Comment by lazide
5 days ago
We have some organic ‘building block’ compounds confirmed frozen on some asteroids.
But what we don’t have is any examples of them surviving re-entry.
We also have a massive amount of those same compounds already here on the planet.
Causality is… tenuous. But not impossible.
Causality was not the point. The point was to refute the seeding hypothesis, and because they found those molecules, the effort to falsify the hypothesis failed. Now we can move on to the next attempt to refute, which, as you say, might be to study whether molecules can survive conditions of reentry.
Experiments do not tell us that something IS a certain way; only the ways it is not.
The ideal situation for an expert is to prove causality!
It’s nearly impossible, but it is the holy grail!
This experiment was to try to falsify one theory, yes, but as you note that is a very long way from the actual goal - or the level of certainty that the article is trying to imply.
These articles are written due to funding needs, which is why the articles are the way they are - and why the scientists themselves are likely cringing too when they read these articles. At least until the checks (hopefully) arrive.
I was under the impression that the ejection of these compounds demonstrates that organics (blocks) can escape a gravity well, which implies they can likely re-enter another.