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Thursday, June 14, 2007

Pluto Anti-Defamation League

The BBC reports today on an article just published in Science that once again seeks to demean and demote Pluto.
I'd like to announce the beginning of the Pluto Anti-Defamation League.

I'm not a scientist, and I have little interest in why or why not these guys collect grant money to classify, reclassify, and declassify objects in our solar system willy-nilly. However, as a child raised in a pre-September 11th world where Pluto was most definitely a planet, I have multiple reasons for wanting it to stay that way:

1. Building models is fun. We got to build lots of models of the solar system when I was little, using Styrofoam balls (before the CFC crisis), a basketball for Jupiter and a pea for Pluto, etc. I think that Pluto's inclusion both illustrates the sheer size of the solar system, and also teaches kids the value of including the little guy - not just cutting him out of our solar system and letting him drift without a family or a home.

2. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles/Pizzas. Pluto's the most versatile planet in that mnemonic device. Also, I'm not really sure how to rewrite it so kids can remember the planet names, but I think the scientific community has that ethical obligation to our children and our educational system.

3. Pluto has popular culture currency. Although, to be fair, Disney kinda sucks.

4. Post-script: Apparently I'm not very creative. Other people have blogged about this at length, about a year ago.

On the mnemonic

Another blogger held a contest to come up with a new mneumonic, which could a) protest the demotion of Pluto (hooray!), describe the lonely 8-planet system, or include the new 3 dwarf planets. Fortunately for the future of astronomy, the protest mnemonic won: My! Very educated morons just screwed up numerous planetariums.


The Economist weighs in on the controversy, although the facists advocate killing Pluto

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