Theoretical Evidence For a Ninth Planet Beyond Pluto May Be Premature (forbes.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Earlier today, the team of Pluto-killer Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin announced that they had found evidence of a ninth planet in our Solar System beyond the orbit of Pluto, larger and more massive than even Earth. However, a closer inspection of the work shows that they predict a few things that haven't been observed, including a population of Kuiper belt objects with large inclinations and retrograde orbits, long-period Kuiper belt objects with opposite ecliptic latitudes and longitudes, and infrared data showing the emission from such an outer world. There are many good reasons to be skeptical, and not conclude that there's a ninth planet without more (and better) evidence.

Comments

Skeptical

[Skeptical1]

Of course there are good reasons to be skeptical. It's just the way to be. Nothing to do with this article.

Re:Skeptical

[I'm New Around Here]

But they seemed so sure of it.

I even got chewed out in that last posting because someone had a hardon about the new defining characteristics of planets.

Re:Skeptical

[danbert8]

There's also a different between people who say CO2 doesn't cause warming or isn't significant and those that think the projected warming won't be catastrophic. I'm not a climate change skeptic, I'm a climate change catastrophe skeptic. Sadly the religion of AGW doesn't allow for categories of "deniers." They all get lumped together as equivalent to evolution deniers.

Re: Skeptical

[Sique]

And Linus Pauling, winner of the Nobel prize for Chemistry, believed high doses of Vitamine C would cure cancer. Excellence in one field of science does not translate in sound knowledge in another field of science, even if it is related.

Burt Rutan can build successful space ships. That doesn't make him an authority in the field of weather prediction and climate modelling.

Re:Skeptical

[KGIII]

I am sorry that I am so tired but, well, I have seen the climate change. The seasons are different, the weather more mild, and even the birds migrate with new patterns. Mountains which kept their snow pack are bald in the summer. I think we had one day of temperature over 90 last summer. I used to get three or four feet of snow - all the time. Now, maybe twice a year do I get more than 18" in a storm. I have pictures of snowbanks so high that they were HIGHER than the telephone poles.

Yet, until I get all the information and have time to review it, I'm in the skeptic category. Oh, I don't doubt that it's happening. I'm just not sure they're doing a very good job at making predictions. Making 2000 predictions using 350000 models and then saying, "I told you so!" Is not science.

Re:Skeptical

[Hognoxious]

Probably that Icelandic twat who's always complaining that he can't post in runes. Utter shitcock.

Re: Skeptical

[Bongo]

"not in the field" is just a lame excuse, unless you want to have to have it that the Pope is the expert on God and nobody else can question his ideas. heck, i know when my doctor misdiagnosed me and was negligent, i don't have to be an expert in the field of medicine to know that.

Re: Skeptical

[JohnStock]

Unless you're Elon Musk, who's opinions about everything are valid. Even his turds hold secrets about modern technology and science.

Re:Skeptical

[KeensMustard]

In the previous thread on climate change there were guys saying the temperature record provided by the scientists had been faked (via massive conspiracy) and another group saying that the climate is always changing and therefore, by some magic step, explanations as to why the climate has changed must be wrong (? I don't get it either).

Those 2 concurrent explanations courtesy of the denier community are inherently contradictory.

So which is it? Which of these 2 contradictory theories is the one we should accept in place of the orthodox view of climate science?

Re:Skeptical

[KeensMustard]

Or perhaps you misunderstand the debate? You do realize that none of the climate change models have been better at predicting the climate this century than the null hypothesis, right?

So, in fact, the impact of increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere to 400 ppm could be much larger than the impact predicted by the climate models?

Re:Skeptical

[lgw]

Sure, except at some point you'd expect the null hypothesis to fail - you'd expect warming beyond the error bars. You have to give the null hypothesis the same size error bars as you do the models, or it's all meaningless. Right now the error bars on the models are quite large - large enough that "no warming" doesn't disprove the models (well, most of them, some have been retired, but there are lots of models). That doesn't mean the science is bad, but it does mean the science is young and the problem is hard.

Re:Skeptical

[KeensMustard]

Sure

Exactly.

except at some point you'd expect the null hypothesis to fail - you'd expect warming beyond the error bars

We're talking about climate models. Climate models aren't used to test hypotheses. Science: you're doing it wrong.

Right now the error bars on the models are quite large - large enough that "no warming" doesn't disprove the models

Error bars go both ways. If the implication of wide error bars is as you describe, then a massive spike in temperature is as likely in the future as a cessation or reversal of the current warming trend.

That doesn't mean the science is bad, but it does mean the science is young and the problem is hard.

Well, given the acknowledged possibility that climate models might be severely underestimating the warming yet to occur, we should pull out all stops to tackle this hard problem, and simultaneously look to mitigate that possibility by a widespread scaling back of our practice of dumping CO2 into the atmosphere.

Re: Skeptical

[tnk1]

It's a matter of how you define the subject. I agree that the Pope has no advantage in talking about the existence of God, however, if someone else wanted to tell the pope that he understood Catholicism better than said pope, that other person would be on very shaky ground.

The pope could very well be considered difficult to argue with on the matter of Catholicism, mainly because he has not only studied it for his entire adult life, but because he gets to change it when he feels he needs to, thus putting any non-pope on shifting ground.

That said, it is not impossible to argue with the pope, even on Catholicism. Certainly a lot of people have done so in the past. And now that there are technically two popes, it does get a little confused.

Nevertheless, it isn't something you would undertake lightly and hope to prevail.

Re:Skeptical

[lgw]

Climate models aren't used to test hypotheses.

A climate model is a hypothesis. It's a falsifiable prediction about something you can measure. Textbook example, really.

Well, given the acknowledged possibility that climate models might be severely underestimating the warming yet to occur, we should pull out all stops to tackle this hard problem

Given the acknowledged problem of tiger attacks, no cost is too high for my Tiger Rock (tm), good for keeping tigers at bay.

The burden of proof is on the one making the claim. There are claims that AGW is a significant contributor to climate change. Great - that's definitely a falsifiable, scientific hypothesis. One that we can model and make concrete predictions about. It's certainly science at work.

