Trying to pigeonhole nature
Dinky Pluto loses its status as planet
Pluto, beloved by some as a cosmic underdog but scorned by astronomers who considered it too dinky and distant, was unceremoniously stripped of its status as a planet Thursday.
The International Astronomical Union, dramatically reversing course just a week after floating the idea of reaffirming Pluto’s planethood and adding three new planets to Earth’s neighborhood, downgraded the ninth rock from the sun in historic new galactic guidelines.
The shift will have the world’s teachers scrambling to alter lesson plans just as schools open for the fall term.
That goddam natural world, it’s just so messy and disorganized. Planets that aren’t really planets. Species that kind of, sort of blend seamlessly into other species. I exaggerate. There’s nothing inherent wrong with labelling things; as a matter of fact, it’s pretty hard to understand anything without defined terms. But, as in evolution and here in astronomy, our penchant for pigeonholes sometimes gets in the way. Species. Species are real; but they are not hard and fast; since they are all evolving from other things and into other things, how could they be. But the simple Platonic view of “a horse is a horse, a planet is a planet” is awfully appealing.
Not a PK, but a POK
Nature, red in tooth and claw
Prehistoric insects locked in amber now visible
NYT unfazed by security concerns
Australopithecus anamensis