and then there were eight

It is official; a group of scientists from all over the world gathered in Prague today and decided that Pluto would no longer be considered a planet. Despite that fact that the now “dwarf planet” is some three and a half million miles from Earth, this decision still rocked my world. Thinking back to elementary school, I remember making mobiles of the solar system, and singing the little catchy mnemonic song to remember all nine planets. Whose cars is Neptune going to be selling now? As I was listening to a story on NPR the other day about the astronomical debate, someone made the comment that with current scientific data, the idea of Pluto as a full-fledged planet is nothing more than a historical artifact. My question is why isn’t that enough? Who is it really hurting if we continue to think of Pluto as the ninth planet of our solar system? Instead we are now going to have to totally change a truth that we have held for over seventy-five years.

Now I understand that sometimes certain beliefs need to be changed. If we never accepted new scientific research, we would still think the universe revolves around our flat world. But I think this actually illuminates what I consider a huge problem with science in general and astronomy in particular. Before I could graduate from college, I had to take one more science class, so my last summer at A&M, I took an astronomy class. The whole time I was listening to the professor, whose brilliant Russian accent made everything sound unnervingly sinister, I couldn’t help but think that these scientists were just making it up as they go along. Consider this: one of the main units of measurement used to indicate distances within the solar system is the astronomical unit. Conveniently enough one astronomical unit just happens to be the exact distance between the Earth and the Sun. They sure made it easy for themselves with that one.

More often than not, it seems that what is touted as scientific progress is actually just correcting mistakes. Probably the icing on the cake to my summer fling with astronomy is that right around the same time I was receiving my degree, I found out that some of the information I had learned in my class was already obsolete. In August of 2004, Stephen Hawking, one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists, announced that he had changed his mind about black holes. And just like that astronomy and quantum theory were changed.

I guess what gets me most is the amount of time, energy, and money that is spent on these kinds of endeavors. How much does the number of planets in our solar system really affect our daily lives? Is this decision going to stop hunger, help our environment, or end wars and genocide? If we really want to start changing historical artifacts, let’s begin with the ones that say people should be treated differently according to their gender or the color of their skin. We can spend all day with our eyes toward the sky, but our feet will always be planted on the ground; that is, until the laws of gravity go out of style.