On Thursday, November 20, 2014 1:28:21 PM UTC-5, Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply] wrote:

Let me try to describe the situation in a slightly different manner,
which I hope will make the issues a bit clearer.


I am not aware of any stars with a mass of 1000 solar mass, but I do
see what you are saying.

Let's take a more reasonable mass in the vicinity of 1.000 solar mass.
The predicted multiple would be 1.015, and say the empirical mass
estimate was reported as 1.080 solar mass.

1.080 - 1.015 divided by 1.015 times 100 = relative error of 6.40%,
and the corresponding relative agreement of 93.6%.

Surely we can recognize a large difference between 99.987% and 93.6%!

Surely you do not think that I would claim that 93.6% constitutes a
"hit" on one of the predicted peaks, or a near miss!

So let's talk about the Solar System's total mass. Yes, I know it is
only one system, but surely you know that it is not just any system
and it is the one system for which we have the most accurate, as well
as precise, measurements.

Given the results for that system which has the most accurate total
mass value, do you alter your Bayesian prior, or is it "excluded at
100%" forever with no hope of ever reviewing that summary decision?

[Mod. note: reformatted -- mjh]