Poor Pluto?

As the astronomy community decides to demote Pluto, some people are pondering what this says on a larger scale.

Let me be the first to say Kudos to them. No, I don’t hate Pluto and, if they had suggested leaving Pluto as a planet, I wouldn’t have lost any sleep. But, what they did is the only result that science should have allowed. The fact is, Pluto as a planet is the result of old theories which no longer hold true.

When Pluto was discovered, it was called a planet because they didn’t know how many objects were really in our galaxy. Now that we have a better understanding, we realize that – while reasonable when done, Pluto really isn’t a planet. So, there were three choices: Give Pluto an exception due to history, call a lot of other clearly-not-planets object planets, or demote Pluto.

We don’t want science which is unwilling to look back and say ‘we were wrong’. We don’t want science to be worried about hurting feelings, or disrupting traditions.

What we want is science that is rational, and consistent.