As yet, there's no evidence of a problem. Sounds believable, sure. It's internally consistent and not obviously in contradiction with observed evidence. That's where science starts.

Re:Skeptical

[KeensMustard]

Or am I thinking of some other sect

It's not for me to speculate on the functioning of your mind.

Re:Skeptical

[KeensMustard]

Climate models aren't used to test hypotheses.

A climate model is a hypothesis

This being the case, your assertions are contradictory. Perhaps review your material and get back to us.

Well, given the acknowledged possibility that climate models might be severely underestimating the warming yet to occur, we should pull out all stops to tackle this hard problem

Given the acknowledged problem of tiger attacks, no cost is too high for my Tiger Rock (tm), good for keeping tigers at bay.

So have previously mounted an argument which results in the conclusion that climate models might be severely underestimating the warming yet to occur, you've now chosen to imply that this is not a real possibility.

Which of these contradictory positions are you going to actually argue for?

The burden of proof is on the one making the claim.

And this context, you've claimed that models are not required to predict the interactions of secondary climate feedback mechanisms. Carry on with your working then.

There are claims that AGW is a significant contributor to climate change. Great - that's definitely a falsifiable, scientific hypothesis. One that we can model and make concrete predictions about. It's certainly science at work.

Get on with it then. Once you've published your paper, you can then come back and argue that Svante Arrhenius was wrong, and that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. Don't bother posting your assertions here though, unless you have evidence for the same.

Re:Skeptical

[lgw]

The burden of proof is on the one making the claim. You don't seem to get that. Your faith is strong, but faith is not science.

No one is arguing about whether CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That has never been a debate, but you can keep thrashing that strawman if you need the exercise. The debate is about whether CO2 man emits significantly affects the climate. That's non-trivial science. That's why there are models - when you can't just solve some equations, when the problem is more complex, you model the system as best you can.

The models aren't so good thus far. In fact, they aren't any better than the "no AGW" model. They need to be, before any predictions can be trusted. And because the burden of proof is on the one making the claim, it's perfectly scientific to believe the null hypothesis while awaiting evidence.

Re: Skeptical

[justthinkit]

Adelle Davis was decades ahead of Linus Pauling regarding Vitamin C. Pauling wrote about it "In his later years" (circa 1968), whereas Davis was writing books in the 40s and 50s.

Re: Skeptical

[justthinkit]

Good point if all she talked about was mega doses of Vitamin C.

"Davis wrote a series of four books, starting with a cookbook in 1947, that ultimately sold over 10 million copies in total. Although her ideas were considered somewhat eccentric in the 1940s and 1950s, the change in culture with the 1960s brought her ideas, especially her anti-food processing and food industry charges, into the mainstream in a time when anti-authority sentiment was growing. She also contributed to, as well as benefited from, the rise of a nutritional and health food movement that began in the 1950s, which focused on subjects such as pesticide residues and food additives, a movement her critics would come to term food faddism. During the 1960s and 1970s, her popularity continued to grow, as she was featured in multiple media reports, variously described as an "oracle" by the New York Times, "high priestess" by Life and was compared to Ralph Nader, the popular consumer activist, by the Associated Press. Her celebrity was demonstrated by her repeated guest appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, as she became the most popular and influential nutritionist in the country.

A significant part of her appeal came from her credentials, including her university training, and her apparent application of scientific studies and principles to her writing, with one book totaling over 2100 footnotes and citations. Some of her nutritional ideas such as the need for exercise, the dangers of vitamin deficiencies as well as the need to avoid hydrogenated fat, saturated fat and excess sugar consumption remain relevant even to modern nutritionists."

Re:Skeptical

[KeensMustard]

The burden of proof is on the one making the claim.

Correct.

You don't seem to get that.

Citation?

Your faith is strong, but faith is not science.

My personal views are irrelevant.

No one is arguing about whether CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That has never been a debate, but you can keep thrashing that strawman if you need the exercise.

Incorrect. I've just come from a discussion with a guy making that exact claim. Your assertion that the (alleged) lack of model correlation somehow supports the "no AGW" assertion is a slightly less plausible version of the same thing. Your assertion is less plausible because it assumes a mechanism that somehow reverses the anthropogenic climate change that has already been observed. What is this mechanism? At least the one with the conspiracy theory is a bit entertaining.

The debate is about whether CO2 man emits significantly affects the climate. That's non-trivial science.

Which is why explanations which contradict observations need somewhat more proof than wishing on a star and posting assertions in an internet forum and praying to Santa Claus that no-one bothers to contradict you.

That's why there are models

Incorrect.

Climate Models are used to make predictions. They aren't presented as proof. The scientific basis of the significance of AGW forcing on climate is based on observations, not prediction.

The models aren't so good thus far. In fact, they aren't any better than the "no AGW" model.

Which GCM model predicts an outcome whereby the average global temperature declines by one degree (C) ? CIte the Model and outcomes.

They need to be, before any predictions can be trusted.

In that case, so does anybodies prediction. So if you are looking for some acceptance for your assertion that a lack of correlation in model outcomes v's observations means that the actual trend will be less than the predicted trend, then inevitably, what you need to do is describe a predictive mechanism that is better than modelling to prove your assertion.

Re:Skeptical

[Plumpaquatsch]

You do realize that none of the climate change models have been better at predicting the climate this century than the null hypothesis, right?

* for values of "this century" starting with 1998.

There is a good reason why climatologist always look at time-frames of at least 30 years, anything below isn't expected to be statistically significant.

Re:Skeptical

[Plumpaquatsch]

We don't have to go into the future: There never was a pause.

Re: Skeptical

[Sique]

And you are an authority about Burt Rutan's knowledge in the field of global warming, so I have to take your word on it. Right.

Re:Skeptical

[KeensMustard]

Well yes, but even that is only a minor issue. The bigger issues with this line of argument are:

1. Any alternative hypothesis has to not only explain the warming that is happening now, but also the 1 degree of warming that has already occurred.

