other’s position.
Let me know if KF is ready to do that.
The Sherlock method has to be one of the dumbist aphorisms ever uttered and taken seriously. Ignorance elevated to method.
I can see why doctors would be drawn to it, because the phrase “rule out” is common in diagnostics. Works with computer probmems also.
It only works when there is an ehaustive list of causes.
Magic and sky fairies are not useful candidates. At least they have no track record in science.
The method has serious conceptual flaws. For example, it allows Douglas Axe to look busy doing technically competent research, while he is actually in another building altogether from the scene of the crime.
This statement directly excludes a specific “source of dFSCI”, which contradicts statements that claim “dFSCI” is independent of its source.
Am I correct in saying this?
Is “dFSCI” a characteristic of “information” or is it a characteristic of its source?
According to what you have written, a “string of information” which we want to test for dFSCI, plays only a small part in that determination.
You have suggested a search space for the “information” which clearly is not in any way mandated by the string itself.
The threshold also, is determined outside of the string.
Only “a” depends on the string.
Everything you have said about dFSCI indicates that it is an attribute of the “source” of the string, and if we exclude necessity mechanisms, it clearly only relates to a conscious designer.
“dFSCI” is a designer metric, not one of information.
B and C are not known to any useful degree.
But the search space is not the space of all possible strings of length x. It is the number of variations of string x taken one element at a time.
Where an element is a base or a transposable element.
For example:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121022145340.htm
kairosfocus and Upright BiPed both claim “all possible strings of length x”.
It would be interesting to see if gpuccio agrees with that.
Gpuccio
You wrote this in your reply to Joe Felsenstein:
In what sense was the protein correctly assessed? You thought there was no necessity mechanism and it turns out there was! How can this be a correct assessment?
I keep forgetting. What is the procedure for correctly calculating or assessing dFSCI? What test or procedure rules out the possibility tha a protein domain started as a “random” string with a weak function and became optimized in just a handful of steps?
agreed. It puts a new spin on the “needle in a haystack the size of the cosmos” “argument”.
KF would call it quasi-latching, but it’s just a side effect of the mutation rate. In any GA,– eve weasel — you can get occasional children with two mutations, but with a reasonable mutation rate, this is not typical.
Anyway, with single celled organisms (or with sperm production) multiple mutations are likely to result in speedy elimination.
I’m going to continue calling attention to sperm production as a mechanism that substitutes for single celled fecundity in the production and sieving of variation. Just in case KF wants to argue that sexually reproducing organisms don’t have the numbers of offspring that bacteria have.
http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1002379
I second Petrushka.
In all the discussion, a workable method for establishing a value for CSI has yet to be demonstrated. If we can’t even order things that allegedly possess CSI let alone quantify it, does not that render the rest of the discussion somewhat hypothetical?
Joe 31
You got it. Thanks for being honest.
So Mung, which came first, the designer or the design?
Talk about “circularity”! 🙂
Seriously, a design implies a designer.
If you don’t have a designer, no design was done.
You simply have to assume a designer existed if you claim you have something that was designed.
If life was NOT designed, then you don’t need to assume a designer existed.
Please check with your senior IDists whether you want to pursue a “no designer was involved in the design of life” argument.
I do not see how it is possible to misrepresent the ID position other than by implying there is an ID position.
Yes, how many times have we all asked them to define ID without resorting to a negative position on evolution.
Gpuccio,
Another attempt to explain the circularity of your dFSCI argument, modeled on an earlier comment but without the logical notation:
You only infer design when RV and ‘necessity mechanisms’ have been ruled out. That will create some false negatives, but it’s better to have false negatives than false positives, as you have pointed out.
So every functional sequence falls into one of three categories:
1) simple enough to have been produced by RV (and, of course, design)
2) too complex for RV, but could have been produced by ‘necessity mechanisms’ (and, of course, design)
3) out of reach for RV and ‘necessity mechanisms’, so could only be produced by design
Design is only inferred if the tests for #1 and #2 are not satisfied, meaning we “fall through” to the default, which is #3 — design.
