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odyssey7yesterday at 8:08 PM1 replyview on HN

Well, the thing is, nobody got told, out of nowhere, that the “honorable strawberries” were now called simply “mildly honored straw,” because a committee of so-called experts had expressed their will, and that now everybody had to say “mildly honored straw” instead of “honorable strawberries,” or else they would be *incorrect*, because the science league said so.

The word “planet” signifying a certain reverence, and the fact that a scientific body was now policing everyday language — for the apparently petty reason that we should not honor Pluto as we once did — it was quite a misstep for how people in the public might view science going forward. Unless, perhaps, the idea was to make people more skeptical of scientific results and statements.


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bryanlarsenyesterday at 8:16 PM

The alternative was to announce "we now have 10 more planets, and there are probably a bunch more, and we'll probably never really get a definitive number".

That would also have had an impact on the public view of science. Perhaps not as bad, but it would have had an impact.

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