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Geologists Angry About New 'Pluton' Definition
An anonymous reader writes "According to a story over at Nature, some geologists are ticked off at the International Astronomical Union for using the word 'pluton' to describe a round object orbiting the sun with a period more than 200 years. A pluton, it seems, is a common type of rock formation that exists in most Geology 101 curricula. IAU head Owen Gingerich is quoted as saying that he was only peripherally aware of the definition, and because it didn't show up on MS Word's spell check, he didn't think it was that important."
A word with more than one meaning? The horror!
Life's EULA: shit happens.
This is far from the first time that a term has been overloaded. It happens all the time across fields, sometimes even within (I'm looking at you computer science).
Context should be sufficient to tell what kind of 'pluton' is being discussed. It's not like plutons pluton through the atmosphere and become plutons all the time.
Seriously though, the word 'nucleus' has several different definitions in different branches of science, and I've never had problems with it.
because it didn't show up on MS Word's spell check, he didn't think it was that important.
Well next time, maybe the IAU should check Wikipedia just to be sure. There is some really good info there. . .
Way to go Owen.
/* somewhat functional - fix later */
In future, when they need to check possible prior uses of a word, perhaps they could find someone who has access to the Internet and check the Wiki, answers.com, or even Google.
I have a bachelor's degree in Geology and this never crossed my mind before, I'm sort of embarrased that this never never happened. Now that someone has mentioned that "pluton" refers to both an intrusive igneous body and a type of planet, I think that the IAU was pretty stupid. Then again IIRC, in Geology "pluton" may be deprecated because I don't recall too many of my professors using it. The perferred word, in Geology, may be "intrusion", but what do I know?
Impersonating Tycho from Penny Arcade since before there was a PA.
1. anything round with an atmosphere is a planet. in other words titan is a "planet of saturn"
2. anything round without an atmosphere is a moon. in other words mercury is a "moon of the sun"
Even our moon has an atmosphere. Is it really a planet?
If you set an arbitrary "value" for minimum atmosphere, what do you do with planet/moons that fluctuate with their orbit? Do they change categories when they warm up and get more of an atmosphere, and then return to being a moon when they freeze again?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
look: elephants eat plants. so do ants. is that a valid system for classifying elephants and ants together, and keeping elephants apart from lions?
Yes, in fact it's done all the time. There are many classification systems for most things, and you chose the one relevant to the phenomenon which you are interested in.
KFG
MS Word's default dictionary is hunky dory for most people, BUT the second you want to start using technical terms, the default dictionary is worthless.
Example: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA01
"If you find it frustrating that the default Microsoft Word dictionary doesn't recognize the medical terms you use every day, there's a simple way to make the spelling checker work for your specific needs. Just customize your Word dictionary so that the default dictionary points to Stedman's Medical Dictionary or another medical terms list that you want to use."
And even un-abridged dictionaries will not include technical or specialized terminology that is limited to a single field. That's why you can buy subject specific dictionaries: legal, medical, niological, chemical, etc etc etc
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
So why in the world are geologists upset? Just been awhile since they had a rumble with astronomers, or...?
Since when is MS Word the definitive guide to the english language?
When you're an arrogant academic? He got a nice bit of Humble Pie Smackdown, and I can't think of anyone more deserving at the moment. Not to mention, both groups and a lot of other scientists will learn lessons from this....
Please help metamoderate.
Given that both uses are jargon specific to different and relatively unrelated fields, I really don't care.
The problem is that geology and astronomy are in fact very much related. Ever heard of planetary geology? I'll note that there are plenty of planetary geologists who are faculty members in astronomy, not geology departments.
Anyhow, the point is that it is easy to imageine how overloading "pluton" could result in a lot of unnecessary confusion in the planetary sciences, so it would make sense for the IAU to change it to something else.
Angstrom, Joule, Candella.
They don't have "significant meaning in popular culture" either, but you would not go around redefining those words, would you?
Only in everyone's favourite 'most important' country, would Joule be classified as not having significant meaning in poular culture. Travel to the outside world, where people use decimal measurement systems, and you'll see kilojoules in the nutritional information of everything in your supermarket.
Now that's talent!
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Gingerich is head of the IAU. He's supposed to be pretty damned smart.
He used a word processor SPELL CHECK dictionary as the authority to determine the existence of a scientific/technical term.
A SPELL CHECK dictionary. Used as the authority to determine the exisatence of a scientific term.
The head of the International Astronomic Union. Spell check dictionary. Existence of a scientific term.
Is anybody home??
He may as well have done no research into the background of the term. He would have looked less stupid that way. Sloppy and careless maybe, but not stupid.
And how is it he got to this position and how long will he be allowed to remain? Maybe he was elected so he wouldn't hurt himself running with scissors.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Because in every lecture where I would ordinarily mention the word "pluton", or "plutonic rocks", in addition to explaining what the term means, I'll now also have to explain that it doesn't refer to Pluto and other Kuiper belt objects. And, yes, there are areas of overlap, any time someone is talking about planetary geology on the terrestrial planets or rocky moons the subject of plutonic rocks comes up. It is a very commonly used term for a large class of igneous intrusive rocks, and they are not exclusive to Earth.
/. it shouldn't be necessary to explain the trouble that a namespace conflict can cause. So, if you are going to go to the trouble to invent a brand new term, why in the heck would you choose a term that has an obvious namespace conflict?
Worse, one could legitimately talk about the possibility of ice plutons developing on plutons or on other pluton-like non-pluton bodies with ice volcanism, such as the moons Titan or Triton. Try parsing that sentence!
In a place like
It makes about as much sense as, oh, geologists deciding to call a new and large class of Earthly rocks "moon rocks", but, actually, they have nothing to do with the Moon.
The reaction of geologists is more like exasperation -- why? Why on Earth would they pick *that* well-used a term, especially when there is so much overlap between astronomy and geology? The only real difference between the fields is that conventional geologists spend more time studying the Earth than other planetary bodies. Planetary geologists, by contrast, study all of them, and that's where the confusion will be greatest. Thanks to the lunar landings and meteorites, we already have samples of plutonic rocks from asteroids, the Moon, and Mars. Are planetary geologists supposed to abandon the term plutonic when describing them or the processes that produced them, in order to avoid confusion?
Wasn't there a single planetary geologist on the committee involved in revising the definition of a *planet*? Using MS Word's dictionary to avoid namespace conflicts? That's just weird!
Yeah.
In other news, biologists are angry that the media frequently reports on terrorist "cells", hijacking [pun intended] a term they've been using since Robert Hooke first saw them with a microscope and coined the term.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.