They ignore so many other explanations, including the fact that this likely isn't even a hycean world, and ignore the huge systematic uncertainties present in this analysis method. That's true even if your data is good, which theirs is not. The press should not give them the benefit of the doubt.

As an astronomer who studied cold exosolar atmosphere, this paper is infuriating, especially since these researchers already tried to claim a DMS detection on similarly shaky grounds and were rightly clowned on by the rest of the field for their bad science.

One of my professors has the quote "There is no expedient to which a person will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking" as his email sign off. I don't think LLM's have changed the nature of people, but it certainly has lowered the barrier to avoiding "the real labor of thinking".

I'd be interested in being added if it's not too much trouble.