It’s the biggest stretch possible without it being technically dishonest. Everyone knows it: the researchers know it and gag a little as they write it, and the grant reviewers know it but pretty much require it without really ever saying that they require it (competitive landscape and all).
What else can you say when it gets to subject matter like this?
In experimental thermodynamic bench experiments, those who are familiar with boiling water in a common scientific vessel such as a tea kettle, are often familiar with how a system has its own characteristic rate of cooling, depending on the energy of the heated media to dissipate into whatever heat exchange facility is available at the time, usually ambient convection.
Under careful observation it can be seen that often it is possible to impart energy from an external source at a faster rate than the same amount of energy will later require to completely dissipate afterward.
People shouldn't be discouraged whether this is obvious or not.
Experimentation such as this can require quite a bit of dedication, especially among those who are not tea drinkers, but this is the workaround that would be required to arrive at such valid conclusions without the use of equations nor those pesky optical tweezers which are such a pain in the butt.