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

From: Chris Peterson <clp_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Aug 2 22:00:19 2005
Message-ID: <01b601c597cf$13bac980$f551040a_at_bellatrix>

Not at all. There is a difference between the public misusing something that
already has a formal definition (meteor), and the scientific establishment
adopting a new definition for a word that has been used in a certain way for
centuries (planet)- a definition at odds with how the word is now used.

I say come up with a new word. Then the planets are, and always will be,
what they are now- the nine bodies from Mercury to Pluto. And scientists
won't have to spend the next 100 years qualifying what they mean by planet
every time they talk with the lay public.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "Darren Garrison" <cynapse_at_charter.net>
To: "Dawn & Gerald Flaherty" <grf2_at_verizon.net>
Cc: "Meteorite Mailing List" <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2005 7:05 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Astronomers to Decide What Makes a Planet


On Tue, 02 Aug 2005 20:47:39 -0400, "Dawn & Gerald Flaherty"
<grf2_at_verizon.net> wrote:

Yeah, by the same "give up on defining a planet because a planet is what the
general public says it
is" logic, we might as well start calling meteorites meteors, because the
general public tends to
call meteorites meteors. Or we should accept that apes are monkeys, because
the general public
calls them monkeys. Or that pterasaurs are flying dinosaurs, because the
general public calls them
flying dinosaurs.

I say come up with a reasonable definition, and if that disagrees with what
the "general public"
thinks, then tell the general public to go sit on a bunsen burner.
Received on Tue 02 Aug 2005 10:00:07 PM PDT