odyssey7

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31.
by odyssey7 1mo ago
Species means different things in different contexts. Have you heard of species counterpoint? Nobody is saying biologists can’t use that word the way they see fit. It would however be ridiculous for them to ask me to stop referring to speci
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
If you read Plato, you will see that defining words that already exist in some universal way is pretty much impossible. This is a humanities question, not a scientific one. It was a fool’s errand or an act of deception to try to coerce “pla
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
A mention of “the planet Pluto” carries risk that you will be derailed by people who think they are very scientific but in fact are just excited to be able to correct someone. My language has become politicized. Either I go with the flow an
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
Although there may have been a chance from an opportunism standpoint, the wisdom needed to do that well was clearly absent.
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
The meaning of a word comes from how its speakers use it. When people stop referring to Pluto as a planet, it will cease to be one. Until then, we are living in a reality in which Pluto both is a planet and is not a planet, depending on the
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
Yep, it’s a word. We can make more of them. We use them differently depending on the context. It’s strange that armchair scientists seem unable to understand how words work. They seem to use words fine enough? But they struggle with the a
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
They get upset when others try to exert control over them for making their own informed choices. It’s plainly un-American to have speech governed by a committee. Thankfully, the IAU has no authority over me. Why won’t people leave me alone
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
Wait until you meet the people who like to feel powerful by affiliating with certain groups and movements.
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
You’re describing the planets that are conformant to the 2006-IAU specification.
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
With or without the IAU definition, you still end up with innumerable planets. Scientists regularly claim to have found planets orbiting other stars. They do this even though they have no way to verify that their neighborhoods have been cle
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
One of the parts that makes people emotional is that they’re plainly being lied to about the premise of needing a universal definition. Scientists just ignore the rule about neighborhoods at times for convenience — how else would you claim
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
Perhaps the IAU didn’t attempt to exert any influence over the general public and perhaps they have had nothing to do with the legions who have since been irritatingly telling people that their words are scientifically incorrect, as if the
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
Scientists can do whatever they like. The problem is when they try to exert control over other scientists and members of the general public. We have both freedom of speech and freedom of association, which means the IAU has no authority to
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
Yes, of course nobody cares about this, that’s why it’s absurd to expect other people to follow it and to shame them when they don’t. Even scientists themselves are having to ignore the definition at times. Scientific institutions: be nic
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
A geocentric model is observably incorrect. The word “planet” is neither true nor false. Different people use it to refer to different things. Kind of like the word “tree.” Some things are trees and some things are not — and it really depen
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
Even if they had to do something, they didn’t need to do what they ended up going for — it was a pretty bad option from a scientific standpoint and a needlessly controversial one. As the article here explains, the 2006 IAU definition doesn’
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
If you certify that you have discovered an exoplanet and you do not know whether it has cleared its neighborhood, that may be a crime under the IAU’s definition. Possibly a financial crime if research funding was involved. I’m not a lawyer,
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
It’s completely unsurprising to deal with grammar policing over substance, but… In terms of financial motives, I would reason that a motive for extending the term “planet” to cover the innumerable large objects orbiting other stars would ha
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
Unfortunately this is both a false dichotomy fallacy and an appeal to extremes. 1. Yes, there are culturally significant things that have happened since the 1930s, including the discovery of Pluto and its designation as being a planet. In f
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
Because the IAU does not uniquely hold claim to undeniable, universal, transcendent truth that should be received without question or doubt -- or even healthy scientific disagreement -- alternate planetary definitions exist. In at least one
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
The asset lost in this in this case is from the commons. That is, the ability to say "the ninth planet" or "the planet Pluto" without incurring smug harassment from legions who probably couldn't explain what the IAU
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
As you can see, there are many valid ways to go about understanding what a planet is in a cultural sense.
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
By all means, call it what you like and honor it however you like. I’m not the IAU, and I have no interest whatsoever in emboldening thousands of people to smugly harass you or anybody else about it.
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
It’s not about being rude to Pluto so much as about being rude to me. I’m not a member of the IAU. I don’t adhere to their linguistic prescriptivism, and nobody should expect that I will. Some of their own members do not — the article here
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
Hey, don’t blame me, blame the IAU for opening that can of worms. I’m just happy calling Pluto a “planet” and would rather the IAU had left me in peace — they’re the ones who want to argue with me about what words I’m supposed to say and wh
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
I appreciate your contribution to the discussion. I’d have to point out that Pluto both is and is not a planet, depending on the context — it depends on whom you ask and the situation in which you ask. What would you say to scientists and l
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
This is what should have happened. (And it’s not too late — Pluto will remain with us for a while yet.)
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
Planets predate modern astronomy. You have to negotiate with the public if you want to change what “planet” means. To most people, in most contexts, it means 8 or 9 specific things that they have specific ideas about, not a theoretical cate
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
Well, the thing is, nobody got told, out of nowhere, that the “honorable strawberries” were now called simply “mildly honored straw,” because a committee of so-called experts had expressed their will, and that now everybody had to say “mild
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by odyssey7 1mo ago
> someone was trying to make a name for themselves 100% Scientists try to coin new terms all the time. It’s great for the researcher if people actually use it. But why do that when you can just sign your name on a term everyone already u

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