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

From: Kashuba, Ontario, California <mary.kashuba_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Aug 2 22:13:53 2005
Message-ID: <009901c597d0$f6a027d0$6401a8c0_at_VALUED2CAD4949>

Chris and others,

Pluto has not been referred to as a planet for centuries .

John Kashuba
Ontario, California

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Peterson" <clp_at_alumni.caltech.edu>
To: "Meteorite Mailing List" <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2005 7:00 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Astronomers to Decide What Makes a Planet


> 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.
>
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Received on Tue 02 Aug 2005 10:13:38 PM PDT