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Is Pluto a Binary Planet?
astroengine writes "If the Pluto-Charon system were viewed in a similar way to binary stars and binary asteroids, Pluto would become a Pluto-Charon binary planet. After all, Charon is 12% the mass of Pluto, causing the duo to orbit a barycenter that is located above Pluto's surface. Sadly, in the IAU's haste to define what a planet is in 2006, they missed a golden opportunity to define the planetary binary. Interestingly, if Pluto was a binary planet, last week's discovery of a fifth Plutonian moon would have in fact been the binary's fourth moon to be discovered by Hubble — under the binary definition, Charon wouldn't be classified as a moon at all."
One possible reason for calling the active members of the IAU "pseudo-scientists" is because they have shown a propensity for public behaviors that have long been associated with persons who have been educated beyond the level of their intelligence. That is not possible for a true scientist, who necessarily works from a carefully nurtured basis of self-doubt. The IAU's attempt to redefine very active nouns in living languages, which if it were even possible would be within the scope of action of linguists and not astronomers, is the most glaring example of their failure to grasp the basic principles of the acquisition and distribution of knowledge. They could instead have developed some neologisms to go along with their new taxonomy, but no, rather than doing the astronomical equivalent of defining "quarks" with "charmed", "top", "bottom" and "strange" qualities, they attempt to redefine existing language and shove that down every school child's throat.
This is not what scientists do. Scientists are involved in developing new ways of looking at reality that provide new insights into how things might actually work. Scientists do not set out to destroy the mechanisms of intelligent discourse just because it would be so gratifying to tell others that "we are right and you are wrong because we have made new words that say that is so". That is the childish act of someone who thinks they can exercise the authority of their position. But there are no authorities in Science; Science is based on empiricism alone, not on what anyone with an alphabet soup after their name might say is so.
Of course I could be wrong. There are many other reasons why the active members of the IAU should be called pseudo-scientists, and the OP may have meant one of those instead.
Will