"Normal" is a pretty light weight concept; it suggests an inherently subjective approach. The word "normal" has gained use recently in politics, where the idea of normalizing has gotten a lot air time/print space. I thought of that reading this morning Brian Koberlein's always excellent blog. He ends a discussion of a puzzling type of galaxy with these words:
These diffuse galaxies could have formed with a mass similar to our Milky Way, but with much less gas and dust, producing much fewer stars. To know for sure we'll need a better understanding of dark matter, but that's another story.
These diffuse galaxies could have formed with a mass similar to our Milky Way, but with much less gas and dust, producing much fewer stars. To know for sure we'll need a better understanding of dark matter, but that's another story.
"A better understanding" is a phrase which normalizes human ignorance: we know nothing about dark matter. This phrase suggests we just have some gaps to fill in.
Language-- you gotta speak it, but it is always -- another story...
