Mysteries of "The Redshift Desert" --Why Do Galaxies in the Early Universe Appear Old?

[Speck Tater]

16. Ah, so your real quibble is with the word "idle".

I'm willing to back down on that point.

"Idle speculation is speculation for the purpose of speculation. That's what makes it idle. Meaningful speculation is asking a question as part of trying to figure something out." So you're saying that it's the motive that makes speculation non-idle. I get it.

So when a meteorologist by the name of Wegener looked at the map and said to himself "Hmmm. Look at that. Africa and South America fit together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. I wonder...." That was non-idle speculation. And when Kekulé imagined a molecule of benzene swallowing it's own tail, that was non-idle speculation.

Now, since my speculations about cosmology are for the purpose of possibly figuring something out, then, by your definition, my speculation is not idle. Thank you for clarifying that.