Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 255 posts

Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting

#141

Post by p-e-w »

autoexec wrote: post #97
odyssey7 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be a really good discussion topic in schools. People need to understand the dynamic between science and society, because that is an important part of how the world works today. Pluto is an exemplar. And also, the value of culture. It might not be a scientific result, but it still shapes our experience of the world. Pluto is beloved.

Pluto makes for a great lesson about science itself. Our view of the universe we live in changes over time as we get more information about it. Children should learn to expect that and to understand that it isn't a bad thing, or a flaw with science, but a vital part of the process and when it happens things are working as intended. That means that today Pluto isn't a planet, even though for a small time it used to be…

> Our view of the universe we live in changes over time as we get more information about it.

But that’s not what happened here. The definition was changed. We didn’t learn anything new about Pluto that made us say “ah, we thought Pluto had a solid core but apparently it doesn’t, so it’s not a planet”. All the relevant facts about Pluto remained the same. The reason why it’s no longer considered a planet is because of the term ‘planet’, not because of Pluto.

Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting

#142

Post by waterheater »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #138
Syzygies wrote: post #135

My favorite nonfiction book in years is "Storia della pasta in dieci piatti" by Luca Cesari. The signature chapter explores the day in 2015 when celebrity chef Carlo Cracco stated on television that a clove of garlic is an ingredient that can go into amatriciana. Cesari explores the absurdity of the resulting uproar, given the actual history of the dish. People like to make rules. Leave them be in their tree houses,…

This is hardly on par in terms of stupidity, but one thing you learn from flat-earthers is that humans love disagreeing with a consensus. Nothing make a certain type of person feel smarter than disagreeing with everyone. If you say the sky is blue I'm going to say it's green because I'm so smart.

>If you say the sky is blue I'm going to say it's green because I'm so smart.

Flat-earthers are definitely wrong about the shape of the earth, but even they admit the sky is blue, assuming they aren't afflicted with some unfortunate variety of colorblindness.

In my observations of flat-earthers, they're people who reject the consensus surrounding a particular fact because they haven't observed that fact for themselves, which doesn't make them bad people or even crazy. I do rather enjoy their attempts to measure basic scientific facts about the earth, such as when a group of flat-earthers used lasers and the ocean to measure if the earth indeed has curvature. When the evidence incontrovertibly showed the earth indeed has sufficient curvature to match the scientific consensus, many participants were quite shocked. As long as they adjusted to the consensus, or even hypothesized another theory they felt worth testing, they're not crazy, just skeptical of authority.

Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting

#143

Post by antonvs »

autoexec wrote: post #97
odyssey7 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be a really good discussion topic in schools. People need to understand the dynamic between science and society, because that is an important part of how the world works today. Pluto is an exemplar. And also, the value of culture. It might not be a scientific result, but it still shapes our experience of the world. Pluto is beloved.

Pluto makes for a great lesson about science itself. Our view of the universe we live in changes over time as we get more information about it. Children should learn to expect that and to understand that it isn't a bad thing, or a flaw with science, but a vital part of the process and when it happens things are working as intended. That means that today Pluto isn't a planet, even though for a small time it used to be…

> Pluto makes for a great lesson about science itself.

I disagree. Quibbling about a definition like that is like quibbling about whether a certain bird is a black-crowned Night-Heron or a black-crowned Night Heron (without the second hyphen), which is a real controversy that took place.

I suppose it shows a socially constructed, human aspect of science, but it really has very little to do with actually understanding the universe. The universe doesn’t care about our arbitrary stamp-collection-style classification of objects. There’s no equation or physical theory that describes the difference in any meaningful way.

Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting

#145

Post by p-e-w »

ludicrousdispla wrote: post #81
Planktonne wrote: post #30

The actual problem here is weirdly aggressive nerds who are incapable of nuance, and insist that an astronomical classification (Pluto is not a planet by the IAU definition) should be used in non-astronomical contexts. Historically and culturally, Pluto is considered a planet. An IAU classification shouldn't be used to try and retroactively change that, because the IAU does not have control over history and culture.…

While reading your comment it occurred to me that virtually all reporting on (or talking about) science involves applying it to an unsuitable context. Schrödinger's cat is probably the most prolific example of this.

