Brewster Rockit by Tim Rickard for November 13, 2011

that is one of the best summaries of Pluto’s reclassification that I have ever read.

Pluto, you can be my planet any day.

Yawn. Science isn’t about popularity contests. You don’t vote on whether the speed of light is a constant or if gravity affects mass. Either something does what it’s supposed to do, or it doesn’t. If Pluto is defined as a planet then our moon should be classified as a planet as well. If the definition is one of size, orbit and whether the body has its own moons or not, then all bodies get classified by that definition. If the only reason for keeping Pluto classed as a planet is because of tradition and that “people want it that way”, then we go back to believing that the Earth is flat, blood is circulated by the liver, and that the earth’s core is solid.Pluto is one of several big rocks in the Kuiper Belt. Live with it.

You’ve had your 15 minutes of fame, Pluto….

Three Steps…. RU Sirius?

Phylogeny is imposed.(one of my favorite concepts.)

Taxonomy is a man-made construct…..

Even the taxonomy of inanimate objects.

Ever since the first day of Naming-of-Things, there have been arguments over classification, because physical reality is not discrete.

Who draws the lines and where, who sorts the laundry of the universe into baskets - sometimes that stuff is called scientific debate when it’s a semantic argument…..

“Explodes or doesn’t explode in the presence of oxygen” — that’s a verifiable distinction.

But, just as whether 2000 is in the 20th century or the 21st century is a semantic argument, whether Pluto is a planet or a big rock only really matters if we have to decide whether he gets a full planetary pension when he retires.

Humans love to label things, and hate ambiguity.

But other creatures….dogs, for instance, only know “food” and “non-food”, “mate-able” and “non-mate-able”, “bigger than me” and “smaller than me”, and it suffices

In fact, cats only know “mine” and “who cares.”

I’m not saying scientic inquiry is bad or that we shouldn’t follow our human nature and run around with our giant Dymo labelers…

I’m just saying sometimes everybody is right…..LOL

I guess “planet” isn’t a Plutonic ideal.

There was precedent for the reclassification of Pluto.Remember that Ceres was originally called a planet before the other members of the Asteroid Belt were discovered

Maybe they should have just classified it as a Plunet.

I love Pluto…

I just started following Brewster Rockit because it looked like it might be worth a few grins. Then this comes along. A Sunday strip that presents a bit of astronomical significa in an informative, amusing way. That just made it all worthwhile.

And it sparked a rational discussion to boot with no namecalling or spelling errors. What kind of online debate is THAT supposed to be?!

Nice. Very nice.

Thanks, Fritz and everyone else on this thread who enjoyed today’s strip. You guys just made my day.- Tim Rickard

Nice one.

So what exactly is the definition of “planet”. Is it a body of a certain size that orbits the sun? But if you argue that Pluto isn’t a planet becuase it’s smaller than our moon, then since Mercury is smaller than Titan, why should Mercury be a planet and not Pluto?

I think Pluto was discriminated against because it was named after the male god of the underworld. If it had been named “Aphrodite” or “Diana” this would never have happened.(That’s called playing the name card.)(Also the gender card.)(I have a full deck.)

(Though I’m not playing with one.)

Thanks, Morton == foolish of you, but thanks.

And good one, Dave!

Hope you read my over-long comment back to you Friday (?) about preserving formatting in a re-post.

Sometimes I am just so boring….

Also meant to chime in with Dogsniff — loved “can can” yesterday from No. 6.

Looking at the little guy’s orbit, maybe “Goofy” would have been a better name.

Nothing we call it will change it.

A dwarf planet is still a planet.It could be worse. Pluto almost became a colossal comet.

Wow, I never realized the moon was so big!