2. Models (in the past) have certainly been inaccurate. But historically, they have underestimated the warming as often as they have overestimated it. It is beyond absurd to claim that model inaccuracies imply less warming. It is ridiculous.

3. As noted, we've already experienced a 1 degree warming. That takes us to half way to the maximum safe warming. How can this warming not constitute a significant observation? No modelling is needed to project that we can easily reach 2 degrees by doing nothing. No (currently unobserved) secondary mechanism needs to be included in prediction in bolster the numbers. .

Re:Skeptical

[tehcyder]

Who chewed you out? Some random slashdotter? LOL.

Most random slashdotters can only dream of chewing someone out.

Re: Skeptical

[tehcyder]

Burt Rutan, the creator of a number of well respected aircraft designs, including the Ansari X Prize winner SpaceShipOne, says that AGW is a crock of shit and that people who believe it are idiots.

When going for the ever popular "appeal to authority" fallacy it's customary to choose someone who is actually an authority in that particular field.

He may also think that Shakespeare was a particularly shitty poet and Mozart a talentless retard with a tin ear, but no one would care about those opinions either.

Re: Skeptical

[tehcyder]

Burt Rutan is an authority because he's studied global warming for far longer than you or any AGW whiners. Contrary to your child-like views, a person can have more than one expertise.

I bet you can't walk and chew gum at the same time either, huh junior?

I bet he settles most arguments with a roundhouse kick too.

Re:Skeptical

[tehcyder]

There's also a different between people who say CO2 doesn't cause warming or isn't significant and those that think the projected warming won't be catastrophic. I'm not a climate change skeptic, I'm a climate change catastrophe skeptic. Sadly the religion of AGW doesn't allow for categories of "deniers." They all get lumped together as equivalent to evolution deniers.

But if someone says "I agree that the theory of evolution is the best theory to fit reality, but I still think God created Adam and Eve and we're all descended from them" there is a disconnect.

Similarly, if you agree that AGW is happening, and therefore accept the scientific facts and theory behind AGW, you can't logically say "I agree with everything except their conclusions". It just looks like you're putting your fingers in your ears and going la la la.

No one is saying that AGW will completely destroy the planet, simply that it will have a devestating effect on humanity. You can argue that it would actually be good to have a large proportion of the population removed, but that is another topic entirely from pretending there will be little impact.

Re:Skeptical

[danbert8]

Your analogy is flawed. This would be more akin to someone saying "I agree that the evidence fits evolution, but I believe that God created the earth with conditions to allow humans to evolve."

I agree with the theory, I don't agree with their extrapolated models. I also think that research dollars spent trying to figure out how warming will damage the environment would be better spent researching how to take advantage of a warmer climate. I already believe that a warmer planet will be a net positive for life in general and if humans are smart enough to adapt (we usually are) we will prosper on a warmer planet.

The devastating impact on humans will come from wasting resources trying to stop the ship instead of using them to steer the ship where we want it to go. We may be accelerating natural warming or causing unnatural warming, but what we cannot do currently is control the climate. Geo-engineering the climate and trying to stop fossil fuel usage causes known harm today to try to mitigate future harm. Instead we could cause no harm today and migrate towards taking advantage of the benefits a warmer climate brings.

Evidence of a 9th planet!?

[Rob Lister]

Honk, dammit.

Wait.......

[phishybongwaters]

Hold on now.... Are you telling me mathematical calculations and theories that do not line up with what we observe doesn't count as evidence? I'm shocked. SHOCKED

Re:Wait.......

[thechemic]

Theoretical Evidence

Evidence, by definition, are facts. You either have evidence to support a theory or you don't have the evidence. The observations and calculations (evidence collected) are facts. They cannot be refuted, however the existence of a ninth planet is clearly theoretical and it was clearly stated that way in the original article. At no point did anyone proclaim that the planet definitely exists.

The morons that wrote the article rebuttal and the brilliant staff at dice who regurgitated it have completely wasted our time. They attempt to refute the existence of something so massive as a planet, yet they can't even master something as simple as grammar. "Theoretical Evidence", ridiculous.

Of course it was premature!

[Anonymous Coward]

They just needed to cash in on the social media clickety-click to fund further research!

Re:Of course it was premature!

[shaitand]

Pluto has allies and they pushed a new standard with a fairly awful set of rules and lots of problems. Also this "new" planet they've found wouldn't meet those rules regardless of size.

No friend of Plutonians would fund this scum.

Forbes doesn't like AdBlock

[Kazymyr]

Oh well. Article will go unread.

Re:Forbes doesn't like AdBlock

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Slashdot so not reading TFA is expected.

Using a Forbes link is just ensures things are as they should around here.

Re:Forbes doesn't like AdBlock

[Rei]

I don't use AdBlock and yet Forbes thinks I'm using it. So I can't read it.

But I can say, at least the infrared claim doesn't hold up. Wise ruled out Saturn-sized bodies out to 10k AU (based not on reflection but, due to the distances, more the internal heat they'd give off), but here we're talking about a body that's far smaller than Saturn and would have much less internal heat. The theoretical planet is 1/10th the mass of Saturn, and its IR from internal heat would be much less than that. And while one could argue that due to being closer its additional solar reflection would overcome that, I wouldn't be so sure. Neptune is 1,7x heavier than the theoretical planet yet still has a cross sectional area less than 18% that of Saturn. And you can't just scale down by that 1,7x to around 10% the cross sectional area of Saturn - it's probably much less because its colder (the reason why Neptune has a smaller radius than Uranus despite being heavier). And even more than what you'd get simply from cooling gases - at aphelion it could well be cold enough to chill liquid hydrogen out of its atmosphere into hydrogen seas. And that would make it dramatically smaller.

In short, if it's even remotely near aphelion, WISE could well have missed it. And elliptical-orbiting bodies spend much more of their time near aphelion than perihelion.

As for the required observations about KBOs, I don't know enough about the types of bodies and their orbits being referred to in the summary to know if we should already have seen them or not. But either way, we need *something* to explain the similar arguments of perihelion of the sednoids. It's hard enough just to explain how something with such a distant perihelion ended up in an elliptical orbit to begin with, let alone multiple such objects sharing similar arguments of perihelion.

