Yea I read about this a few weeks ago. So bizarre. I love the Triceratops as well. Now it was just a stage in the life of another dinosaur...

that's kinda sweet now that I think about it. lol That means... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgP2G3ytnBc

Billy was never even using his full power!!! I knew it!

no sorry.

Triceratops had a solid frill.

Torosaurus had two giant holes in it.

You dont just magically lose bone.

DINOZORD DOES NOT APPROVE, SCIENCE.

Hadn't realized you were paleontologist, John.

I can accept that T. Rex isn't the biggest carnivorous dinosaur.

I can accept Brontosaurus is just an Apatosaurus with a Camerasaurus skull.

But I need an interim Triceratops>Torosaurus skull for me to believe this.

Also are they trying to make the blue power ranger's life hell?

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

i hate it when science corrects stuff, it just means books studied in schools will be wrong and after they do get corrected our generation will look dumb infront of the next generation.
i'm now too scared to say there's 9 planets in our solar system >_< didnt they discover a new planet? what's the right information.

i'm now too scared to say there's 9 planets in our solar system >_< didnt they discover a new planet? what's the right information.

Screw the astronomers and their silly definitions, I will proclaim Pluto as a full fledged planet until the day they lay me in the ground.

John makes a good point, though. Why would an animal lose bone tissue as it evolved? What are the evolutionary advantages?

i'm now too scared to say there's 9 planets in our solar system >_< didnt they discover a new planet? what's the right information.

Screw the astronomers and their silly definitions, I will proclaim Pluto as a full fledged planet until the day they lay me in the ground.

John makes a good point, though. Why would an animal lose bone tissue as it evolved? What are the evolutionary advantages?

Hey, I agree about Pluto! We have people who are dwarfs; does that make them any less human, no! A dwarf planet is a planet in my eyes. As far as the dino issue, the way I get it the torosaurus is the adult of the triceratops not the next step in the evolutionary chain.

torosaurus

toro = "bull" in spanish

both have horns growing out of their head

Maybe it was to reduce the ridiculous amount of bone that the creature carried inside its head when it grew larger to adult size?  I dunno man, these are the kinds of scientific discoveries that mess people's lives up - so many old video games use Pluto as a planet and have triceratops, it's crazy.

Sometimes simultaneously.  Wish I could post a link to such a wild game off the top of my head.

Wish I could post a link to such a wild game off the top of my head.

Not a game, but look what came up first on Google.

....so you're saying triceratops are from pluto huh?

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

i hate it when science corrects stuff, it just means books studied in schools will be wrong and after they do get corrected our generation will look dumb infront of the next generation.
i'm now too scared to say there's 9 planets in our solar system >_< didnt they discover a new planet? what's the right information.

Those books would be wrong either way. Science correcting itself simply lets us KNOW they are wrong, likely meaning later books WON'T be... or at least, probably won't be AS wrong. As for one generation looking "dumb" in front of the next, again, they WOULD be (in terms of scientific knowledge) whatever you do, but at least science correcting itself leaves the next generation better off... unless your idea is to drag them down with us...

I don't care much for triceratops, but I love the referance to NiGHTS Into Dreams.

I don't care much for triceratops, but I love the referance to NiGHTS Into Dreams.

when did that happen?

Read the title of the thread... then watch this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjF3rDuRatc

okay .............. why did sonicV2 write reala on the thread title though????

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

i hate it when science corrects stuff, it just means books studied in schools will be wrong and after they do get corrected our generation will look dumb infront of the next generation.
i'm now too scared to say there's 9 planets in our solar system >_< didnt they discover a new planet? what's the right information.

Those books would be wrong either way. Science correcting itself simply lets us KNOW they are wrong, likely meaning later books WON'T be... or at least, probably won't be AS wrong. As for one generation looking "dumb" in front of the next, again, they WOULD be (in terms of scientific knowledge) whatever you do, but at least science correcting itself leaves the next generation better off... unless your idea is to drag them down with us...

Wrong or not, Pluto will always be a planet to me.  Why didn't they just add some sort of grandfather clause concerning Pluto, instead of forcing a complete retcon of how the solar system's set up?
  

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

i hate it when science corrects stuff, it just means books studied in schools will be wrong and after they do get corrected our generation will look dumb infront of the next generation.
i'm now too scared to say there's 9 planets in our solar system >_< didnt they discover a new planet? what's the right information.

Those books would be wrong either way. Science correcting itself simply lets us KNOW they are wrong, likely meaning later books WON'T be... or at least, probably won't be AS wrong. As for one generation looking "dumb" in front of the next, again, they WOULD be (in terms of scientific knowledge) whatever you do, but at least science correcting itself leaves the next generation better off... unless your idea is to drag them down with us...

