This is a fundamental problem that I have with science writers (note that I say science writers and not scientist - two different species entirely)
They want to take an observable event in the natural world and define it narrowly, then argue infinitum that something or other doesn't fit in their narrowly defined definition.
I remember attending a lecture by H. Buckminster Fuller. He talked about his childhood education and confronting the concept of a straight line. He asked his teacher for an example. The teacher told him that the light from the sun, just before it dips below the horizon would be an example of a straight line.
Later, Fuller learned that the sun is so far away that it was already below the horizon by time the light reach us on earth. Even later he learned that some aspects of light cause it to behave like particles that bounce around in an average of a straight line, and some aspects of light have it behaving like waves that move up and down in a direction approximating a straight line.
Does this mean that we throw out our definition of a straight line? No, we make it flexible and adapt it to our needs.
I myself have seen lights chasing around a marquee and have no problem describing them as such. I have also done a great deal of study on the influence of alcohol consumption on the perception of such.
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