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Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

The alternative was to announce "we now have 10 more planets, and there are probably a bunch more, and we'll probably never really get a definitive number".

That would also have had an impact on the public view of science. Perhaps not as bad, but it would have had an impact.

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No, the alternative would be to make up some latin sounding words for planets, dwarf planets, etc. and leave the vulgar planet alone to the standard 9 that we all know are planets.

This is what should have happened. (And it’s not too late — Pluto will remain with us for a while yet.)

No that would be an argument to return to the original definition of planets (highly visible celestial objects that migrate across the sky, i.e. the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn).

If you believe in the "standard 9" you're just insisting on returning to a scientific definition of planets but one that is frozen on our scientific understanding from a few decades ago...

As you can see, there are many valid ways to go about understanding what a planet is in a cultural sense.

The argument is to not make any changes to what people call planets but to instead have taken the opportunity in 2006 to create a separate classification system. Use something vaguely Latin sounding like planitus or whatever.

Yes, but again, what people call planets was stable for over a thousand years before changing rapidly in the past few centuries (first with the Sun and Moon being removed during the Copernican revolution, then Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta being added before being removed when they discovered a bunch of other asteroids, then Neptune being added, and finally in the last century Pluto being added before being removed after they discovered a bunch of other dwarf planets).

If you don't like changes to what people call planets, you should be unrolling all the other changes that have also been made, and go back to the original definition that stood from ~200 BCE-1700 CE.

Right, and then everybody would be in the comments complaining about how "everybody is using a new term for planet and it's ridiculous, just call them planets". It's not a battle that can be won.

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 category of infinite objects.

Few things sound more like more science than "planets". Telling people "Well actually 'planet' isn't a scientific term, it's a historical / cultural term" will also significantly reduce their trust and interest in science.

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 when I’m supposed to say them.

I’d encourage you to think about the impact of science fiction on interest in science. Culture is an extremely powerful force. I don’t think your concern would bear out.

There was no do nothing option, the IAU didn't open the can of words. 10 new objects that would be called planets under the old definition were discovered. "Doing nothing" would have led to far more significant changes.

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’t really make sense or function as a useful model for what a planet is.

This is similar to how most people would say that mathematics is about numbers, but the word “number” doesn’t even mean anything in math.

> Planets predate modern astronomy.

If we're segmenting off "modern astronomy" then Pluto wasn't even discovered yet.

And we discovered Ceres long before Pluto. It would be pretty rude to keep excluding Ceres just because we knew about the asteroid belt before we knew about the Kuiper belt.

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 explains.

Are you a member of the IAU?

I didn't say anything about rudeness to Pluto, I was talking about Ceres. I like Ceres. I think it deserves some recognition for being known before even Neptune.

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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