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The "Save Pluto" crowd do a disservice to science in general, instead of using this as a way to highlight the scientific method and the importance of always re

by J3L2404 16y ago

The "Save Pluto" crowd do a disservice to science in general, instead of using this as a way to highlight the scientific method and the importance of always reassessing ideas based on new data. I applaud Pluto's death as a contrast to inflexible memorization of facts and demonstrating that facts are only valid as far as they are backed by observation and nothing is sacrosanct. While it may be difficult for some, I can't think of a better example of the impartiality of science - Technology may someday remove a planet, but for now it's only science.

hugh3 16y ago
Yes and no. The classification of Pluto really isn't a matter of science, it's just a matter of words. We could, if we felt like it, declare that Pluto is a planet. We could arbitrarily decide that anything more than 100km in radius is a planet. Or we could declare that nothing smaller than Uranus is a planet (goodbye, planet Earth!) While the discovery of a bunch of dwarf planets filling in the size gap between Pluto and the smallest asteroids is certainly suggestive that the definition of "planet" needs to be revised, we could quite easily have gone with another definition. From a scientist's point of view I don't care much one way or another, but from a layman's point of view I can see how it'd be nicer to live in a richer solar system with twelve official "planets" rather than our new impoverished solar system with just eight.
- J3L2404 16y ago
  Except that it would end up as 40+ planets, most of which are clearly asteroids, in order to pretend that science is constant.
  - elblanco 16y ago
    > Except that it would end up as 40+ planets I think that would be fantastic personally. The semantics of "planet" vs. "asteroid" is clearly far more motivational in terms of sending spacecraft to study them, plot stories around them, etc. A planet is a place (that one might go), an asteroid is just a marginally interesting hunk of rock. (it's really just a matter of marketing to be honest)
    - harshpotatoes 16y ago
      ? I'm not sure I understand. Are talking about marketing the term for the general public, or in order to convince scientists to study them? As for the scientists, I think they already have an interest in studying asteroids, as evidenced by this list of NASA missions involving asteroids: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/planets/asteroidpage.html http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/planets/asteroidpage.ht... I really think this is more about organization than marketing.
  - Figs 16y ago
    The labels for things have nothing to do with the state of nature, but rather with the way people work. The fact that we call Earth and Jupiter the same thing but consider the sun and Pluto to be different kinds of things is simply a choice that is meant to aid human understanding, not a statement about nature. There is no such thing as "chair" or "star" or "supermarket" in the laws of physics, those are just words we use to make sense of the world. We could say that the solar systems are made up of "gassies", and "rockies", and "icies", and "firies", and "clumpies" if we wanted instead of Gas Giants, Rocky Planets, Comets, Stars, and Asteroids, and it wouldn't make a damned bit of difference to the way nature actually works (if you get your descriptions of those kinds of things accurate enough, then you could still model the behavior of the solar system just as well as if you were using "planet" in your descriptions instead!), but, of course, it makes a difference to how people think about these things, which might help or hinder our analysis of them. (Note: as an example, if we were using "clumpies" for asteroids, then we might be arguing about whether Ceres is a "clumpy" or a "rocky", since it's much more regularly shaped than things like 216 Kleopatra... And speaking of classifying things, are dinosaurs lizards or birds? :p)
    - pjscott 16y ago
      Of course, those labels aren't purely artificial. Once you define some measurement of similarity, you can identify clusters in a data set, if there are clusters to be found. Those clusters are reasonable things to lump together with labels.
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by J3L2404 16y ago

hugh3 16y ago

Yes and no. The classification of Pluto really isn't a matter of science, it's just a matter of words. We could, if we felt like it, declare that Pluto is a planet. We could arbitrarily decide that anything more than 100km in radius is a planet. Or we could declare that nothing smaller than Uranus is a planet (goodbye, planet Earth!) While the discovery of a bunch of dwarf planets filling in the size gap between Pluto and the smallest asteroids is certainly suggestive that the definition of "planet" needs to be revised, we could quite easily have gone with another definition. From a scientist's point of view I don't care much one way or another, but from a layman's point of view I can see how it'd be nicer to live in a richer solar system with twelve official "planets" rather than our new impoverished solar system with just eight.

J3L2404 16y ago
Except that it would end up as 40+ planets, most of which are clearly asteroids, in order to pretend that science is constant.
- elblanco 16y ago
  > Except that it would end up as 40+ planets I think that would be fantastic personally. The semantics of "planet" vs. "asteroid" is clearly far more motivational in terms of sending spacecraft to study them, plot stories around them, etc. A planet is a place (that one might go), an asteroid is just a marginally interesting hunk of rock. (it's really just a matter of marketing to be honest)
  - harshpotatoes 16y ago
    ? I'm not sure I understand. Are talking about marketing the term for the general public, or in order to convince scientists to study them? As for the scientists, I think they already have an interest in studying asteroids, as evidenced by this list of NASA missions involving asteroids: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/planets/asteroidpage.html http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/planets/asteroidpage.ht... I really think this is more about organization than marketing.
- Figs 16y ago
  The labels for things have nothing to do with the state of nature, but rather with the way people work. The fact that we call Earth and Jupiter the same thing but consider the sun and Pluto to be different kinds of things is simply a choice that is meant to aid human understanding, not a statement about nature. There is no such thing as "chair" or "star" or "supermarket" in the laws of physics, those are just words we use to make sense of the world. We could say that the solar systems are made up of "gassies", and "rockies", and "icies", and "firies", and "clumpies" if we wanted instead of Gas Giants, Rocky Planets, Comets, Stars, and Asteroids, and it wouldn't make a damned bit of difference to the way nature actually works (if you get your descriptions of those kinds of things accurate enough, then you could still model the behavior of the solar system just as well as if you were using "planet" in your descriptions instead!), but, of course, it makes a difference to how people think about these things, which might help or hinder our analysis of them. (Note: as an example, if we were using "clumpies" for asteroids, then we might be arguing about whether Ceres is a "clumpy" or a "rocky", since it's much more regularly shaped than things like 216 Kleopatra... And speaking of classifying things, are dinosaurs lizards or birds? :p)
  - pjscott 16y ago
    Of course, those labels aren't purely artificial. Once you define some measurement of similarity, you can identify clusters in a data set, if there are clusters to be found. Those clusters are reasonable things to lump together with labels.

deleted 16y ago

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