Re:Forbes doesn't like AdBlock

[Chatsubo]

Well, Forbes doesn't like AdBlock and just last week ON SLASHDOT it was reported that they'd served malware to those who did turn it off...

But what do the editors of /. care?

Re:Forbes doesn't like AdBlock

[avandesande]

It says right in the article that Wise had a hard time detecting Neptune which is relatively close.

Re:Forbes doesn't like AdBlock

[thegarbz]

I don't use AdBlock and yet Forbes thinks I'm using it. So I can't read it.

What the hell? You don't use Adblock and you clicked on a Forbes link to a StartsWithABang post? That's like going to an African mental institution for recovering whores and aiming to have a conversation followed by sex without a condom. Today's special: We will drop your IQ and you'll end up with an STD! Buy it now!

Re:Forbes doesn't like AdBlock

[jdavidb]

My take is that these types of nag screens are supposed to be blocked by one of my adblock filters, so I reported the problem to adblock. I'm sure they will eventually find a way to block it so I can read articles there again, especially if lots of us report it! :)

Re:Forbes doesn't like AdBlock

[Crashmarik]

Well Forbes is that great source of Astronomy news. I keep it right next to Sky and Telescope.

Re: Forbes doesn't like AdBlock

[Type44Q]

LOL, I've been using the "unprotected sex in a sub-saharan bordello" analogy for fifteen years to describe to my clients the consequences of connecting a windows PC to the Internet...

Re:Forbes doesn't like AdBlock

[93 Escort Wagon]

It says right in the article that Wise had a hard time detecting Neptune which is relatively close.

However he had no trouble detecting Uranus from quite a distance.

Re:Forbes doesn't like AdBlock

[avandesande]

Not sure if it was the IR emission or the methane ;-)

Re: Forbes doesn't like AdBlock

[KGIII]

Do you mind if I borrow that?

Re:Forbes doesn't like AdBlock

[fahrbot-bot]

It says right in the article that Wise had a hard time detecting Neptune which is relatively close.

However he had no trouble detecting Uranus from quite a distance.

To be fair, he had a flashlight then.

[ Dyslexics: Note that was with an "a". If you saw "e" - do not Google that at work. :-) ]

Re:Forbes doesn't like AdBlock

[coastwalker]

Never mind propaganda sites like Forbes. There are plenty of decent sources still left on the web, though you wonder how much longer it will be before they dry up. http://phys.org/news/2016-01-e...

I'm Skeptical

[drinkypoo]

I'm Skeptical that it's ever going to be worth following a Forbes link.

Re:I'm Skeptical

[Rob Lister]

I do not get why so many articles here are sourced at Forbes when almost everyone here can't see them.

Re:I'm Skeptical

[danbert8]

I don't remember if it was Forbes, but yesterday there was a link to the 25 happiest companies. The first one opened with title, a sentence of text, a huge picture, and plenty of space for ads I presume... Fuck that, I'm not clicking and loading a new damn page 25 times to read a bullet list. Sounds like something Forbes would do.

Re:I'm Skeptical

[squiggleslash]

Maybe it's to force people to turn off their ad-blockers, so that when they come back to Slashdot they'll see ads... if so, well played DICE, well played...

That said, even when I turn off my ad blocker, I can't read Forbes, so I never bother trying any more anyway.

Re:I'm Skeptical

[shaitand]

Why would Slashdot need you to turn off the ad-blocker when it gives you that little check box on the front page to turn off ads yourself?

Re:I'm Skeptical

[thegarbz]

I do not get why so many articles here are sourced at Forbes when almost everyone here can't see them.

They are all submitted and posted by one person. Look at starts with a bang's profile. One single post on slashdot, but some 300 story submission attempts of which all are to his personal blog on Forbes, and of which a sadly high number is being accepted.

Re:I'm Skeptical

[IceAgeComing]

Oddly enough, I have had to check that box repeatedly over the past few months. I use the latest version of Chrome.

Another oddity: APB still reports that it is filtering out some ads on Slashdot. Searching Google did not help me figure out how to view the logs for APB, so I can't report what is being filtered.

Re:I'm Skeptical

[shaitand]

Yeah, it does turn itself back on periodically. And there is still the sponsored content videos at the bottom of the page as well as partner videos mixed into the headlines. It really just turns off the advertising that existed at the time they put it in which is the big block of ads at the right of the page and a banner at the top.

They likely are also still tracking what content you visit.

Re:I'm Skeptical

[coastwalker]

To be fair Starts With a Bang was one of the best astronomy blogs on the internet when Nathan effectively ran it for free. It is unfortunate that having moved into a more commercial setting he happens to be publishing it on Forbes. That is one good reason why his articles are featured on this site.

However a significant number of readers, myself included, do not like sharing data with Forbes advertising partners and can no longer read his good quality journalism. YMMV.

Re:I'm Skeptical

[IceAgeComing]

They likely are also still tracking what content you visit.

Thanks for the info. How creepy of them! Was this another Dice innovation? I've been away from Slashdot for a half score years.

Why don't they remove the YRO section of Slashdot while they are at it?

Re:I'm Skeptical

[thegarbz]

To be fair Starts With a Bang was one of the best astronomy blogs on the internet when Nathan effectively ran it for free.

There's nothing to be fair, the vast majority of his articles are clickbait and borderline pseudo-science existential crap debunked by several theories which are conveniently ignored when he tries to prove sometimes no point at all.

Occasionally he posts something interesting and relevant.

In the past he also occasionally posted on slashdot. But the flavour wore off when he posted EVERY SINGLE ONE OF HIS BLOGS on here. That's no longer doing astronomy blogs a good service, that's using Slashdot as a personal advertising platform. Guess what, if we're interested in EVERYTHING he has to write then we'd be following his damn blog.

That is all. People occasionally write crap, that's tolerable. People using a technology site as a personal clickbait advertising platform is definitely not. He is a clickwhore, and that's as fair as a comment can get.

