Dept of Education declares that school must allow boy to shower with girls

[crazy canuck]

The concept of a planet has always included the idea that planets have a definition that includes some characteristics that make them significant in a solar system. It is not arbitrary to decide that an object that is on the very margins of being "like the others" doesn't actually fit in with them when additional data comes out that makes it clear that if you expand the definition such that it can include that outlier, that it would then include literally hundreds of other outliers - and in fact the objects that previously defined the term would then become the outliers!

So are you saying that all the scientists who thought that Pluto and those other bodies should be categorized as planets didn't know what they were talking about?  A decision was made where the dividing line should be if for no other reason that the majority thought that having more planets was problematic

Who are all these scientists demanding that Pluto be called a planet?

The ones that put forward that option during the meeting on which this issue was voted on. 

[grumbler]

Yes, that was the rationale.  But there was also a competing logic which was equally scientifically valid that the objects with shared traits included Pluto and those other objects along with the other planets.  That position was rejected not on scientific grounds.  Both were equally scientifically valid.

You keep sayig this, but that does not make it true.  The competing logic was not equally scientifically valid.  It was always suspected that Pluto was not, indeed, a planet, but was instead a captured body or a runaway moon.  With the discovery of other bodies like Eris, that suspicion hardened.  The only argument for calling Pluto a planet (and thus being forced to call all such bodies, and even Ceres, also planets) was that "I learned to call it a planet when I was growing up, and I don't like change."  When you choose the most scientifically-supported option over the most emotionally-supported one, that's not arbitrary.

[grumbler]

A decision was made where the dividing line should be if for no other reason that the majority thought that having more planets was problematic

This is entirely made up.  Did you find it in a novel?

[garbon]

[grumbler]

A great many things that are useful and based on science are not science.

True. Classification is not science but it is not arbitrary either.

Why is classification not "science?"  The Table of the Elements hangs in every Chemistry (a science) classroom in the world.

[crazy canuck]

For Grumbler and the others who think the demotion of Pluto was based on science.

http://www.space.com/9594-fighting-pluto-planet-title-planetary-scientist-alan-stern.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=more-from-space

[Ed Anger]

All this over Mickey Mouse's dog.

[grumbler]

For Grumbler and the others who think the demotion of Pluto was based on science.

http://www.space.com/9594-fighting-pluto-planet-title-planetary-scientist-alan-stern.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=more-from-space

I am not sure what he is arguing that you are agreeing with.  He says, in response to a question, exactly what the IAU said:

What do you say to those who argue that Pluto is just a big Kuiper Belt object?

I say they're right! But that doesn't really relate to whether Pluto is a planet or not. Just because Pluto orbits with many other dwarf planets doesn't change what it is, just as whether an object is a mountain or not doesn't depend on whether it's in a group or in isolation.

What we see in the Kuiper Belt is a third class of planets, the dwarf planets, or DPs. Most, like Pluto and Eris, have primarily rocky compositions (like Earth), moons, and polar caps, atmospheres, seasons and other attributes like the larger planets. They're just somewhat smaller.

Back before the Kuiper Belt was discovered, Pluto did look like a misfit that didn't belong with either the terrestrials or the giant planets. Turns out that was exactly right, but now we know why: Pluto looked like a misfit because our technology back then couldn't see that it was just the brightest and easiest to detect of a large new class of planets.

In fact, that's why it's clear Ceres [the largest object in the asteroid belt] was a planet all along, but was misclassified for a time because we didn't have enough similar examples to recognize dwarf planets as their own category. Today, however, it's clear the DPs outnumber both of the other two planet classes we know of in our solar system — the giants and the terrestrials. Which types look to be the misfit now, versus the norm?

Some people seem to be uncomfortable with that fact. I see it as just another step in the Copernican revolution that began by displacing the Earth from the center of the universe.

Pluto is a dwarf planet.  That's what the IAU said, and that's what he is arguing for.  He's not arguing that Pluto was arbitrarily declared a dwarf planet, he is explaining exactly why it is a dwarf planet and was so classified: because now we have new knowledge.  This is the opposite of arbitrary.

If even your own sources don't agree with you, who will?

[garbon]

For Grumbler and the others who think the demotion of Pluto was based on science.

http://www.space.com/9594-fighting-pluto-planet-title-planetary-scientist-alan-stern.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=more-from-space

I am not sure what he is arguing that you are agreeing with.  He says, in response to a question, exactly what the IAU said:

What do you say to those who argue that Pluto is just a big Kuiper Belt object?

I say they're right! But that doesn't really relate to whether Pluto is a planet or not. Just because Pluto orbits with many other dwarf planets doesn't change what it is, just as whether an object is a mountain or not doesn't depend on whether it's in a group or in isolation.

What we see in the Kuiper Belt is a third class of planets, the dwarf planets, or DPs. Most, like Pluto and Eris, have primarily rocky compositions (like Earth), moons, and polar caps, atmospheres, seasons and other attributes like the larger planets. They're just somewhat smaller.

Back before the Kuiper Belt was discovered, Pluto did look like a misfit that didn't belong with either the terrestrials or the giant planets. Turns out that was exactly right, but now we know why: Pluto looked like a misfit because our technology back then couldn't see that it was just the brightest and easiest to detect of a large new class of planets.

In fact, that's why it's clear Ceres [the largest object in the asteroid belt] was a planet all along, but was misclassified for a time because we didn't have enough similar examples to recognize dwarf planets as their own category. Today, however, it's clear the DPs outnumber both of the other two planet classes we know of in our solar system — the giants and the terrestrials. Which types look to be the misfit now, versus the norm?

