Decided to make a handy graphic after seeing a lot of misinformation spread around tumblr. Current science isn’t perfect and definitions are bound to change, but I wanted to push back against the hostile attitude against it because it seems like a lot of people are being hostile for the wrong reasons.
Please let me know if there are any factual errors, thank you :)
I…..huh
Oh
HAH
Thank you so much. I am TIRED AS HELL of posts bemoaning Pluto’s demotion as a planet. Pluto was reclassified because our understanding and knowledge of the solar system expanded and changed. THAT SHOULD BE CELEBRATED, not denounced because of sentimentalism about a cold rock that the sunlight barely reaches.
This, you guys. This is what differentiates science from pseudoscience. Science reinvents itself. Science incorporates new information and changes its definitions and its understanding based on the most current information. I am a scientist, and one of the first things you have to accept as a scientist is that you will never be right - you can only have a theory that explains all the observations to date. When new observations happen, the theory must change. THIS IS A GOOD THING. WE SHOULD BE THRILLED THAT PLUTO WAS RECLASSIFIED. It represents all that is good about science, and why we should trust it and encourage it.
There’s a Simpsons screencap that goes around with Lisa’s statements about Pluto and one of them is something like “You can’t just change what kids are taught!” YES, YOU CAN. IN FACT, YOU FUCKING BETTER. If you’re not teaching them the best, most current scientific understanding, you’re failing.
