[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. "