Now look at your criteria for establishing the presence of dFSCI:
So dFSCI is attributed to a sequence if it can’t be explained by RV or necessity mechanisms. But we saw earlier that design is attributed to a sequence if it can’t be explained by RV or necessity mechanisms. Therefore, to say that dFSCI implies design is to say nothing more than this:
The circularity could not be more obvious.
Talking of circularity:
I was reminded of Patrick May’s adventures as Mathgrrl and just had a browse through a couple of the threads at UD he links to. Talk about déjà vu.
Her finest hour
Yes, and even the circularity discussion is repeating itself. I raised the issue as early as 2006:
That was six years ago, and for all I know, someone could have raised the issue even earlier.
Incidentally, I was banned in that thread for the crime of making an argument that DaveScot couldn’t answer.
The tradition of banning people for polite dissent goes back a long way at Uncommon Descent.
By source I mean, what entity generated that string containing “dFSCI”.
If the source of the information in the string, is a conscious designer, then I believe you claim the string would have “dFSCI”, provided it meets all complexity and functionality requirements.
If you have a second, completely different string which also meets all complexity and functionality requirements for a system it is part of, but the source of the information is a “necessity mechanism”, does that string have the attribute “dFSCI” also simply for being complex and functional enough?
The only difference here is the generator of the information, i.e. the source.
If “dFSCI” is only applied in cases of design, then the final determination is the source that generated the information, not the “specific functional complex information” in the string which still in both cases fulfills its functionality.
So, does the label, “dFSCI” only apply depending on the originator of the information?
I’m trying here to see if this is what you mean by false positive where “dFSCI” is originally concluded, but then changed to “NOT dFSCI” if the originator is not design.
Secondly, does a copy of a designed string still contain “dFSCI”, if copied by a “necessity mechanism”?
I had to re-read this a few times but it seems to justify my belief that “dFSCI” is ultimately a characteristic that only is applicable if the string has been designed by an intelligent conscious designer with intent.
This is why I say, “dFSCI” is a characteristic that applies to the source of the information but is not a quality that is completely intrinsic to the information in the string.
“dFSCI” does NOT rely on testing whether the presumed “designer of life” is capable of the design he is credited for, which would be a positive position on design.
“dFSCI” relies on the premise that evolution cannot create the specific functional complexity required for living things, i.e., “evolution can’t do it”.
gpuccio, KF and Dembski all assert the improbability of nature to generate CSI, which is why all have a threshold measured in bits that determines whether or not their version of CSI gets asserted.
Name one of the three who have a version of CSI that includes a successful mechanism for generating information, one that doesn’t simply say, “design was here”.
All of them have tests to exclude nature, none of them have tests to verify design.
If I’m wrong, at least one of them should be able to tell me the minimum amount of bits that can be generated per biological design cycle, since they are capable of telling me the maximum amount of bits that can be attributed to nature.
Has anyone attempted to do this?
You’ve said it many times but Mung believes that the ID position does NOT rely on “evolution can’t do it”.
Alan Fox wrote:
At that site, Patrick writes:
I tried that too, registering as ‘valerie’ in 2006. Apart from using a feminine name, I made a conscious effort not to change my writing style. Most of the UD commenters were more courteous to me as Valerie than they had been when I was posting as a man. Still, I got banned after a month for explaining to DaveScot that individual photons do not have a blackbody temperature.
No, KF has written thousands of words on why “nature can’t” but I have yet to see anything approaching an “essay justifying empirical evidence of the designer scheme for origins from OOL on”.
You can prove me wrong by showing me where KF shows how the designer assembled the first replicator.
If it’s easier, show me where KF shows the designer’s list of materials for the first life-form.
If it’s easier, show gpuccio how to determine the proteins required for life on Earth.
Sexual reproduction was a brilliant idea. Show me where KF describes when that first happened.
I see ID as the position taken by those who believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis.
Every ID argument is a disclaimer of the ability of nature to generate life without the aid of a god.
Not one single ID argument says, “This is how the designer did this”.
Gpuccio 43
I have read your post and all of 20.
You give five steps for a correct assessment of dFSCI. You also give a three point definition of dFSCI. But it is logically possible for a given string to follow the five steps and thus give a “correct” assessment of dFSCI and then later find that the string did indeed have a necessity mechanism and thus did not meet the criteria. You may think it is empirically unlikely but it is possible. The final step is
However thorough your assessment, you might just miss a law or there may be a new law as yet undiscovered.
