Prior to this finding, there was only speculation that large black holes came out of the amalgamation of smaller black holes. For all we know, in fact even after this finding, the enormous black holes we find at the center of galaxies might actually be formed by an entirely different process. When you think about it, there was a very large gap in the sizes of black holes seeen prior to this finding (20x…gap…1,000,000x). And even your crude analogy is flawed because obese teenagers might be obese or not obese because of the changes that occur during puberty, something very different than childhood or adult obesity.

I would just like to thank you though for providing evidence that all people should take a philosophy of science course, just so that they understand what science is and how it should be done.

Why do experts say some of the dumbest things? I mean, seriously. “Plenty of small ones, plenty of large ones…. but we’ve never seen the medium sized ones so obviously they may not exist.”

I mean, we know black holes consume more matter that falls into them and grow larger – it’s not like the supermassive ones at the center of galaxies just popped up and said “I’m going to be the densest thing ever made today! Yesterday I was just some dust.” We’ve seen small ones. There MUST be something in the middle. They’re not quanta.

I agree we need empirical observations to confirm our theories. But seriously, how could you possibly go from small to supermassive without an intermediary step.

To be horribly crude and insensitive in making an analogy here, you don’t look at obese children and obese adults and then think to yourself “Well, I’ve never seen an obese teenager so maybe they don’t exist.”