 Turning finally to how the tautology problem surfaces in the context of the Price Equation, consider how that equation formally represents the extent of evolution across some time period in which reproduction occurs. Assigning values to its statistical functions requires information that spans that time period, such as information about the offspring number of the parents and the phenotypes of the offspring. The deployment of the Price Equation does not involve any estimation/projection period contrast. It cannot be used a source of new information about some time period that remains otherwise unexamined. The Price Equation could not, for instance, be used to make a prediction about the dynamics of some system into the future in the same way that type recursions can do. This is because “an application of the Price equation for the purpose of prediction would presuppose the very information you want to predict with it” (Otsuka 2016: 466). For this reason, Otsuka claims that the equation is not explanatory (2016: 466).