So your assessment is correct in the sense of being your approved way of assessing whether dFSCI is present. But it is not certain to succeed. The interesting question is what happens if you follow the assessment process for a protein and then find that you missed something and there was mechanism. Do you say
a) you thought the string has dFSCI but you got it wrong
or
b) it has dFSCI but you have found a case where dFSCI is not designed
If the answer is (a ) then it is not logically possible to falsify the statement that everything with dFSCI is designed (that’s what we mean by circular – no one has ever claimed the definition of dFSCI is circular – I don’t know where that meme came from)
If the answer is (b) then the no necessity mechanism is not part of the definition of dFSCI – because you have found something with a necessity mechanism and you are still calling it dFSCI
PS. You often write is if you believe that what you say is perfectly clear and obvious and therefore opponents are being stupid or dishonest. I promise you it is far from clear. Perhaps Joe’s confusion will convince you of this.
Mung 68
1) Patrick was right when he wrote:
It follows from Gpuccio’s definition which includes:
* No known necessity mechanism that can explain that complexity
This is exactly what has been debated endlessly over the last few days – so I will not repeat the arguments.
2)
me:
you:
You only attribute them to design when they are specified. But this example is specified. It is a protein. This the basis of the entire ID argument. I am amazed you deny it.
Gpuccio,
It might be a good idea to try taking this step by step.
Let’s set design aside for the moment. We’ll come back to it later.
For now, let’s concentrate on evolution. You’ve said that unguided evolution can’t produce dFSCI. Do you agree that your statement is circular?
Here’s why:
Your defining criteria for dFSCI are:
Those definitional criteria exclude unguided evolution. Thus, dFSCI excludes unguided evolution by definition.
Saying that unguided evolution can’t produce dFSCI is therefore equivalent to saying “Unguided evolution can’t produce something that unguided evolution can’t produce.”
Obviously circular. Do you agree?
Gpuccio
Olegt on AtBC pointed out your response 73 to Joe which includes:
As Olegt says pseudorandom strings are generated by a necessity mechanism. That’s why they are called “pseudorandom”. Possibly you meant “random” not “pseudorandom”. However, in general you cannot tell wether a digital string is truly random without knowing how it was generated. To put it another way – you cannot tell whether a string is not compressible just by looking at it. You have to know how it was created.
So your procedure may fail to identify a necessity mechanism. (Thanks to Olegt for all this – I just repeated it more politely :))
I think that this hinges on what the word “known” means in gpuccio’s comments. To most of us here at TSZ natural selection is “known”, in that there are lots of examples where we know that the genotypes differ in fitness.
gpuccio seems to mean by this “known” by knowing more than just that natural selection exists in other cases.
Gpuccio 82 (edited slightly for clarity)
OK. That helps a lot. Given your clarification I will admit that the statement
“Everything with dFSCI is designed” (X)
is not circular! Is just false. Also it makes dFSCI into a weird concept.
I think I subconsciously ignored the word “known” because I couldn’t believe your definition could be like this.
Why is it weird?
Using your definition as I now understand it, something only has dFSCI relative to a current state of knowledge about its origins. It is not a property of string but a relationship between one or more observers and that string. So if you and I have different knowledge about the origins of a string it may well be that it is dFSCI for you and not dFSCI for me (because I know of a necessity mechanism that you don’t).
Suppose we have a string which is long, digital, and functional – a protein will do nicely. At time t1 none of the world’s experts know of a necessity mechanism. So it has dFSCI at time t1 for them. Later at time t2 a mechanism is discovered, so now it does not have dFSCI at time t2 for them (by your definition). Furthermore it may be that at time t1 in another country some other scientists knew of a mechanism that the world’s experts were unaware of – so for those scientists it did not have dFSCI even at time t1.
I suspect you will think this is irrelevant philosophising. You are so certain in the cases we are discussing that no necessity mechanism will be found. But actually it is very relevant – because as I explain below – using this definition statement X i false.
Why is it false?
