Earlier quoted context omitted.
"However, more recent research is somewhat more optimistic." I am deeply skeptical of that "recent research", which AFAIK is "computer models, where we have zero capability to verify the computer models against even a single data point". The incentives to keep kicking the computer model until it provides something publishable, with no countervailing force provided by real data to be explained by the model, are just t…
Physics models are often checked against other models (which might have had some confirmation) in simple cases, and there are a lot of other sanity checks you can make on them to ensure they are providing reasonable results. Obviously, one shouldn't blindly accept them without experimental confirmation, but one shouldn't also be wildly pessimistic in believing calculations grounded in three centuries worth of validat…
But these atmospheres have to stable across cosmological scales in a highly iterative, chaotic environment. There is a mathematical lower bound on the rate such simulations must leak bits as a result of those things. I don't think we have enough bits of real information to make up for that, as it would take rather a lot.
Against the mathematical argument, I set the human argument that, like I said, there's all sorts of incentives to report the one simulation that produced the result that there may be an atmosphere and maybe it could even sustain life! That's a lot of high-profile articles and probably a promotion for getting my department some public attention. Even if hundreds of other simulations all result in "Yeah, the atmosphere freezes out".
Between the math saying we can't really expect this sort of simulation to contain meaningful information and the human factors involved, I can't put a lot of confidence in a model which can't be validated against real data.
I do find it amazing how people who probably think they're really in favor of science and support it will jump up to defend a methodology that literally runs off of zero data. Can someone explain the scientific process to me clearly that involves having no data at any point?