It’s completely unsurprising to deal with grammar policing over substance, but…
In terms of financial motives, I would reason that a motive for extending the term “planet” to cover the innumerable large objects orbiting other stars would have been as a better sales pitch to Congress. Studying “planets” lightyears away was a sort of brand hack which would have driven more funding. And when the “planets” was established as comprising a virtually infinite set, rather than simply a list of 9 known objects, the nomenclature collapsed in its usefulness, which is why the IAU started looking for a way out of its own hole.
However, as the article here discusses, the IAU’s approach has pretty much failed. It doesn’t hold up to scrutiny as a thing that’s meant to be usefully applied. How exactly do you confirm that all of those exoplanets have actually cleared their neighborhoods, or is the truth that it never actually mattered to anyone in the field?
Have any scientists or agencies written papers or reported to Congress that they discovered or studied some exoplanet — using public funds — when in fact they had no way of confirming whether its neighborhood was cleared? It sounds completely improper to me, but the reality is that it never really mattered.
Sorry, but how does using “swindle” in a way that’s completely divorced from how it’s normally used qualify as “grammar policing,” but comparing a small change to a scientific definition to a crime is somehow reasonable? Financial motives? Get a grip, man.
If you certify that you have discovered an exoplanet and you do not know whether it has cleared its neighborhood, that may be a crime under the IAU’s definition. Possibly a financial crime if research funding was involved. I’m not a lawyer, just someone who can spot a charade every now and then. My guess is the IAU would say, given the challenge, “ah, well of course we didn’t mean for our universal definition for planets to be applied outside of the Solar System!”
It’s completely unsurprising to deal with grammar policing over substance, but…
In terms of financial motives, I would reason that a motive for extending the term “planet” to cover the innumerable large objects orbiting other stars would have been as a better sales pitch to Congress. Studying “planets” lightyears away was a sort of brand hack which would have driven more funding. And when the “planets” was established as comprising a virtually infinite set, rather than simply a list of 9 known objects, the nomenclature collapsed in its usefulness, which is why the IAU started looking for a way out of its own hole.
However, as the article here discusses, the IAU’s approach has pretty much failed. It doesn’t hold up to scrutiny as a thing that’s meant to be usefully applied. How exactly do you confirm that all of those exoplanets have actually cleared their neighborhoods, or is the truth that it never actually mattered to anyone in the field?
Have any scientists or agencies written papers or reported to Congress that they discovered or studied some exoplanet — using public funds — when in fact they had no way of confirming whether its neighborhood was cleared? It sounds completely improper to me, but the reality is that it never really mattered.
Sorry, but how does using “swindle” in a way that’s completely divorced from how it’s normally used qualify as “grammar policing,” but comparing a small change to a scientific definition to a crime is somehow reasonable? Financial motives? Get a grip, man.
If you certify that you have discovered an exoplanet and you do not know whether it has cleared its neighborhood, that may be a crime under the IAU’s definition. Possibly a financial crime if research funding was involved. I’m not a lawyer, just someone who can spot a charade every now and then. My guess is the IAU would say, given the challenge, “ah, well of course we didn’t mean for our universal definition for planets to be applied outside of the Solar System!”
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