[flagged]

Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting

#146

Post by zdragnar »

jerf wrote: post #83
zdragnar wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peanuts, cashews, almonds, walnuts, pecans, Brazil nuts and pistachios are culinary nuts but NOT botanical nuts. Botanical berries: Bananas, tomatoes, grapes, cucumbers, eggplants, avocados and peppers, but NOT strawberries, raspberries, blackberries or mulberries. Scientists really should have made up their own categories instead of using our words.

"Scientists really should have made up their own categories instead of using our words." If they could do it all over again probably most of them would. The sciences all grew organically too. Some of these things like "berries" aren't even just the product of one reclassification, they're the product of several over the course of decades or centuries, which is how they get so common-sense silly over time.

We had the perfect opportunity to introduce new names when the IAU created the "dwarf planet" classification in 2006. That was literally the perfect time to do it all over.

Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting

#147

Post by autoexec »

p-e-w wrote: post #141
autoexec wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pluto makes for a great lesson about science itself. Our view of the universe we live in changes over time as we get more information about it. Children should learn to expect that and to understand that it isn't a bad thing, or a flaw with science, but a vital part of the process and when it happens things are working as intended. That means that today Pluto isn't a planet, even though for a small time it used to be…

> Our view of the universe we live in changes over time as we get more information about it. But that’s not what happened here. The definition was changed. We didn’t learn anything new about Pluto that made us say “ah, we thought Pluto had a solid core but apparently it doesn’t, so it’s not a planet”. All the relevant facts about Pluto remained the same. The reason why it’s no longer considered a planet is because of…

We didn't learn much more about Pluto, other than it wasn't as unique as we once thought. We learned a lot more about other bodies in the Kuiper belt though. By our old classification, suddenly it looked like there could be hundreds of "planets" in our solar system. Our improved understanding of the nature of the Kuiper belt and its inhabitants caused us to reassess which types of features were useful to distinguish a planet from the vast number of smaller objects in our solar system.

Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting

#148

Post by b0rtb0rt »

autoexec wrote: post #108
jerf wrote: post #19

You know, this is really just a fantastic opportunity to realize the phenomenal psychological power of "headcanon". Who cares if Pluto is or is not tagged with the word "planet" by some organization you know effectively nothing about, have no control over, has no control over you, and couldn't so much as move a pebble on the planetary body in question any time in the next 20 years, if not more? Have whatever emotiona…

I agree, call whatever you like whatever you want. Just don't expect schools to teach that to anyone else. We get enough of that from the folks who want to replace science class with "God did it".

who did do it?

Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting

#149

Post by pdonis »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #121
nephihaha wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard people argue that we are in fact in a kind of binary planetary system. No other planet has such a large satellite relative to its size, until you get to the likes of Pluto etc.

The Earth is closer but I don't think there's any good argument to say it's actually a binary system. Notably the Earth-Moon barycenter stays inside the Earth, and the Sun-Jupiter barycenter doesn't stay inside the Sun. But barycenters are too easy to get outside of objects anyway.

As I understand it, one suggested "double planet" definition was that the barycenter would have to be outside both objects. Earth-Moon doesn't (quite) satisfy that condition, but for example, Pluto-Charon does.

Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting

#150

Post by paxys »

The "battle" for Pluto is an interesting case study in indoctrination. A few generations of children grew up being taught a specific fact, saw it in textbooks, learned mnemonics about it, had memorable cartoon characters named after it, and then one day they were told – with sound reasoning and plenty of scientific evidence – that they should now update their views on the topic.

You would think this group of well educated, critically thinking adults would go "sure", but something fundamental in their brains just refuses to let them accept this meaningless change to their lives.

Now scale this up to actual impactful topics like religion, politics, relationships, race and more and most conflicts around the world start to make sense.

Post reply on HN