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Originally Posted by rcglinsk
That doesn't help your argument. That is another reason to think the mass estimates are wrong.
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Sorry, I was unclear ...
"mass",
the very concept itself, is just as much soaked in theory as "
an estimation of how things were 13 billion years ago"!
This often comes as a big surprise to many people; somehow the absolute reality, theory-free, nature of "mass", "centrifugal force", and so on is fixed, along with similar beliefs concerning "atoms", "electrons", etc ... I recommend a re-reading of
Ken G's post.
Quote:
I only ask that when talking about "astrophysical distance" one not use the same sort of context as when talking about distance. One is a very complicated story about a whole slew of variables, the other is distance. Don't go around saying "this galaxy is this many light years away." That use of the word "is" refers to another word lingering there anonymously: distance, the real thing. If you are not painfully clear that you mean - as far as I can tell - an un-disprovable theory, no one who is not a professional astrophysicist or a philosopher of science is going to know what you meant.
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So?
What difference is there with anything else in science, whether it's "vowel" or "electron" or "species" or "mass"?
Why pick on little ol' cosmology?