Wrong or not, Pluto will always be a planet to me.  Why didn't they just add some sort of grandfather clause concerning Pluto, instead of forcing a complete retcon of how the solar system's set up?
  

I'm no astronomy expert, but from what I've heard about it the idea was that if Pluto was a planet there are a few other objects in the solar system that would have to be considered planets as well. I suppose considering them planets instead would have resolved the inconsistency too, but it sounds simpler to just remove Pluto from the list of planets.

So astronomers are lazy then.

I don't care, I still say there are nine planets.

Well, from my understanding, as Pluto is comparable in size and mass with several other objects in the Solar System which also orbit the Sun - some of the larger rocks in the asteroid belt, or arguably the "moon" of Pluto, Charon - and does not even occupy the same orbital plane of the other 8 planets (unlike the asteroid belt, which does), astronomers decided that there was nothing compellingly different enough between Pluto and these other objects to count it as a planet, whereas by not having Pluto as a planet they could have a much cleaner definition of what is and is not a planet.

As far as I'm aware, astronomers are still looking for something to provide a necessary gravitational force to explain some irregularities in Neptune's orbit - what had initially led to the discovery of Pluto - so there may well be another planet out there that astronomers may eventually discover...

Haha. I was told when it happened that Pluto was re-classified (by my girlfriend) into a dwarf STAR, not planet. It seemed ridiculous, but I believed her. She was wrong. I was wrong. Or you guys are all wrong, but I'm probably wrong. She was probably wrong.

Haha. I was told when it happened that Pluto was re-classified (by my girlfriend) into a dwarf STAR, not planet. It seemed ridiculous, but I believed her. She was wrong. I was wrong. Or you guys are all wrong, but I'm probably wrong. She was probably wrong.

There's quite a difference between a star and a planet. A star is a burning ball of gas within which nuclear reactions take place to emit energy. A planet does not have such reactions, and does not emit energy (aside from atmospheric storms which are not powerful enough to radiate into space).

So if Pluto had been reclassified as a star of any kind, it would mean that the Earth has two suns, and we'd be able to see it's light in the sky.

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

i hate it when science corrects stuff, it just means books studied in schools will be wrong and after they do get corrected our generation will look dumb infront of the next generation.
i'm now too scared to say there's 9 planets in our solar system >_< didnt they discover a new planet? what's the right information.

One of the greatest strengths of science is that it is self-correcting. When new discoveries are made, existing theories are changed or updated to accommodate them, thereby providing us with a better, more complete understanding of what is actually true. New discoveries should not be rejected or feared, they should be welcomed, for precisely this reason. Unless, of course, you have no interest in the truth, in which case, I can't help you.

As far as planets are concerned, however, "planet" is just a word we use to describe certain objects we observe orbiting a star. Changing the definition to exclude Pluto has not changed what Pluto actually is, just the word that scientists have agreed to know it by. "Planet" comes from the Greek "planētēs", which means "wanderer"; at the time of their initial discovery, the earliest known planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) appeared to human observers to be "wandering stars", as they did not follow the same path in the night sky as the other stars and constellations. We now know that the planets are not stars and why they don't follow the same motions as actual stars; because they're orbiting the sun (which is a star), the same way the Earth does, rather than directly orbiting the centre of the galaxy.

If you want to know more about it, the information is easily available online. Wikipedia is a good starting point. Further reading is available in the foot notes.

Wrong or
not, Pluto will always be a planet to me.  Why didn't they just add
some sort of grandfather clause concerning Pluto, instead of
forcing a complete retcon of how the solar system's set up?

That strikes me as a rather anti-intellectual position. You don't seem care if you're right or wrong; you appear to be happy with your opinion, happy with the information you were raised thinking is accurate, and the truth of the matter seems to be irrelevant to you. Do you not care what new discoveries are made--by the same kind of people who discovered Pluto in the first place--or what problems these discoveries cause for existing definitions? Do you really just prefer your understanding of the solar system the way it is, whatever new things scientists discover that challenge it? If so, why?

This is not a healthy outlook on scientific matters. Words have meaning, and the word "planet" was so vaguely applied that many objects in the solar system that had not traditionally been thought of as planets would have to included if things like Pluto and its fellow Kuiper belt objects were considered planets; things like Ceres, for example, traditionally considered an asteroid because of its location in the main asteroid belt (it may surprise you to learn that that is not the only asteroid belt in the solar system either). This was not a whimsical decision by the IAU; it was a long process and fiercely debated. It began as astronomers started discovering other objects like Pluto beyond Neptune, some of which are bigger than Pluto but still smaller than the Earth's moon. It was decided that a clear definition for each of these objects was needed, so astronomers would know what they were talking about.

