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Posted by: smithichie 1 year, 3 months ago
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smithichie1 year, 3 months ago
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This is like voting whether or not whales are fish or mammals. Whales don't meet the definition of a fish and Pluto does not meet the definition of a planet.
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What's so bad about reclasifying Pluto as the last planet to the first dwarf planet? If Pluto were to remain a planet our solar system would go from 9 planets to hundeds, if not thousands. As our detecting abilities have grown we keep discovering Pluto sized objects far beyond Pluto.-
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Dajav281 year, 3 months ago
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who cares, what gives us the right to classify it either way? all you do when you change its classification is make the things taught for generations wrong. so modify how its taught now instead of changing things. the solar system as well as many other aspects of life are fully beyond comprehension. we can guess all we want, doesn't mean we are right or even close. leave things alone. set news rules if you want for things discovered after but the what is as it is, otherwise before you know it we as arrogant humans will be rewriting history.
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Bkumm1 year, 3 months ago
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Um, do you think about that kind of thing before you type it or are you joking? It's hard to tell.
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In any case, whether you subscribe to a religious or a scientific world view we have the "right" to classify things as we see them and as they meet the standards that we set. For instance, in both the Bible and the Koran "God" gives humans (specifically man) the "right" to name (classify) the "birds of the air and the beasts of the field". Logically then, we would have the "right" to classify other non-living objects as well. So, from a religious point of view we certainly have that "right".
On the other hand, from a scientific point of view, we must be able to classify things in order to try and make sense of the world. When we classify an engine as internal combustion we are differentiating it from an external combustion engine. A television with a cathode ray tube is different in classification from a liquid crystal type display. A pick-up truck is not a car, although both are automobiles.
As for your point that we should "leave things alone", who do you suppose first discovered and then classified Pluto as a planet if it were not humans? Did this definition come down from on high? It's nowhere in the Bible that I can find. So, unless it came from a deity or an EBE, then your logic is circular. You're essentially arguing that because humans within living memory (Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh) classified Pluto as a planet humans do not have the "right" to reclassify it. Do you understand how silly that is?
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drpolyphemus1 year, 3 months ago
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Let us not forget that an American judge determined that tomatoes were a vegetable, though they are scientifically a fruit. He said that they were a vegetable because they were "used" as a vegetable. This enabled the US to make more profit and protect their markets against foreign imports.
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Politics and money make a big difference when determining categories.
Of course Pluto is not a planet. Never was. Unless we change the definition of a Planet.
Like the old rhyme goes "If WISHES were HORSES beggars would ride"
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