Wednesday, August 16, 2006





Cosmic Variance on the "new planets" debate:

The Cash Value of Astronomical Ideas

The thing is, it doesn't matter. Most everyone who writes about it admits that it doesn't matter, before launching into a passionate defense of what they think the real definition should be. But, seriously: it really doesn't matter. We are not doing science, or learning anything about the universe here. We're just making up a definition, and we're doing so solely for our own convenience. There is no pre-existing Platonic nature of "planet-ness" located out there in the world, which we are trying to discover so that we may bring our nomenclature in line with it. We are not discovering anything new about nature, nor even bringing any reality into existence by our choices.

2 comments:

Chris said...

Is it just me, or does this whole thing smell like a make-work project for astronomers on government payrolls whose dearest dream in life consists of sitting on panels debating whether the Inuit or Cree Pantheon is more suitable as a source of planetary nomenclature? Sorry, just being cynical, but apart from making the lives of high school science students hell for the indefinite future, what's the point?

Mac said...

Chris,

It's not just you. I'm getting pretty tired of it too. Enough.