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

theguardian.com

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

#171

Post by waterheater »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #168
waterheater wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 themselve…

They are absolutely crazy. There is no defending it. It is something that makes stupid people feel smart. There are easy, verifiable experiments that can be done and they refuse to accept the outcome.

Have you ever called someone crazy, only for them to stop dead in their tracks and say, "wow, you're completely right, how could I have been so blind?"

I haven't, and you probably haven't, though if you have, I'd love to hear that story. As I said, they're skeptical of authority and need to run the experiment themselves; some will even flip on flat-earthers who run the experiment and change their minds. Only those who perform the experiment and still refuse to accept the outcome are deserving of being left to their own crazed devices. Until then, they're just ignorant and/or weird.

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

#173

Post by bspammer »

fluoridation wrote: post #164
pdonis wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the Moon's orbit is always concave towards the Sun, one could even argue that the Moon is a planet, not a satellite, it just happens to have an orbit that is closely coupled to that of another planet, Earth. As I understand it, in fact, there was discussion about defining systems like Earth-Moon as double planets, but that didn't make it into the final definition.

>the Moon's orbit is always concave towards the Sun Huh?

Here’s a visualisation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBcxuM-qXec

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

#174

Post by bigstrat2003 »

paxys wrote: post #150

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 edu…

It's a definition. That is not a matter of scientific inquiry or fact, the definition is whatever people want it to be. You're belittling people for ignoring scientific evidence, but there's no scientific evidence to ignore, and cannot be.

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

#175

Post by mr_toad »

beloch wrote: post #28
drxzcl wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trans-neptunian objects, including Pluto, are in orbital resonance. They owe their stable orbits to the existence of Neptune. It’s like saying Jupiter is not a planet because the Trojans exist.

...or like saying Earth is not a planet because NEA's share our orbit. If you have to argue that it doesn't apply to Jupiter or Earth because they are obviously planets, it implies that "clearing the neighbourhood" is a vague and not particularly useful criteria.

It’s not vague or unimportant. Clearing their orbits literally made them planets because they absorbed the mass of everything they cleared out.

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

#176

Post by mr_toad »

elictronic wrote: post #37
gus_massa wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article explains, if you bring back Pluto you must include Eris too, and perhaps Makemake and Haumea if you ignore is not as round as expected, and who know how many other undiscovered small object near them. (And Ceres? I like Ceres.) Anyway, 9 is not an option, you must choose 8 or 10+.

Pluto is grandfathered in through the collective Consciousness of society. Just treat it the same way as tomatoes, which are officially fruits but no child believes that crap.

Science doesn’t care about collective consciousness. Nor does the universe.

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

#177

Post by mr_toad »

d--b wrote: post #100

Humanity's need to categorize things never ceases to amaze me. Is it Art? It's not Art! Are bananas a vegetable or a fruit? Pluto definitely is a planet! No it's not! Jesus, what a waste of energy. Are we just realizing that asteroids come in all sizes? Do we really need a sharp boundary between those we call planets and those we don't call planets? Can we consider planethood a spectrum? Like should we REALLY care if…

Not classifying things seems like a really good way to get your fingers burnt, or get poisoned, starved, or eaten, drowned, or die in many different interesting ways.

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

#178

Post by odyssey7 »

wat10000 wrote: post #170
odyssey7 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, just someone who can spot a charade every now and then. My guess is the IAU would say, given the challenge, “ah, well of course we didn’t mean for our universal definition for pla…

A crime? Dude. Whatever you’re on, cut the dose.

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 nice or don’t be surprised when the general public votes to cut your scientific research funding or won’t accept important advice from experts.

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

#179

Post by skissane »

adrian_b wrote: post #17

> “One of the biggest flaws with the IAU definition is that you can have the same object in two different orbits,” says Kornfeld. “In one, it’s considered a planet, and in the other, it’s not considered a planet.” No, there is no flaw in this, and moreover there is nothing new in this. This is how it has always been, it is not something invented recently. In the Solar System, there are 3 Mercury-sized satellites and…

> The current definition of "planets" and "dwarf planets" is fine.

It’s serviceable, but is it ideal?

What’s the scientific advantage in categorising “planets” and “dwarf planets” as two separate categories, compared to unifying them into a single category (possibly while retaining the distinction as two different subtypes of “planet”)?

Which system would be more scientifically useful? Which would be more parsimonious?

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

#180

Post by pdonis »

fluoridation wrote: post #164
pdonis wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the Moon's orbit is always concave towards the Sun, one could even argue that the Moon is a planet, not a satellite, it just happens to have an orbit that is closely coupled to that of another planet, Earth. As I understand it, in fact, there was discussion about defining systems like Earth-Moon as double planets, but that didn't make it into the final definition.

>the Moon's orbit is always concave towards the Sun Huh?

The Sun's gravitational pull on the Moon is always stronger than the Earth's. (Do the math and see--on average the Sun's pull is more than twice as strong as the Earth's.) So the net acceleration of the Moon is always towards the Sun, never towards the Earth.
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