Sunday, February 26. 2006

Planet Pluto, Pardon?

I’ve been hearing a lot lately about the controversy surrounding the “planet” Pluto and its other Kuiper Belt neighbors. The situation in a nutshell is that there’ve been recent discoveries of other orbiting bodies in our solar system that are comparitive in size and composition to Pluto that no one wants to classify as planets.

The problem is that we don’t really have a concrete definition of what a planet is, and astronomers are hesitant to create one because it might threaten the number of planets we currenly have. One of two things would have to happen: one or more of the other Kuiper Belt objects would need to be classified as planets, or Pluto would have to be declassified as a planet. My question is, what’s the big fuckin’ deal? Just get together, make a definition and stick with it.

It seems that “respect” is coming in to play here. I’ve heard several astronomers say that it would be disrespectful to both Pluto and its discoverers for us to downgrade it. So what? This is science we are talking about here right? Either something is a planet or it isn’t and it seems like a pretty simple distinction to me, one which “respect” should have no bearing on. I mean, it’s not like we’d decide not to create an anti-virus for a hypothetical lab-created virus out of respect for the scientists who worked hard on it. Would we?

Also, the hesitancy behind classifying other Kuiper Belt objects as planets seems to be because they don’t want our model of the solar system to change, once again out of respect, but also so as not to have to change all the books and reteach students new information which conflicts with things they had previously learned. I just don’t understand this. I’ve always been taught that one of the perks of science is that finding new information allows us to paint a more accurate picture of our universe, but here we have a situation where scientists have better tools and better information, and have decided to just discard the new things they’ve learned because it is too difficult to act on the things that the information requires us to.

That sounds more like politics than science to me.

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Comments: 7. Click to add/view.
Posted by jer@nyquil.org at 21:51





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2006-02-27 06:35
cakeandmilque said:

thank you for posting this.
and re: the last paragraph:
i was doing that silly nodding-while-reading thing.

#1 (Reply)
2006-02-27 09:40
jer said:

Yay, it’s not just me. I often wonder if I’m just crazy re: these sorts of things.

#1.1 (Reply)
2006-02-27 09:44
jer said:

Gah. Pay no attention to this comment, just trying to reset the typo that fills in as my name

#2 (Reply)
2006-02-28 06:46
Greg said:

Pluto is obviously not a planet. They should call all new pluto-like objects plutonoids to respect Dr. Pluto the original discoverer.

#3 (Reply)
2006-03-01 22:59
nightquill said:

I agree, Pluto should be punted. I’m an astronomer. Which doesn’t mean my opinion is worth any more than anyone elses. It just means that it means something when I say that my opinion isn’t worth any more than anyone else’s.

I don’t know if it’s so much respect for past astronomers as not wanting to confuse a zillion small school children.

#4 (Reply)
2006-03-02 09:44
jer said:

I don’t have an opinion on which way they should swing, I just feel that they need to pick one and do it.

As for confusing zillions of schoolchildren,that hasn’t stopped them from teaching how eggs are bad for you / good for you / bad for you over and over again. Many people use that as a criticism of science, but I think it’s an example of how it works.

Does the number of planets really affect childrens lives?

#4.1 (Reply)
2006-08-29 15:09
Will said:

Eh? What’s that you say now, sonny? You want a belt of De Kuyper? Well, now, no need to get uppity—here ya go, now, don’t drink it all, mind. You like that flask, eh? My grandaddy won it in a poker game from one Bat Masterson. You know who that is, dontcha boy?

#5 (Reply)

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About the Author

jer@nyquil.org

The author lives in Vancouver, Washington, USA with his girlfriend and a menagerie of cats, rats, fish, birds, guinea pigs and robots.

Among other inanities, he strives to use investigative techniques to work young starlet breasts into every aspect of rational discourse — focusing on the discourse, thus making it not perverted. Also, has recently begun a career as “Internet hairstylist.”

He can be contacted via email and Jabber IM at ‘jer@nyquil.org’. He likes to be contacted.

(All press inquiries, however, ought be directed towards the author’s agent, Alistair Hoel, via email to ahoel@nyquil.org.)


Winner* of Sean Gleeson’s Researcher of the Century Award.

*: I’ve technically only earned 5/6ths of the award, but maintain that I deserve the whole thing.

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