Re:I'm Skeptical

[drinkypoo]

Why would Slashdot need you to turn off the ad-blocker when it gives you that little check box on the front page to turn off ads yourself?

Because the little check box doesn't work. It only turns off some of the ads, and not all of them. It also doesn't stop the trackers, just [some of] the ads. AdBlock turns off all of the ads, and the trackers too.

Re:I'm Skeptical

[shaitand]

Oh my brother. That isn't a dice innovation but it's present on almost every site you browse. You should do some googling on the super cookie for instance.

Re:I'm Skeptical

[david_thornley]

I never checked that box. As far as I'm concerned, if the ads are going to be reasonable, I don't care about them. I installed ABP because of what I consider unreasonable ads.

Theoretical Evidence?

[gtall]

What would "theoretical evidence" actually be. Evidence which is not like real evidence because it is theoretical. Evidence for a particular theory? That seems plausible but if so, it should be stated as "theory evidence".

Re:Theoretical Evidence?

[wonkey_monkey]

Just what I came to say. And how would it be premature? It's just evidence.

Re:Theoretical Evidence?

[shaitand]

Perhaps it would just be better if no longer give a distinction to words planet and theory and instead just treat them as exact synonyms to body and hypothesis.

Back in third grade when we learned the scientific method I don't remember a "theory" step in there anywhere. If anything calling something a theory only serves to create the illusion of factuality which is a rather ironic thing to do to the product of skepticism and rational inquiry. A still valid hypothesis should be used as the best tool we have so far but we should never drop skepticism. We wouldn't want to look back in ten thousand years and be the idiots who dropped skepticism of models which concern billions of years worth of data were unshakable after less than a century or two of inquiry.

I blame the media

[NotDrWho]

Every time some scientist comes out with even the most untested hypothesis, the media starts touting it as some great new discovery. The headlines were "New Planet Found!" when there should have been no headlines at all (not until it can be verified by many other astronomers).

Re:I blame the media

[shaitand]

I didn't see those headlines. I saw scientists think that there may be a potential 9th planet.

I suspect it's as much that readers lack reading comprehension and gloss right over words like "may" and "potential" as that the headlines are bad.

Re:I blame the media

[thegarbz]

I blame startswithabang. After all what could get more clicks than posting some article about being sceptical about something that was in the media only a little while earlier.

Re: I blame the media

[Suffering Bastard]

First the media garners eyeballs and clickballs by saying "NEW PLANET FOUND!", then a day later they garner even more eyeballs and clickballs by saying "NEW PLANET THEORY DEBUNKED!". Keeps the headlines percolating.

Re:I blame the media

[TheDarkMaster]

It's normal. I have ample evidence that most humans have serious problems in correctly interpreting ideas expressed in a given text. And add to this the fact that they also have difficulty thinking outside of extremes (binary thinking).

Re:I blame the media

[shaitand]

It is a shame because it leads to opinions like that this should not have been reported on. I believe a team of credible experts in this area having reached this hypothesis and feeling it is a likely enough possibility that they are looking for funding to spend their time investigating it for the next few months or years is interesting news to many people who wouldn't be reading or have access to the actual peer reviewed articles. This includes many with the means to fund taking such research further.

Provided they've accurately said this is a possibility which they have not yet confirmed I see nothing wrong with that. The article on Slashdot the other day indicated they had not yet found or confirmed any such planet, only that it was consistent with the data they've reviewed so far but said it with an optimistic tone. This article says the same but with a negative tone. If they are hoping it gets the attention of someone who can fund the research, they aren't misleading anyone. If they claimed they were already there then what would they be needing funding for? Investigating further is going to cost a great deal of time and money.

Re:ninth planet

[Rei]

Pluto is not the 9th planet by any measure. There's over a dozen bodies in hydrostatic equilibrium before it. If you don't count "planetary moons" you still have to count Ceres, there's no question that it's in hydrostatic equilibrium.

No no no

[Anonymous Coward]

This post, and the post yesterday covering the Caltech announcement, are great examples of what's wrong with science reporting these days. The story yesterday should have been titled "Caltech Researchers Find Evidence That Might Indicate A Ninth Planet"; it isn't proven, and while the researchers like their model, even they don't claim it's a done deal. However it makes better headlines to make it seem more certain, so yesterday's slashdot headline actually said "Caltech Astronomers Say a Ninth Planet Lurks Beyond Pluto".

Of course that idiocy leads to today's ridiculous headline. It's a fucking theory. It hasn't been proven. Of course it is fucking premature to talk about it like it's established fact, which dumb-ass journos did, not actual scientists. The evidence isn't fucking premature; the evidence is what it is - a model, a theory, observations. The paper is published, anyone is free to look at the theory, examine the predictions made, and show where it stands up or falls down; that's the scientific process, you fucking morons.

Re:No no no

[jbengt]

It's a fucking theory. It hasn't been proven

Not even. It's (that is, the proposed "planet" is) a fucking hypothesis. It hasn't been found.

ridiculous

[Ken D]

The 'blogger' complains that the authors predict things that have not yet been observed, but that is exactly the point. A proposal that only explained things that are known is awfully convenient and cannot be confirmed or disproven by new observations.

Re: ridiculous

[Type44Q]

My thoughts exactly.

Re:ridiculous

[ThatsNotPudding]

The 'blogger' complains...

The tree falls in the forest...

typical statistical mistake

[ooloorie]

The probability of that happening is about 0.007 percent. "Basically it shouldn't happen randomly," Brown says. "So we thought something else must be shaping these orbits."

What they did was perform a bunch of simulations and found that this combination of six orbits occurred with that frequency by chance. Does that mean "the probability of that happening are 0.007 percent"? I don't think that's true. The simulation uses "that happening" in the sense of "given six randomly chosen orbits, what is the probability of 'that happening'", but the question they are attempting to answer is "given the large, biased sample of orbits we have in our catalog, what is the probability of 'that happening' in a subset of them". The latter probability is much higher than the former, but not knowable with any precision. By analogy, the probability of rolling snake eyes is 1:36. But the probability of seeing snake eyes during an evening of playing dice is close to one. The simulations Brown performed are reasonable and interesting. His interpretation of the probabilities, however, is sloppy.

