[firebaze]

This isn't meant to sound dismissive, but do you really assume the experts in this field didn't consider this, and didn't deem it (ir-)relevant enough to (not) mention in their paper?

Genuinely interested what is the reason behind questions like that. In general, it's definitely cool and understandable to me to question the competency of anyone, but if (as in this case) a researcher researches a quite deep detail of a very specific field, using a very rare resource (a space telescope, which I assume requires some credibility to even ask for observation time) how do you assume they didn't check all boxes before writing a paper?

[happytoexplain]

This attitude discourages question-asking.

Edit: To be more clear, I mean the implication (no matter how qualified) that it is remarkable to even ask a question based on how likely it is that experts have already answered the question. That premise doesn't seem to make any sense: First, non-experts have no context for knowing what experts have likely ruled out and what they haven't, by definition. Second, if experts have ruled it out, the answer to the question is still valuable (how/why did they rule it out).

[legohead]

> could the same happen for these radio wave patterns

Perhaps he was just seeking knowledge. There may be an interesting reason why these radio wave patterns may or may not be affected by lensing.

Also, if you have been around as long as I have, it is not that uncommon for experts to be missing something obvious, or for science articles to exclude certain details in order to appear more fascinating.

[firebaze]

But what would be an appropriate answer? Yes probably, this would mean they were wrong. No would be quite complex, I suppose.

I didn't assume the GP to be ignorant or distrusting the credibility of the researcher, and the question was valid in my point of view as well from that perspective.

[derekp7]

The answer to your question is simply linguistic shortcuts. That is, the question could have been phrased such as this:

"I am but a casual reader with an interest in this topic. I have read about Gravitational Lensing, and the pattern matching algorithm in my brain finds a loose match between that an this phenomenon. I am curious as to the particulars of this that makes it different from what I've read before, such that this requires a different explanation".

Of course, that is way to many words, an the shortcut of "Why isn't this Gravitational Lensing" is a more succinct way of asking the question. Which is a major reason why HN has as one of their guidelines "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. "

[kaashif]

I wonder how it's possible for people to read a comment so differently. Like others have said, I read the comment as more of a "Why is this wrong?" than "Why are they idiots and didn't think of this?" which isn't an interpretation that would have occurred to me.

I could parrot your own comment back to you and say, do you really assume that the person didn't realise that only experts use giant telescopes and know what they're doing? Maybe they're hoping one of those experts will somehow come up with a good explanation and maybe some links to further reading.

Sometimes people read an aggressive or condescending tone into perfectly neutral comments and it really confuses me.

[firebaze]

I'm not sure I understand you. We're talking of an analysis of a very specific, very rare (1 of 5) occurrence of an as of now unresolved physical phenomenon. I think to get into the position to research phenomena like that, you need to prove your worth a bit. I'm not referring to meritocracy but to money, since that's what observation time comes down to.

So, to me it boils down to: is there's something about the GP's question I missed, which is what I'd like to learn about? If not all is fine. If so, I'd like to learn the reason behind it.

I'm not a native english speaker.

[throwoutway]

OP has a legitimate inquiry, but you dismiss it with an appeal to authority? Researchers miss things all the time. But if they considered it and rejected it, then it still makes it a valid question doesn’t it?

[firebaze]

My question was equally valid to me. I didn't understand the GP's question to be dismissive or ignorant, I just want to learn where they're coming from.

[jjulius]

>... I just want to learn where they're coming from.

Ignorance is all it is - and not in a bad way. They don't know something, they're curious about it, so they're asking. It's legitimately as simple as that.

[FredPret]

OP is inquiring to learn more. I think it’s a good question and would also like to know.

No need to for you to be defensive on the scientist’s behalf.

[renewiltord]

This is a valid criticism in general, but I think in this case, user was asking for instruction. "You say this is strange, but this other simple explanation would explain it to my knowledge. Why is this different?" is intended in this case to be "Instruct me so that I may detect my error and update" rather than "Have you considered X?"

Since I believe you are also asking genuinely, I will attempt to disambiguate the two cases with illustrations:

1. OP states the question as "Could this be the same?". This expresses uncertainty of the form "Is this possible?" and "Are these simpler explanations still on the table?"

2. OP may have stated the question as "Did they consider X?". I think this moves closer to the idiot advice that is often of the form "Did they consider correlation is not causation?" etc. etc.

3. OP may have stated opinion directly: "They did not consider X". In this case, lacking knowledge of OP expertise, you may safely conclude that this is a statement from an armchair expert.

Of course there are an infinitude of statements and responses. But hopefully these 3 examples will help.