Some people seem to be uncomfortable with that fact. I see it as just another step in the Copernican revolution that began by displacing the Earth from the center of the universe.

Pluto is a dwarf planet.  That's what the IAU said, and that's what he is arguing for.  He's not arguing that Pluto was arbitrarily declared a dwarf planet, he is explaining exactly why it is a dwarf planet and was so classified: because now we have new knowledge.  This is the opposite of arbitrary.

If even your own sources don't agree with you, who will?

Maybe I'm mistaken but the IAU decision seemed to suggest that dwarf planets are a completely different classification from planets. /when I google dwarf planet it tells me that those are not planets.

CC's source says this:

Do you think astronomers will ever come to a consensus?

I do. I expect that before long, consensus will be that our solar system was good at making planets in very large numbers, and that most of them are faraway dwarfs, rather than the closer big guys that we knew about in childhood.

Then schools will teach that, like the rivers of Earth, there is a huge number of planets in our solar system, and you only need to remember the names of the ones that are nearby or particularly famous.

which seems to suggest that he actually considers dwarf planets to be a subset of what should be considered planets. That kind of makes sense that he'd be arguing that position given how much space in that interview is how he thinks saying Pluto was no longer a planet was arbitrary.

[grumbler]

Maybe I'm mistaken but the IAU decision seemed to suggest that dwarf planets are a completely different classification from planets. /when I google dwarf planet it tells me that those are not planets.

That's the current consensus; that "planet" is a classification and "dwarf planet" another.  The issue is semantic; as Neil DeGrasse Tyson notes, the unqualified word "planet' has become even less meaningful since the IAU resolution, and he tries to avoid using it.  That has nothing to do with CC's claim that the distinction between Pluto and the IAU planets is arbitrary, though.

CC's source says this:

Do you think astronomers will ever come to a consensus?

I do. I expect that before long, consensus will be that our solar system was good at making planets in very large numbers, and that most of them are faraway dwarfs, rather than the closer big guys that we knew about in childhood.

Then schools will teach that, like the rivers of Earth, there is a huge number of planets in our solar system, and you only need to remember the names of the ones that are nearby or particularly famous.

which seems to suggest that he actually considers dwarf planets to be a subset of what should be considered planets. That kind of makes sense that he'd be arguing that position given how much space in that interview is how he thinks saying Pluto was no longer a planet was arbitrary.

Again, CC's source says nothing about the distinction being arbitrary, which was his claim.

Even the quibble about "clearing the neighborhood" is rather trite; the "neighborhood is cleared" as a function of how planets form.  Pluto didn't form like the other planets, it formed like the rest of the trans-Neptunian bodies formed.  Regular planets, it is believed, form from the nebular disk that forms around a protostar.  Dwarf planets probably form from more isolated clouds of gas, or are captured from interstellar space, or are escaped moons (or, probably, all three, depending).  They have different compositions and orbits compared to the solar planets.  Had the earth formed at the distance of that Neptune or Pluto did, as Stern hypothesizes, it wouldn't have formed as the earth, it would have formed as Neptune or Pluto.   If formed as Pluto did, it wouldn't be a planet.  But so what?  If frogs had wings, they wouldn't bump their ass.  Again, the difference isn't arbitrary.

I think we will see sub-categorization of dwarf planets as we learn more about them.  Again, this won't be arbitrary.

[Razgovory]

Losing two science debates in one thread, not bad CC!

[DGuller]

That last debate wasn't a science debate, it was a classification debate.

[Razgovory]

So is this.  Both classification are based on science.  Not just arbitrary decisions.  CC assumed they were arbitrary, (after all he didn't agree with them, how could they be anything else?), but didn't look to actually find out if that was true.

[Legbiter]

Here's something for Raz:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/10/i-am-so-done-with-the-trans-outrage-brigade-why-im-supporting-drop-the-t/

See Raz, don't say I don't care. 

Hah, he's like the anti-Marti this guy.

...It seems like any time you hear about about an LGBT person causing a scene, it's a transsexual. For instance, whenever we're thrown furiously into the conservative wood-chipper over some silly bathroom issue, it's always the trans lobby pushing us in. It used to be gay guys propositioning police officers after taking a peek at the urinals. Those were the good old days!...

...I'm sorry to say, and this does matter, very often those playing the trans card in the media, whether personally transgender or not, are very often the most awful people on the planet: hectoring, nannying control freaks without an ounce of joy in their hearts. These are not the people I want making public policy or pontificating from the pages of national newspapers and they're hardly doing their own "trans isn't a mental illness" argument much credit by acting so damn bonkers all the time. ...

We should invite him to Languish.

[garbon]

Wow he said 'trannies'. He is just asking for it.

Ok that was a hilariously un-PC rant. Was that comedy?

I'm wondering if this thing in some part is a false flag operation. I mean the petition doesn't even have 2000 people who have signed it...

That said, I do feel some kinship to these two items cited in this article:

http://thefederalist.com/2015/11/09/exclusive-gay-man-explains-his-petition-to-drop-the-t-in-lgbt/

Any attempt to rationally discuss issues that gays/lesbians/bisexuals are concerned about regarding the trans movement is met with unparalleled vitriol, harassment, death threats, and silencing—demanding that the person commenting contrary to the trans narrative be banned from forums, for example.

Which has happened as a result of this appearing / also when we think about how Ru Paul was attacked as transphobic...

To me, the LGB movement, with its celebration of all types of gay men and women, such as bears, leather daddies, drag queens, diesel dykes, lipstick lesbians, etc., has always been about expanding and re-defining concepts of gender; the trans movement, on the other hand, appears to be about re-asserting and codifying traditional concepts of gender.

Which, of course runs right into my hang-ups around gender and expected gender role behaviors.