It’s a planet, dammit.
This week, amid so much discouraging news of irredentist militias and unrepentant neocons, there was a small bit of news that might cheer people up, at least a little: Pluto, it seems, may be accepted back into the club of planets.
It will not surprise you to hear that the New Yorker is as sneeringly patronizing to pro-Plutonians as it is to us dread ‘neocons,’ not to mention everybody else that the author’s tribe hates. Which makes this a bit of an ironic article on the fellow’s behalf, given that he probably doesn’t realize that he’s being as reflexively supportive of his own tribal prejudices as the people that he was sneering at. I’m not mad about that, mind you: I’m cheerful, you see, that we’re making promise in getting Pluto back into its rightful place.
Because it’s a planet, dammit.
Via
I never de-listed Pluto as a planet #settledscience http://t.co/443KkUa29R
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) June 20, 2014
Moe Lane
PS: I refuse to apologize for this.
Damn skippy.
I’m not sure why anyone would sneer at a Pluto supporter. After all, whether Pluto is or is not a planet is not science per se, just a discussion over definitions. Any resonable person can obviously see both sides of that argument, emotional investment aside.
—
So how do you feel about the possiblity of planethood of Eris?
That they should have named that planet Xena.
Pluto perhaps promoted to planet?
Snarky science shirt sellers saddened.
…aaaaand Aruges for the win.
The only argument against Pluto being a planet seems to be a whining “but then we’d almost have to consider Ceres a planet too!”
.
I don’t find that very persuasive.
I have no problem with Ceres (or Eris for that matter) being considered a planet.
Planet.
Schmanet.
Janet.
.
.
Mew
Eventually I will own a Pin-Bot pinball machine, which has Pluto as a planet.
After years of insisting Pluto is a planet, I want to feel vindicated, but the last few years I haven’t cared that much, so it feels like I *abandoned* Pluto as it were and gave up.
Of course the whole argument on whether or not Pluto was a planet was really just a political move by euros who wanted to deny American exceptionalism by blotting out American scientific achievements. The American Left joined in when they realized it offered them an opportunity to call the Right “anti-science” and also because a sizeable portion of the Left hates America.
If they could get away with it they’d declare that the Wright Brothers weren’t the first to fly a fixed winged aircraft.