[Sigia-l] The planetary classification conundrum... mentalmodelsoutside of the Web

[tOM Trottier]

If people depended on there being 9 planets, if this affected their work or leisure or family life, 
then continuity might have a value.

It doesn't. The only people with a reason to care are those who write the textbooks. Now they 
have a new book to sell!

So if we now have 53 planets to consider, I think it's a 44 planet improvement!

For some people, change is a problem. To others, it's a business opportunity.

tOM

On Wednesday, August 16, 2006 at 21:23,
Gent, Andrew <Andrew.Gent at hp.com> wrote:
...
> What is the benefit from
> classifiying Pluto as a planet or a "pluton"? I suspect (again I am
> guessing here since it is not my field) the goal of the new
> classification is not so arbitrary as it seems. Now that we have the
> ability to see farther into the galaxy, we are probably finding more and
> more celestial objects that could be arguably additional planets. How do
> we decide? We decide by having clear criteria for classification. So the
> improvement from changing the classification is not a philosophical
> debate over Pluto; it is a way to avoid even more contentious arguments
> over other celestial bodies in the future. (Again, there are lots of
> analogies here to taxonomy changes I've been involved in recently where
> the benefit is future-based and hard to demonstrate.) The question from
> an IA perspective might be: "what can the scientists do in the
> transition to the new classification to make it more palatable to those
> of us raised in a 9-planet galaxy?"


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