There have been things that by your definition were at some time dFSCI for large numbers of people but turned out to be created by a necessity mechanism. We are just so used to our current state of knowledge we forget. For example, take the first Fibonacci 10 numbers. There must have been a time prior to 1200 (and it still the case for people who have not done the maths) when this series
a) was digital (after all it is numbers)
b) was pseudorandom
c) there was no known necessity mechanism for producing it
d) had a function – actually many functions as I am sure you know
e) was complex in that the chances of producing by just taking 10 integers at random was infinitely small
Of course for us it is trivial to point to a necessity mechanism because we know it – but remember your definition of dFSCI is relative to someone’s knowledge of the available mechanisms.
A key point here is that the appearance of randomness is also subjective. So (b) and (c) are intimately connected. As explained in another comment – the only way you can know a string is random is to know how it is generated. Essentially you are claiming that it is always the case that if someone can’t see how a digital string could be generated by a necessity mechanism then it always turns out the string was designed. This is clearly false.
Gpuccio
Just read your 95. I will cut to the chase and accept your challenge:
Will strings of 50 digits between 1 and 100 be acceptable?
.
Is that correct? #4 and #5 both reference knowledge.
#4) No deterministic explanation is known
#5) Therefore anything whose origin is known must not be deterministic.
If the origin is known, then it can’t be deterministic.
Zachriel
I have lost track of all the numberings. Where did #4 and #5 come from? But anyway I think I can answer the question. You have to include the time element to stop it being circular.
His claim amounts to:
This is not circular. It is just false.
Of course for the vast majority of digital strings the process for generating them is known at the same time that the string is generated. Here there is circularity. Only the ones that have been designed can have dFSCI by definition. Any other strings that were generated by necessity mechanisms would not have dFSCI by definition. So it is invalid to use the correlation between dFSCI and design as evidence that future strings with dFSCI will be designed. The only correlation that is acceptable is instances where a string has an unknown origin and then the origin is discovered. There aren’t very many of those – but there is little doubt that some of them turned out not to be designed.
Additional paragraph added ….
Actually the more I think about this the more tangled it gets. Really we are only interested in strings where the origin is not known – once the origin is known then its dFSCI status is settled by definition. So what is the known necessity mechanism clause – which is clearly a reference to origins – doing? If we don’t know the origin then we don’t know whether it was the result of a necessity mechanism or design, therefore we don’t know whether it was the result of a necessity mechanism. I think maybe he is getting at something like “could not imagine this string being generated by a known necessity mechanism” in the sense of that the mechanism is known but not that it is know to apply to this string.
What a tangled web! If only he would define dFSCI without the necessity clause it would make everything simple and save hours of blogging.
Sorry. Our numbering, gpuccio’s words.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/design-inference/it-seems-that-tsz-objector-to-design-af-insists-on-the-long-since-corrected-canard-that-design-is-a-default-inference/#comment-433575
Gpuccio’s definition uses the same tense for “known”. He is referring to what is known at the time of observation.
Notably, gpuccio is happy that you said it’s not circular without understanding your reasoning. It is enough that you agree apparently.
Gpuccio,
How would Sir like his strings delivered? Printed perhaps? Or shall I yell them out?
It’s an accurate rewording. If the object is designed (without exception) and design is mutually exclusive with deterministic (and random already discounted), then it “must not be deterministic”. That’s straightforward.
That’s why your definition is circular. For something to have dFSCI, random is discounted, you rule out determinism, and per the tacit trichotomy, that leaves design. Given your premises, it can’t be any other way.
Mung,
So why if we are comparing the capabilities of “nature” and “design” are we filtering only those things that “nature” generates?
The constant tilting of the Earth back and forth generates our complex weather patterns.
gpuccio’s use of “dFSCI” is useless to even determine whether Earths’ wobble on its axis is “natural” never mind determining whether life has a “conscious designer”.
Do you think weather plays a role in biology?
I do and it’s prime source is very regular and simple even if the resulting patterns are very complex.
Yes, however, the circularity is in those which do have a known origin. There is a tacit trichotomy; chance, determinism, design. Given that, having discounted chance, we then rule out determinism, leaving design.