Astrophysicist Pissing Contest

[nucrash]

Ethan's a pretty good guy and friends of friends of mine. I have been following their circles has been entertaining over the years. Every one of them has their points and almost all of them should be taken into consideration when "finding" a new planet.

There is a large community of astrophysicists who want Pluto reclassified as a planet. Mike Brown being the Pluto killer, finding a new planet only adds to the frustration.

Yet we know there to be a difference between sensational findings and actual findings.

Two years ago someone claimed they found a large object in the Kuiper Belt. Mike Brown tried to discredit them and failed. As more eyes start to look at where this gravametric distortion exists, the scientific community will validate the existence of the object.

Meanwhile, I am going to watch this conversation between geniuses try and not devolve into name calling.

That is, in fact, the whole point

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many good reasons to be skeptical, and not conclude that there's a ninth planet without more (and better) evidence.

The Cal Tech article quoted Mike Brown as saying something to the effect of 'We released our findings early because our model made some interesting predictions, some of which have already been proved true. We want the rest of the astronomy community to have a chance verify/disprove the other predictions."

It's a more collaborative version of science than we're accustomed to; but it is certainly more interesting to say "Hey, I have this awesome idea that could be true. But it would take a couple of my lifetimes to finish the research. Who wants to help me find the 9th, er, 24th planet?"

Honestly, I think this is way more interesting than the major media outlets are making it out to be.

PLUTO is the 9th planet... bring it back...

[yodleboy]

As i understood it, the primary reason for classifying Pluto as a "dwarf planet" was size. If there were 2000 similar sized bodies in the Kuiper Belt, then they felt obligated to say "there are 2009 planets in the solar system". Of course this was decision was made BEFORE New Horizons, so if Pluto was just another smallish hunk of ice and rock then I guess it makes some sense (still think it was silly). Now, we know that Pluto is a hell of a lot more than that, and is a more active planet than expected. It's time to bring it back as #9 and maybe when we get to the Kuiper Belt to actually get a look, we can rethink the terminology...

Re:PLUTO is the 9th planet... bring it back...

[operagost]

Actually, I thought it was because Pluto hadn't cleared its orbit. The objects within its orbit are far more massive.

Re:PLUTO is the 9th planet... bring it back...

[Crowd Computing]

Actually, I thought it was because Pluto hadn't cleared its orbit.

A dinosaur astronomer could say the same thing about the Earth. Seriously, I suspect it's a matter of restricting the definition to the point where the number of planets become manageable rather than the couple of thousands mentioned by the grandparent. I wonder what would happen to the definition if the new ninth planet turned out to be a collision prone celestial body.

Re:PLUTO is the 9th planet... bring it back...

[TheDarkMaster]

For me, any object large enough to be round, which orbits a star and does not orbit another planet can be considered a planet. I do not understand why astronomers are so fond of complicating the idea.

Re:PLUTO is the 9th planet... bring it back...

[TheDarkMaster]

Only complementing what I wrote, I forgot to add that the object to be considered a planet should be large enough for its own gravity causes it to go into hydrostatic equilibrium (ie become round)

Re:PLUTO is the 9th planet... bring it back...

[matfud]

134340 Pluto is its official name.
It is minor plant number is 134340.so it is not even a few thousand. It is orders of magnitude more. It is however the second dwarf planet as ceres was classified as that before Pluto was recategorised

Re:PLUTO is the 9th planet... bring it back...

[Plumpaquatsch]

Actually, I thought it was because Pluto hadn't cleared its orbit.

A dinosaur astronomer could say the same thing about the Earth.

Hint: "cleared its orbit" is not the same as "can't be hit by objects not in its orbit".

Re:PLUTO is the 9th planet... bring it back...

[Crowd Computing]

Actually, I thought it was because Pluto hadn't cleared its orbit.

A dinosaur astronomer could say the same thing about the Earth.

Hint: "cleared its orbit" is not the same as "can't be hit by objects not in its orbit".

Any definition of "cleared its orbit" is bound to be statistical, so there's going to be a gray area in the chart where a celestial body could belong to either cleared or not cleared category.

Simple explanation...

[Lumpy]

It's just a large frozen Mass relay. Or better yet maybe a sleeping reaper!

Re:ninth planet

[shaitand]

The Pluto binary planet definitely counts as a planet in my mind due to the complex geological structure even if the two individual bodies it's composed of wouldn't.

I also see no particular reason to keep the planet count low. Why institute arbitrary limitations to keep it below a dozen? If there are 36 planets there are 36 planets, if 300 there are 300.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Planet Definition

[Tenebrousedge]

As i understood it, the primary reason for classifying Pluto as a "dwarf planet" was size.

Actually no, the size criterion was whether it's big enough to be round. Pluto and Ceres, and a number of TNOs all qualify. However, Pluto is gravitationally dominated by Neptune, in a 3:2 orbital resonance. The rule is, if some other planet's gravity makes you its bitch, you don't get to be a planet.

For a more precise definition of what it means to be a planet, including several criteria for what "clearing the neighborhood" means, you can consult this arXiv paper[pdf]. Interestingly, it suggests that the size criterion may be superfluous; anything large enough to clear its orbit should be big enough to be round.

StartsWithAClickbait is posting anonymously

[thegarbz]

It appears as though StartsWithABang is posting articles anonymously now. How quaint.

We still know it's you oh click-whoring leech.

Re:ninth planet

[Rei]

You missed the point. It's not the 9th. It's either the 8th, 10th, or some number greater than 10. There's no logical definition that makes it the 9th apart from "historical".

I too support a high planet count.

Re:Obligatory

[Convector]

*slow clap*

Re:ninth planet

[frovingslosh]

No, after the solar system was ravaged by Neil deGrasse Galactus there were only 8 planets. But after this discovery is confirmed there will still be only 8 planets. Reports are that "they" haven't actually seen the planet but have seen things orbiting around it. So the likely conclusion is that this massive body with 10 times Earth's mass is a black planet. Since it's not a wandering light in the sky we can apply the "black planet" label to it and claim that it is different and thus not a real planet. So, still 8 planets. I'm hoping that we will name this unworthy black planet "Neil".

