This argument rests on a false assumption, that the Middle East was stable to begin with.

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The game itself turned on a false assumption, suggesting a deeper fault in the system.

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Which leads to the next false assumption in the sentence in question.

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Zeki said many challenges against his field are based on the false assumption that he and colleagues are trying to explain works of art.

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Past efforts to cut hospital queues have been based on the false assumption that they are a simple backlog, and that increasing the rate of treatments will eventually clear the backlog.

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Mr Pinochet is in his present pickle not because Chile has broken its promise to him but because the general made the mistake of swanning around the world on what turns out to have been the false assumption that the decision of Chile's polity binds the rest of the world's courts.

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That assumption is false.

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But this assumption is patently false.

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But let me just answer and say that, at least when I was a reporter, usually the standard for British tabloid reporting was the assumption that it was false.

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This assumption is almost certainly false.

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The Japanese economy operates on the assumption, soon to be proved false, that the government will always be able to borrow at low interest rates.

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"That assumption turned out to be horribly false, " says Allen.

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