4 ms·

That doesn't really fix anything, because no matter what you call Pluto, it has to get demoted from the list of planet-like-things-whatever-we-call-them that sc

That doesn't really fix anything, because no matter what you call Pluto, it has to get demoted from the list of planet-like-things-whatever-we-call-them that school children learn. The issue is that there's hundreds of objects at least as planet-y as Pluto is, and nobody is going to remember all of those. So either we demote Pluto somehow, or we have to have some reason that it's more important than the rest. So, Pluto is just historically interesting but inherently just one of many rocks. And science tries not to categorize things based on "oh that one somebody noticed first".

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Nevermark 3y ago
I agree, distinguishing between the importance of things is helpful. But changing “planet” to not include Pluto just created unending inconsistency. There is nothing that screamed “not planet” about Pluto until some scientists preconceptions and emotional investment about the numbers of planets got challenged. People now have to learn by rote that Pluto is not a planet. Because “scientists say so”, not because they are actually becoming sensitive to debris fields. The link between orbital debris and planetary size isn’t even going to hold with future discoveries. So the new restrictive regular language-unfriendly definition isn’t even going to be stable. Ridiculous.
- kadoban 3y ago
  > There is nothing that screamed “not planet” about Pluto until some scientists preconceptions and emotional investment about the numbers of planets got challenged. > People now have to learn by rote that Pluto is not a planet. Because “scientists say so”, not because they are actually becoming sensitive to debris fields. Even the other dwarfs we know of so far seem to make it a different category to me. Pluto is a lot more like them than it's like even Mercury. https://planetseducation.com/dwarf-planets/ https://planetseducation.com/dwarf-planets/ > The link between orbital debris and planetary size isn’t even going to hold with future discoveries. So the new restrictive regular language-unfriendly definition isn’t even going to be stable. Are you saying that we're going to find huge planets that haven't cleared their neighborhoods? That sounds unlikely.
derbOac 3y ago
I guess I never understood the problem with saying we have hundreds of planets, and then to classify them.
- kadoban 3y ago
  The main issue is just that you have a limited number of rocks that normal people are going to care about. Mercury, Venus, Earth, etc. Should Pluto be in this list? If so, why? It's a boring tiny rock way the hell out, one of hundreds. Making this list hundreds long is not feasible, nobody will remember them.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Nevermark 3y ago

I agree, distinguishing between the importance of things is helpful. But changing “planet” to not include Pluto just created unending inconsistency. There is nothing that screamed “not planet” about Pluto until some scientists preconceptions and emotional investment about the numbers of planets got challenged. People now have to learn by rote that Pluto is not a planet. Because “scientists say so”, not because they are actually becoming sensitive to debris fields. The link between orbital debris and planetary size isn’t even going to hold with future discoveries. So the new restrictive regular language-unfriendly definition isn’t even going to be stable. Ridiculous.

kadoban 3y ago
> There is nothing that screamed “not planet” about Pluto until some scientists preconceptions and emotional investment about the numbers of planets got challenged. > People now have to learn by rote that Pluto is not a planet. Because “scientists say so”, not because they are actually becoming sensitive to debris fields. Even the other dwarfs we know of so far seem to make it a different category to me. Pluto is a lot more like them than it's like even Mercury. https://planetseducation.com/dwarf-planets/ https://planetseducation.com/dwarf-planets/ > The link between orbital debris and planetary size isn’t even going to hold with future discoveries. So the new restrictive regular language-unfriendly definition isn’t even going to be stable. Are you saying that we're going to find huge planets that haven't cleared their neighborhoods? That sounds unlikely.

derbOac 3y ago

I guess I never understood the problem with saying we have hundreds of planets, and then to classify them.

kadoban 3y ago
The main issue is just that you have a limited number of rocks that normal people are going to care about. Mercury, Venus, Earth, etc. Should Pluto be in this list? If so, why? It's a boring tiny rock way the hell out, one of hundreds. Making this list hundreds long is not feasible, nobody will remember them.