[meteorite-list] Astronomers to Decide What Makes a Planet

From: Dawn & Gerald Flaherty <grf2_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Aug 2 20:47:54 2005
Message-ID: <023901c597c4$f38dd530$6502a8c0_at_GerryLaptop>

A thought provoking concept Darren.
Analagous to seventeenth century religiousity which refused to accept the
Copernican revolutionary thought?
Kinda "don't rock the boat cause its too damned complicated and might cause
a 'panic' for joe sixpac"[that's me by the way before my doctor screwed that
up] Jerry
----- Original Message -----
From: "Darren Garrison" <cynapse_at_charter.net>
To: "Meteorite Mailing List" <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, August 01, 2005 9:31 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Astronomers to Decide What Makes a Planet


On Mon, 1 Aug 2005 16:07:54 -0700 (PDT), Ron Baalke
<baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:

>Brown argues that astronomers cannot control what gets called a planet.
>"Our culture has fully embraced the idea that Pluto is a planet and
>scientists have for the most part not yet fully realized that the term
>'planet' no longer belongs to them," he says.
>
>"Everyone should ignore the distracting debates of the scientists, and
>planets in our Solar System should be defined not by some attempt at
>forcing a scientific definition on a thousands-of-years-old cultural
>term, but by simply embracing culture," says Brown. "Pluto is a planet
>because culture says it is." And, he adds, that means his new find is a
>planet too.


Because everybody knows that lay pop-culture should be the final arbiter in
defining scientific
terms!
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Received on Tue 02 Aug 2005 08:47:39 PM PDT