Re:ninth planet

[frovingslosh]

Absolutely. Because a man who is not even an astronomer said so and changed some signage at the Hayden planetarium, we should all give him the attention he craves and go along with him. He has set his completely arbitrary cut-off point for planets in that very narrow range above Pluto but below Mercury, and it must not be disputed.

Ignore Article

[oh_my_080980980]

I begin to wonder if this science guy for Forbes is a douche bag. Seriously read the Cal Tech article "Caltech Researchers Find Evidence of a Real Ninth Planet" http://www.caltech.edu/news/ca...

Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown even state: "Now we can go and find this planet..."

So yes the researches are actually skeptical of their own work, we don't need some douche bag trying to make themselves look important.

No way Forbes

[AndyKron]

I refuse to turn off AdBlocker for Forbes.

Rubbish journalism, rubbish clickbait submission

[Bearhouse]

This is the kind of tripe that's sinking /.
Yesterday, journos spin a "hey maybe there's something interesting here" announcement into an "OMG another planet" gush...
Today, we are supposed to click though to the dreadful Forbes site to find out...that more data is required....
Fuck me, who'd have thought it! Of course, the scientific method is so passé these days.

It reminds me of the tabloid that published a story (with picture) about the "amazing discovery of a WW2 bomber found on the Moon"
Did the ensuing ridicule and debunking faze them in the slightest? Nope.
They followed-up with "WW2 bomber on Moon disappears"...

Important news for nerds, ladies and gentlemen, get it while it's hot...

Regardless

[DarthVain]

Looking at a scale depiction of our solar system and possible orbits, if true, it is only really true for very large definitions of "solar system". It apparently ranges from 400AU to 1100AU on a 15,000 year period. To be blunt, even at its closest, it's way fscking out there... It is interesting none the less I suppose.

Re:Regardless

[tnk1]

The solar system extends to the end of the Oort Cloud which is about 100,000 AU away from the Sun. That's much, much farther than this object.

If this object is as big as they think it is (assuming it exists, of course) then it could have observable effects on objects in the Oort Cloud and the Kupier Belt, which is very important to the solar system.

More to the point, it makes certain planetary formation models make a lot more sense which is certainly worth considering this to be a part of the Solar System, even if it was very far away. In those formation models, this planet actually formed between Jupiter and Saturn and was ejected from that position by the larger planets' gravity, and is thus a real, if obscure member of the solar system, just like Pete Best was a real, but obscure member of the Beatles who also had to leave early on.

AGW Alternatives

[Tenebrousedge]

The models are one thing. Even the temperature record is not necessarily critical to the theory. For AGW to be conclusively disproven, there would have to be at least one of the following discoveries: [a] a new way for large amounts of heat to be transferred to space, or [b] a feedback loop that cancels out the (strongly positive) H2O-CO2 forcing.

Both of these ideas have issues. The first one is almost too fanciful to even mention, but suffice to say we would expect to see this effect in extraterrestrial atmospheres as well. The second hypothetical has seen some investigation and was a favorite of anti-AGW researchers for a while, but so far all proposed mechanisms fall seriously short of negating the known positive feedbacks. It's not enough to say "the data sucks" or "the models suck", you need to have some sort of replacement hypothesis which explains why, all else being equal, an increase in atmospheric carbon does not lead to increased temperatures. We've eliminated a lot of false candidates over the last 100 years, and if there is some sort of force that would prevent a carbon catastrophe, we could sure use one now. It's pretty slim pickings at this point though.

Re:AGW Alternatives

[lgw]

For AGW to be conclusively disproven,

That sound an awful lot like a religious argument. "You can't disprove the existance of God!" I don't believe AGW can be conclusively disproven in my lifetime. I don't think that's very important.

The models are one thing.

The models are the science. If we want to move past speculation and philosophy, to perhaps policy or engineering, the science needs to be there first, with models making accurate predictions with low error bars. We're simply not there yet - it's a hard problem.

Re:AGW Alternatives

[Tenebrousedge]

For AGW to be conclusively disproven,

That sound an awful lot like a religious argument. "You can't disprove the existance of God!"

It may indeed sound like the ring of certainty, while your argument may be characterized as not having examined the evidence.

The models are one thing.

The models are the science

That is bizarrely and categorically false -- like suggesting that orbital mechanics is defined by Kerbal Space Program, or that virology is defined by a particular virological model. Where do you imagine these models come from, curve fitting temperature data sets?

The fundamentals of AGW can be proven in your basement, and rely on undergraduate-level atmospheric and radiative physics. Physical laws will allow you to directly calculate the forcing from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 (TOA, assume linear lapse rate). Water and carbon dioxide are within the reach of the most modest scientific budgets, and would easily allow you to test the H2O feedback effect as well. The theory can be further confirmed by observing rising global temperatures, and the models are an attempt to predict possible outcomes.

If you'll allow me a little flexibility in speaking, AGW depends only on the properties of CO2 gas; it is proven insofar as the Stefan-Boltzmann law is proven. As I have mentioned, the history of the last hundred-odd years has been trying to disprove this relationship. The problem is that the physics is very simple: there's just not all that many places for the energy to go. If there were some feedback effect which increased albedo in proportion to the climate forcing, that would do it, or if we could discover a new way that heat is transferred to space, but otherwise warming is (unfortunately) as sure as sunrise.

Re:AGW Alternatives

[lgw]

If you'll allow me a little flexibility in speaking, AGW depends only on the properties of CO2 gas

If it were that easy, the models would be nailing the predictions.

The atmosphere is not a bottle. The radiant heat absorbed by CO2 and re-radiated to the ground is trivial. "Forcing" summarizes complex effects - warmer upper atmosphere would mean less convection (the primary mechanism for cooling at ground level), and convection of the atmosphere is non-trivial. The CO2 in the atmosphere is regulated by the CO2 in the ocean (vastly more CO2 in the ocean), and ocean mixing is not yet well understood. There are feedback mechanisms both negative and positive that aren't well understood.