Specifically, #5 is entailed in #4. Having discounted chance, and given the faulty trichotomy of chance, determinism and design; it can’t be any other way.
Mark, to gpuccio:
That’s right. From a comment I made last week:
With the added temporal qualification, it gets even worse. We now have dFSCIgpuccio@7:42 pm, which might differ from dFSCIgpuccio@9:29 am the next morning. What was supposed to be an objective indicator of design is now hopelessly subjective.
By the way, it’s also still circular:
Today at 12:15 pm, gpuccio thinks this gene could not have evolved. Why? Because it exhibits dFSCIgpuccio@12:15 pm. Why does he think it exhibits dFSCIgpuccio@12:15 pm? Because today at 12:15 pm, gpuccio thinks this gene could not have evolved.
What I understand, is that ID has no argument other than the improbability of “nature” to generate life.
gpuccio has a threshold in bits, KF has a threshold in bits, and Dembski has a threshold in bits, all implying the improbability of “non-designer mechanisms” when it comes to life, but none have designer mechanisms.
Show me a positive mechanism for the design of life that would allow me to change the “information” in a cell while it is “running”.
You don’t have to have any “specific complex function” in mind, just show me how I can change a bit of DNA in a life-form while it’s alive.
If you you can’t do that, show me how I can suspend the activities of life while I change the bit, and then restart its life.
If you can’t do that, show me how to intercede in the womb so that only the right sperm, whose bit I have changed, impregnates the egg.
These are real roadblocks to the designer and no one on your side has a mechanism for handling that.
OMG! 🙂
IF A THEN B
So the more improbable A is, the more probable B is?
Thanks for noting that it’s still a circular argument even with the temporal qualification. I didn’t see why that would make any difference — you saved me from sending any additional traffic to UD.
Mung,
Mung, does KF not realize designs need designers? 🙂
If there was no designer however, then the inference to best explanation is nature.
So does KF believe a designer existed before life?
Has he calculated the probabilities of a designer existing at all or does KF just assume it?
That was fun.
Ultimately, though, it has made me extremely cynical about ID supporters. I had genuinely hoped that someone would provide an explicit calculation compatible with Dembski’s writings that all the UD denizens could agree on. I was pretty confident that any such metric would also show that a GA could generate CSI. Failing that, I thought they’d at least have the common decency to stop basing their arguments on a metric they couldn’t actually calculate. Expecting intelligent design creationists to exhibit intellectual honesty, or even a sense of shame, was clearly an error on my part.
As I’ve said before, post-Dover ID isn’t even pretending to be a scientific endeavor. If it’s not going to get Jesus into public school science classes, it’s of no interest to the people in the pews. While it’s amusing to shred anything remotely resembling an argument coming out of UD, the only reason to take intelligent design creationism seriously now is the political threat it poses, particularly in the United States. UD is a laughingstock on the ‘net, but creationists still want to destroy science education, and they vote.
Mung
You write:
Gpuccio wasn’t the only one do a lot of work! The dFSCI concept is a tangled web and it took a lot of work to get to the bottom of it – if I have.
I never disagreed with the idea that there were somethings which exhibit dFSCI for which the origin is not known. What on earth made you think I did. My concern was that it appeared to be logically impossible for something to have dFSCI and also know the origin was not designed. However, by a lot of questioning I have finally worked out that dFSCI is a relationship between a string, a function, and an observer’s knowledge at given time. So it may be possible for something to have dFSCI for some function for a group of people at some time and for it not to be designed (of course as soon as that group find it was not designed then the relationship no longer holds). This is the sense in which is not circular. It is also quite clear that very often in the past the relationship has held for some people and the string question has not been designed. So the statement “Everything with dFSCI is designed” is false.
Really the whole concept is a mess – but it is quite interesting unpicking it and the implications.
ID can’t be refuted because it has made no claims of its own.
You could change all that Mung by showing how to change a single “bit” in the DNA of a living creature.
Mark,
The non-circular portion is this step: If somebody thinks something is designed (because they haven’t identified a way in which a ‘necessity mechanism’ could have produced it), then it really is designed. As you point out, that is obviously false:
And the circularity is still there, as I pointed out earlier: