Yeah, it's not about size, its about whether something is a planet. And Pluto is a planet.
Does that mean the other objects past Pluto like Sedna and Eris are planets?
Of course not, why would it?
Sedna and Eris are larger than Pluto, and in the same general area as Pluto. There are hundreds of objects like them. There is no reason why they should not be planets and Pluto should.
We've already established that it's not a question of size, it's a question of planetude. Pluto has planetude. These other space objects do not.
Until you give me an objective, unambiguous definition of "planetude" I will not believe a thing you say concerning how much of it Pluto or anything else has. Even then, your definition will carry less weight to me then the definition created by the large group of renowned and qualified of scientists at the IAU.
And who else should make the definitions? Scientists are the only ones actively involved in making definitions because they are the only people to whom definitions actually matter, since accurate science requires accurate classification and accurate classification requires unambiguous definitions. People can have as many pet definitions as they want, but that doesn't mean that everyone will understand or accept them.
These are, as Kagus pointed out above, people who consider salsa to be a fruit salad. These are clearly people who cannot be described as sane or reliable.
Why are they not sane and reliable? Because they are not complying with the widely agreed-upon and precisely decided definition of fruit salad, and still expecting other people to understand them.
As I've said, people can have their own definition of a word if they use it within a group who agree upon that definition. If, however, they start using that meaning in academic circles, contrary to the accepted academic meaning, then they will just cause confusion and chaos. The entire
purpose of standardizing bodies like the IAU is to unambiguously define academic language so that whenever two people within the same field meet each other, or read each other's papers, they actually understand what the other's saying.
And another reason for the IAU to decide that Pluto is not a planet, is that it makes practical and logical sense for the hundreds of Pluto-like bodies in the Kuiper Belt to be their own group, separate from the traditional 8 planets. People act like they had something personally against Pluto (obviously they're anti-American globalist fucks!), but it was a decision for the benefit of the astronomical community.
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Topic: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O (Read 14905913 times)