[X] My Assistant

[dmuller]

Article on the BBC website: 'Non-planet' Pluto gets new class
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7449735.stm

Now an IAU committee, meeting in Oslo, has suggested that small, nearly spherical objects orbiting beyond Neptune should carry the "plutoid" tag.

It also goes on to say that not everybody is too excited about it:

"It's just some people in a smoke-filled room who dreamed it up," he told the Associated Press. "Plutoids or haemorrhoids, whatever they call it. This is irrelevant."

[tanjent]

I don't understand why this topic provokes so much emotion.

The more different space objects we identify and interact with,
the more details we will want to take into account when we try to categorize them.
And for the above mentioned continuum reasons, none of the categorizations will ever be a perfect fit.
But this shouldn't matter to the people here on this site who are already well aware of the
imperfections of whatever classification system is in force. When those imperfections become too
constraining, the system will be modified again, but it is only ever going to be an heuristic convenience.

It seems we are all up in arms about how OTHER people will be confused - children, politicians,
the man and woman on the street. How will the imperfections of the labeling scheme warp their
understanding of the underlying science? The incentive to learn more probably comes from the
subject matter itself. Some of those other people will push on to learn more and others won't. This
seems quite normal and not especially deplorable, since many of those who continue to rely on an
oversimplified and somewhat inaccurate view of outer space will obtain a deeper understanding of some
other area in which they become the experts who are best in touch with the underlying reality. I don't
worry that interested children are going to be stopped in their tracks by Pluto's demotion.

Disclaiming any serious knowledge of linguistics, I am still not too surprised that languages evolve.
All the heated debate is entertaining and certainly not harmful, and the fact that some organized group of experts is
trying to direct the process probably inspires a "Who do they think they are?" response, but ultimately the
constructs that survive will be those we find convenient to use. And after a while they won't seem so convenient
any more and something else will come along. "Plutoid" will do for now, but certainly not forever.

[JRehling]

I don't understand why this topic provokes so much emotion.

The more different space objects we identify and interact with,
the more details we will want to take into account when we try to categorize them.
And for the above mentioned continuum reasons, none of the categorizations will ever be a perfect fit.

However, calling this application of nomenclature "not a perfect fit" is like calling Mariner 1 "not a total success."

The great contribution of the IAU's effort to name these various classes of body is that one day it will be remembered as a failure in nomenclature the way that cold fusion is remembered as a failure in application of the scientific method.

"Never let scientists name your product."

The interesting thing is that star nomenclature has proceeded fairly smoothly. Supernova, white dwarf, neutron star, pulsar, black hole -- all of these terms were examples where the scientists basically got it right on the first try. But even before 2006's controversy, we had "plutinos", "KBOs", and "TNOs". Now we have "dwarf planet", "plutoid", and two controversial attempts at "planet". I think part of the answer is that people didn't previously have any concept of any of those star types until scientists theorized or discovered them. The terms described new things; they didn't replace terms.

But we've had fully six terms for denoting Pluto (not counting "Pluto" and "minor planet") with one of those terms given two new definitions. Any way you slice or dice it, you can tell when a good job is being done and when a poor job is being done, and seven categories for Pluto is not a good job being done. It's horrendous.