Do explosions destroy stuff?

break: To turn the block into the little floating thing that you can pick up.

destroy: To completely obliterate a block, not even leaving a little floating thing.

Given those definitions, the question is very simple. I had read about TNT mining at another question, but when I tried it, it exposed a solitary diamond. I thought this was odd because I'd never seen one block of diamond ore by itself before, which prompted this question:

Do explosions destroy stuff?

Yes, they can.

Mining using TNT might be faster than mining by hand but it is impractical for gathering resources; about 70% of the blocks are completely destroyed in the process.

Source

Well, because I like to blow stuff up I'm not the kind of guy to be satisfied by mere Wikis, I did some experimentation:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

As you can see, the blast broke 9 blocks, yet I only collected 4.

So, SCIENCE(!) says that yes, explosions do destroy stuff.