All of this can be modeled. This allows testable predictions from each of the hundreds of competing hypotheses for the details of the above. All of the models "run hot" today - we're missing something important.

The theory can be further confirmed by observing rising global temperatures

Which hasn't happened this century. Perhaps you've heard of "the pause". None of the models predicted the pause. It's a hard problem. The upper atmosphere is actually cooling, which actually fits with some models.

Everything's easy when you don't understand the details.

Re:AGW Alternatives

[Tenebrousedge]

You keep harping on about models as if they were relevant to the theory. The atmosphere is opaque to IR to the edge of the CO2-rich layer. Raising the partial pressure of CO2 pushes the CO2-rich layer further out into space, which means the IR takes longer to reach space, which makes the Earth as a whole retain heat. Whatever happens in the lower atmosphere isn't going to change the radiative physics. The H2O feedback can be presumed to be strongly positive due to its efficacy as a greenhouse gas, its abundance on the globe, and that its solubility in air rises exponentially with temperature. It would be nice if cloud formation provided enough of an albedo difference to offset this, but this possibility has been more or less disproven. Complexities about these interactions give much uncertainty to the degree of warming, but not whether the warming will happen.

Your only two options for preventing warming are raising albedo and finding a new way to radiate energy. You can waffle about models and how and when and to what degree the Earth will warm, but the warming is simple fact, and whether the models are accurate or inaccurate is a secondary concern at best.

Re:AGW Alternatives

[lgw]

No one's debating that CO2 causes warming - that's not the climate change debate. The debate is about how much Man's action matter. If it were easy to show that answer, the models would be right. If it were easy to understand the system, the 19-year "pause" would have been predicted.

Here's a competing hypothesis. The Sun is "cooling" (less radiant energy will be input into the system in the future). We'll return to glaciation, as has been the norm for the current Ice Age, in a few centuries. Increasing CO2 is the only thing we can do to prevent most of western civilization from becoming buried in a kilometer of ice, but we have to increase it a whole lot, and start right away - it may already be too late.

There's not enough evidence to pick a theory to support today - there's substantial evidence for both, and substantial mystery remaining. Predictive climate models would answer the question, but if they just assume the Sun's output is constant (when we know for a fact it isn't), they aren't going to give that answer.

But then, the Sun is just the biggest of the many important factors not yet understood well enough to make good predictions.

Re:AGW Alternatives

[Tenebrousedge]

There is a minimum level of warming given by the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, and then the feedback loops, which are likely to be strongly positive. Predictions are something like four degrees C per doubling plus or minus 1.5, which is a big range, but still not particularly comfortable for many parts of the world even on the low end. If there were no feedbacks to worry about we could probably increase CO2 at least to the end of the fossil fuel reserves.

The Sun is heating up on a giga-annum timeframe. On human-level timeframes it varies by about .1% peak-to-peak. Do you care to give that one another go?

Re:AGW Alternatives

[lgw]

You're wrong about solar activity. Take a look at the Vostok ice core data You see the definite pattern every 100k years? That's the glaciation cycle for the current Ice Age. The 100k year cycle is a bit of a mystery, but the best current theories are all about solar cycles. The Sun has many cycles, on many timeframes. The past 10k years are a bigger mystery - why didn't the climate return to ice-age conditions as it normally had? Whatever the reason, that anomaly was quite important for humans to develop technology. This is all old news, and we're quite late for cooling.

Recently, Solar "cooling" has been suggested (among climate scientists) as the reason for the Pause. I'm not sure how well that hypothesis is playing out, but isn't not a crackpot theory.

the feedback loops, which are likely to be strongly positive

That's all guesswork for now. No one really understands the feedback mechanisms from first causes. It's a big part of what the climate models are modeling.

Predictions are something like four degrees C per doubling plus or minus 1.5

And yet there's been no warming for the past 19 years. Take that as evidence that the problem is not as simple as you imagine.

Re:AGW Alternatives

[Plumpaquatsch]

There is no "pause". No need to find a reason apart from "the deniers need to see one".

Re:AGW Alternatives

[dave420]

But there has been warming for the last 19 years. If you can't even get that basic fact right, why should anyone listen to you on this subject? You clearly are not arguing from expertise and experience, just hubris and emotion. Yay you.

Re:AGW Alternatives

[Tenebrousedge]

Solar output is stable, at least over the modern era, and there is no connection between it and "the Pause" (that would actually be a crackpot theory). Long term shifts in Earth's climate have historically been the product of either volcanism or changes in Earth's orbit.

As for the "Pause", do you see how those lines in the graph you showed don't always match up? And yet they exhibit a high degree of correlation. Funny about that. Also, and I know that this has been explained to you, because it's explained to anyone that mentions it, "the Pause" is an artifact of picking what is now the fourth warmest year on record as your baseline. Picking any other baseline would show warming, and even with the cherry-picking, the hiatus in warming ended in 2013. Also note that 14/15 of the warmest years on record are since 2000 and that we haven't had a candidate for a coldest year on record in the last century: the 'new normal' is considerably warmer.

The idea that no one understands feedback mechanisms is as absurd as saying no one understands evolution. For an introduction to the topic, see chapter 8 of the IPCC Report[pdf]. It is admittedly pretty dense, but only 23 pages.

Do note that any further reference to a 19-year pause will not merit any response: lying with statistics is still lying, and if you don't understand why picking an extreme outlier as a baseline is dishonest then it's not worth my time explaining anything.

"theoretical evidence"

[glwtta]

Soo... "non-evidence evidence"?

Re:There IS a ninth planet

[tnk1]

And there's a tenth planet called Eris!

Re:ninth planet

[tnk1]

So you're saying that there's the Fear of a Black Planet?

Because, if so, I already discovered it in 1990.

Stop linking forbes

[Tyrannicsupremacy]

I'm not going to turn off my adblocker for them, since the last time i did, they tried to serve me malware. I should just blacklist their domain.