Sky and Tel and why letters are sometimes unimportant and misleading

Letters to the ed. favour keeping Pluto as a planet by 80% or something
like that.
Either this is a highly skewed sample of the general opinion, or it's
proof people only write letters
when they feel incensed. I'd hate to think 80% of Sky and Tel's
readers are old, nostalgic dummies who act emotionally rather than
think rationally.
The demotion of Pluto was not an attack on Tombaugh. He had no idea
what he was really looking at, nor did anyone else up until recently.
Any real attack on Tombaugh for not understanding the true nature of
Pluto would be like attacking some guy from the 1880s who skimmed over
3C273 thinking, "Ah, a little blue star..."

AT LEAST 80% of the readers here, most of them perfectly rational and
intelligent consider you a TROLL.

AstroHoney

Rich wrote:
Letters to the ed. favour keeping Pluto as a planet by 80% or something
like that.
Either this is a highly skewed sample of the general opinion, or it's
proof people only write letters
when they feel incensed. I'd hate to think 80% of Sky and Tel's
readers are old, nostalgic dummies who act emotionally rather than
think rationally.
The demotion of Pluto was not an attack on Tombaugh. He had no idea
what he was really looking at, nor did anyone else up until recently.
Any real attack on Tombaugh for not understanding the true nature of
Pluto would be like attacking some guy from the 1880s who skimmed over
3C273 thinking, "Ah, a little blue star..."

Rich wrote:

Letters to the ed. favour keeping Pluto as a planet by 80% or something
like that.
Either this is a highly skewed sample of the general opinion, or it's
proof people only write letters
when they feel incensed. I'd hate to think 80% of Sky and Tel's
readers are old, nostalgic dummies who act emotionally rather than
think rationally.
The demotion of Pluto was not an attack on Tombaugh. He had no idea
what he was really looking at, nor did anyone else up until recently.

Then all of that research of the 70-80 -90's.... was wasted.
Clyde was a dummy. And YOU are a tomato.




Any real attack on Tombaugh for not understanding the true nature of
Pluto would be like attacking some guy from the 1880s who skimmed over
3C273 thinking, "Ah, a little blue star..."

WTF wrote:
Rich wrote:

Letters to the ed. favour keeping Pluto as a planet by 80% or something
like that.
Either this is a highly skewed sample of the general opinion, or it's
proof people only write letters
when they feel incensed. I'd hate to think 80% of Sky and Tel's
readers are old, nostalgic dummies who act emotionally rather than
think rationally.
The demotion of Pluto was not an attack on Tombaugh. He had no idea
what he was really looking at, nor did anyone else up until recently.

Then all of that research of the 70-80 -90's.... was wasted.
Clyde was a dummy. And YOU are a tomato.

I rest my case. Emotional morons are endemic.

Rich wrote:
Letters to the ed. favour keeping Pluto as a planet by 80% or something
like that.
Either this is a highly skewed sample of the general opinion, or it's
proof people only write letters
when they feel incensed. I'd hate to think 80% of Sky and Tel's
readers are old, nostalgic dummies who act emotionally rather than
think rationally.

Probably right.

Andrea T.

Let's look at this another way...

When you are rather young, in college or just out, you tend to think
you know everything.
As you get older you begin to realize that there is a heck of a lot you
don't know. And getting older still you realize that you know even
less.

Putting it another way "Logic is the beginning of wisdom".

Now, there is nothing at all wrong about being enthusiastic because
enthusiasm is the desire that pushes life forward including discovery
but there is something wrong headed by believing that just because
someone is older that they are irrelevant or that whatever they
accomplished is irrelevant.

I believe that those who scoff at discovery need to ask themselves why?

Why is it so terribly bad that we keep Pluto as a Planet and decide
that it is the lower limit distinguishing a planet from an asteroid????

Why?

Because some scoff at tradition?

Better be careful because tradition is one of those elements of human
culture that bind us together as a people and as a species.

Because it's not logical?

How so?

It's very logical

Yes, it's important to classify but where do you set a limit?
At what point in time does classification become so irrelevant that it
really
exists more of a attribute to O.C.D.?

Personally, I think it's reached that fine point.

And, while we are at it, why is it that we allow a very small subset of
people and then a smaller subset of professional astronomers (not to
mention those who were not there) to make such a determination?

A "Rush job" to say the very least.

No, like other groups of people, astronomers sometimes are wrong.

And in time, they will bend with the will of the people.

Patrick Edward Murray wrote:
Let's look at this another way...

When you are rather young, in college or just out, you tend to think
you know everything.
As you get older you begin to realize that there is a heck of a lot you
don't know. And getting older still you realize that you know even
less.

.....big snip

Great. Pearls of wisdom. But, hold on a minute, apparently the
overwhelmingly large majority of the scientific discoveries (in fact,
more so the more maths was at the base of the said discovery) has been
made by people in their youth or early middle age. Something must have
gone wrong, certainly...

Now, if you were to dedicate as much time in writing a long and winding
post which could be best summarize in:"we don't want anything to
change, thank you, 'cause we don't like it" in understanding something,
just a little something in what a scientific process is you might, but
just might, be a little better off than you were before. As second
thought, though, I would recommend considering taking up gardening
instead of (amateur) astronomy as more in line with your line of
thought.

Have a great day/night, sir

Andrea T.

Patrick Edward Murray wrote:
Let's look at this another way...

When you are rather young, in college or just out, you tend to think
you know everything.
As you get older you begin to realize that there is a heck of a lot you
don't know. And getting older still you realize that you know even
less.

Putting it another way "Logic is the beginning of wisdom".

Now, there is nothing at all wrong about being enthusiastic because
enthusiasm is the desire that pushes life forward including discovery
but there is something wrong headed by believing that just because
someone is older that they are irrelevant or that whatever they
accomplished is irrelevant.

I believe that those who scoff at discovery need to ask themselves why?

Why is it so terribly bad that we keep Pluto as a Planet and decide
that it is the lower limit distinguishing a planet from an asteroid????

Why?

Because some scoff at tradition?

Better be careful because tradition is one of those elements of human
culture that bind us together as a people and as a species.

Because it's not logical?

How so?

It's very logical

Yes, it's important to classify but where do you set a limit?
At what point in time does classification become so irrelevant that it
really
exists more of a attribute to O.C.D.?

Personally, I think it's reached that fine point.

And, while we are at it, why is it that we allow a very small subset of
people and then a smaller subset of professional astronomers (not to
mention those who were not there) to make such a determination?

A "Rush job" to say the very least.

No, like other groups of people, astronomers sometimes are wrong.

And in time, they will bend with the will of the people.

Is that like the "tyranny of an illiterate (Scientifically speaking)"
majority?

On 19 Dec 2006 16:44:05 -0800, "Rich" wrote:

Is that like the "tyranny of an illiterate (Scientifically speaking)"
majority?

It is worth noting that a significant number of professional astronomers
(over half by many accounts) disagree with the IAU definition and are
not using it.

Only time will tell how this will shake out. I hope (and have some
reasonable expectation) that "planet" will ultimately be left undefined,
or loosely defined as in the past. It certainly doesn't need a rigorous
definition; the current IAU definition leaves science somewhat
impoverished.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Thank you Chris
Your point is well taken.