Even if a different definition had been made that included Pluto and other objects like it under the banner of "planet", there would have to be some kind of class system introduced to differentiate such objects from the eight objects now officially known as "planets". Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune would in one class of planet, while Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris would be in a different class, to respect the different kind of objects they are. Categorising things like this is not intended to spoil your view of the solar system; it's meant to simplify a very complicated field of scientific investigation, to make it easier to communicate about these things.

While grandfather clauses may work in matters of law (and in some cases, these tread on constitutionally questionable ground), that is not how science works, nor should it be. Science simply cannot make exceptions. Science is about finding out, to the best of our ability, what is actually true, whether or not it agrees with our initial hypothesis.

I don't think she cares...and saying whether or not it's right of her to call Pluto a planet or not JUST BECAUSE Science says it isn't is a little obnoxious - it's not going to actually affect her life in any way and it won't really matter in the long run anyway. Yeah, there's a time and place to tell somebody they're upholding a wrong belief, but pointing it out over a heavenly body billions of years away in space that isn't going to change the quality of her life...it's a little irrelevant and smacks of simply being a jerk about the issue. I don't see any point to do so, myself.

There's really no need to call anyone out on their personal opinion of a subject when it's something small and out of the way like this.

There's always a need to call someone out on a opinion they have that can be objectively disproven.

Pluto is too small and too damn weird to be a planet - there are other objects in the solar system bigger than it that have not ever been classified as planets in the past, so they and Pluto got the new dwarf planet classification once Science got its act together. Dwarf planets aren't big enough to pull in the surrounding asteroids with their gravity and bulk themselves up like the proper planets did, so they have a lot of asteroids floating around them without becoming moons. A few actually do become moons (hi Charon).

Pluto just got lucky and was discovered about 60 years before we could pinpoint the other really small stuff in our system. Pluto was discovered in 1930 by a guy who spotted it crossing Neptune's orbit with his telescope, and that's the only way it got picked up so early.

I believe there are three of them. Pluto, Ceres and something beginning with E. And I was right, it's Eris. And now they've found another two, woo. Put another way, if you refuse to acknowledge the distinction between dwarf planets and regular planets, then you have to also accept that by that definition there are actually at least THIRTEEN planets orbiting the Sun.

Or we could not be dumb and actually use the dwarf planet definition which fills the gap between asteroids and full-blown planets. Space is complicated, who'dve thought?

if science is always self correcting doesnt that mean to be absolutely positive in science is inaccurate? for example the topic of evolution, science didnt even find helping proof for that one so claiming its truth is worse than when we trusted pluto to be a planet? at least with pluto we knew it orbited the sun like the rest of the planets. and it still not a planet?

i think science is more effort than truth. our techonolgy is still not good enough to solve our questions yet.

I
don't think she cares...and saying whether or not it's right of her to
call Pluto a planet or not JUST BECAUSE Science says it isn't is a
little obnoxious - it's not going to actually affect her life in any way
and it won't really matter in the long run anyway. Yeah, there's a time
and place to tell somebody they're upholding a wrong belief, but
pointing it out over a heavenly body billions of years away in space
that isn't going to change the quality of her life...it's a little
irrelevant and smacks of simply being a jerk about the issue. I don't
see any point to do so, myself.

There's really no need to call anyone out on their personal opinion of a
subject when it's something small and out of the way like this.

She
can call Pluto a planet all she wants. I can hardly see how I would stop her, even if I wanted to. It is her attitude and the
attitude of others in this topic towards science in general that bothers me, like
science is just out to ruin everyone's fun. Palaeontologists  make a new discovery about what were previously thought to be two distinct dinosaur species, and people are crying about how "science" stole their triceratops. No, "science" did not steal your triceratops; "science" corrected what appears to have been a mistake that was made due to lack of information. That is how science works.

I hope this is every
bit as irrelevant as you seem to think, Mobius Springheart; but this
"I'm sticking to my opinion no matter what science says" attitude is
essentially the same as the attitude of creationists, faith healers, and
the anti-vaccination crowd. In those cases, it has led to demonstrable harm. I see nothing wrong with calling people
out on their nonsense when I see it.

if
science is always self correcting doesnt that mean to be absolutely
positive in science is inaccurate? for example the topic of evolution,
science didnt even find helping proof for that one so claiming its truth
is worse than when we trusted pluto to be a planet? at least with pluto
we knew it orbited the sun like the rest of the planets. and it still
not a planet?

i think science is more effort than truth. our techonolgy is still not good enough to solve our questions yet.

