[buran77]

> these are pretty well defined quantities, just hard to measure.

They are "defined" conceptually, in words, not in physical quantities. It assumes we can assign a known value to any of that when we don't and likely never will. It's like saying "Let X answer the unanswerable question. X is the answer".

> at no point does it assume a planet must be in the Goldilocks zone

You could say it implies it with fl.

> Edit: the parent post has been edited substantially after I replied.

Only for legibility.