Marconomic Analysis of Cometary Science

Once again we look at tracking back to primary utility of the whole narrative of cometary science. The premises of Comet formation is that they accreted from a molecular cloud(s) at around the time of the formation of the solar system. They have also been postulated to have stayed pristine, that is in the cold outreaches of interstellar space until recent times, when they get perturbed closer to the sun and become active. 

This is a very brief outline, but for Marcomonic analysis, we do not need the detail, but the basis for the narrative. Ie. Whether parts of the narrative have 

1) been observed directly, 

2) have primary utility or

3) are based on secondary utility.

Without a chain of evidence, we are relying on the ability of the narrative to predict new facts for primary utility, while the ability to fit new data into the paradigm and to be consistent with the hard sciences is of secondary utility only. This ability of the current cometary paradigm is cited as justification to keep it based on the conservatism of science. That is not do drop an explanation that "works" until a "better" one can be found or proven. This ability to be consistent with secondary utility is just as evident with religious principles as it is with purely scientific ones, so the bar for the incumbent paradigm is set exceedingly low, for it to be retained based on conservatism.

Firstly, we will look at the chain of evidence of pristineness. Accretion disks and molecular clouds are evident in other star systems. In fact, "exocomets" have been found orbiting these young systems, so the "spawning" of comets as mixtures of dust and ices is entirely reasonable if not evident. The issue is the chain of evidence linking comets as we observe them now, to whether their precedent is formation 4.5 Billion years ago, and a cold soak for almost all of the intervening time. 

I would aver that there is no chain of evidence, and the pristine narrative of comets orbiting our solar system (as opposed to Exocomets around other younger systems) is built on a foundation of secondary utility. The advantage of looking at it this way, is that the premise of pristineness predicts certain facts that can only be found by sending probes to comets. If we fail to track back our narratives to primary utility at every new piece of data, we are failing as scientists, and are more like a generic ideologist, rarely ready to admit to weaknesses in the ideology.

The role of parsimony with comets have been a broad brush with a working narrative to commit to. Parsimony should be more flexible than that leaving open a myriad of plausible alternatives that also are simple conceptually, if primary utility may better be served given new information in the future.

The failure of the current paradigm to correctly predict what comets would look like has started with Giotto and continued with every probe flyby and now Rosetta.

With many asteroids, we at least have the impact crater record as a chain of evidence tool to work out surface age, and track back to possible formation. With comets, we have a range of evidence on the surface that is far younger than relevant for impact crater records. That evidence is telling us a lot, and it is almost certainly of recent events in a geological scale. This flips the science of comets on its head. Far from telling us about our early solar system as a time capsule, it is telling us about the here and now of what a dynamical but small solar system object that morphs, cracks, outgasses, changes orbit, changes rotation, damps precession, has a variety of organics on its surface and also outgassed. On top of that it is demonstrating a complex layered structure where layers can slide internally but become solid when exposed to vacuum.