I think you're a little bit confused as to what science actually is. Science is not some monolithic, unquestionable source of incontrovertible truth. It is not a doctrine or a dogma, like some kind of religion. It is a method, a process, a philosophy of knowledge. It is the investigation of evidence and experimentation to figure out, understand, and explain observed phenomena to the best of our ability. As such, you have an unrealistic expectation of science if you want it to provide you with "absolute truth", and no real scientist will ever tell you that science is one hundred percent accurate all the time, that no mistakes are ever made, and everything that we have discovered through scientific means is absolutely true and never subject to change.

What it can give you, however, is the truth as far as we can understand it based on all available evidence. Scientists don't just pull ideas out of their ass. They have to make it through a gauntlet of critical peer review by fellow scientists (rivals and competitors as well as friends and colleagues), who will scrutinise every single detail of their research to find the slightest mistake, before the wider scientific community will accept their findings. This is part of the whole process of self-correction that makes science so reliable. Is it flawless? Of course not. Nobody who actually knows what they're talking about thinks that it is, and where science has made mistakes, they will be corrected if and when the evidence arises to demonstrate it. The scientific method is not a perfect source of absolute truth by any means, but it is demonstrably far better than any of the other things out there claiming to know the absolute truth.

While science may not be able to give you the absolute truth, you should how it can wipe out smallpox, feed a billion people, and put a man on the moon.

As for your question about evolution, I'm sorry, but I'm not terribly sure what you're trying to say. Can you please clarify?

As for your question about evolution, I'm sorry, but I'm not terribly sure what you're trying to say. Can you please clarify?

You're gonna love this.

inb4 triple facepalm post

How does one person playing with the idea of keeping Pluto as a planet in her mind as a joke equate to being ignorant?

Learn to take a JOKE, geez. I doubt she's arguing the facts as a serious thing!

It's not that science changes that bothers me. I'm completely aware that science marches on.

What bothers me is that since Pluto's been considered a planet by everyone since 1930, why wasn't it just create some sort of grandfather clause that considers Pluto as a honorary planet and start using the designation 'dwarf planet' for any such bodies discovered after the fact? Even now, there are astronomers who are trying to get Pluto reinstated as the ninth planet.

It just seems incredibly silly to me.

As for your question about evolution, I'm sorry, but I'm not terribly sure what you're trying to say. Can you please clarify?

You're gonna love this.

inb4 triple facepalm post

Truly, I despair of humanity sometimes.

How does one person playing with the idea of keeping Pluto as a planet in her mind as a joke equate to being ignorant?

Learn to take a JOKE, geez. I doubt she's arguing the facts as a serious thing!

Those of us without the benefit of a telepathic link to other users over the internet--as you clearly must possess, considering your ability to discern a joke from a serious statement of opinion without any supporting evidence in the text itself--tend to take what other people say online at face value, unless it is quite obvious that they're joking. Given my woeful lack of telepathic skills, I hope you can appreciate my inability to perceive of any joke in what she said, given that she provided no means for us simple mundanes to recognise it. You have my sincerest apologies.

It's not that science changes that bothers me. I'm completely aware that science marches on.

What bothers me is that since Pluto's been considered a planet by
everyone since 1930, why wasn't it just create some sort of grandfather
clause that considers Pluto as a honorary planet and start using the
designation 'dwarf planet' for any such bodies discovered after the
fact? Even now, there are astronomers who are trying to get Pluto reinstated as the ninth planet.

It just seems incredibly silly to me.

Did you miss what I said? Science can't make exceptions in classifications for the sake of tradition or nostalgia. These things have no place in science. The point of science is to help us understand things, and making exceptions to the rules based on irrelevancies like this doesn't help. It just confuses people. If you've got a certain classification for a certain type of object, then only objects that meet the criteria should be included in it. It doesn't make any sense to let Pluto into the category of "planet", if you're not going to do the same for the other objects out there like Pluto. Personally, I don't care if Pluto is called a planet or not; but whatever it's called, it doesn't make sense to include it in the same category as the other planets.

Oh, and that Telegraph article is complete rubbish. As far as I know, no scientific definition of "planet" excludes extrasolar planets from the category. However, I may be wrong. If you can present evidence that this is true (and I expect something better than a heavily one-sided article from a very traditionalist newspaper), I will respectfully stand corrected. However, that will be a different problem with the definition, and fixing it would not require that Pluto be reclassified as a planet.

Size matters is Eon's point. That is the only separation in definition. Probably.