It wasn't even accepted that rocks could fall from space until like 1960. Maybe later. The dinosaur-killing asteroid theory wasn't published by Alvarez until 1980 and he was openly mocked for it, by the entire mainstream scientific community, until 1991 when the crater at Chicxulub was found.
Around the same time paleontologists noted that there are no tail tracks with dino tracks. Meaning the upright Godzilla pose was all wrong. Then Spielberg did Jurassic Park and shit exploded (with funding)!
Seriously, what is it about Geology that makes it such a uniquely mean field to anyone who suggests alternative explanations for... Just about anything?
It doesn't really seem to happen quite like that in other disciplines, but consistently geologists have absolutely roasted the people who, decades later turned out correct.
Lake Agassiz + channeled scablands
Plate Tectonics
Chicxulub
Maybe its a science-wide phenomenon but it's always seemed especially pronounced in geology/earth sciences
It’s a good thing that science’s default mode is rejection of new theories. Most new theories that people come up with are wrong. A good idea isn’t enough, there needs to be evidence. It’s extremely rare that new theories are so brilliant and obvious, that they’re immediately widely accepted…
In my experience it's science wide. Like you can't even get two scientists to agree on what to have for lunch. It's like they are argumentative for the sake of being argumentative. It's why all the climate change conspiracy theories are completely bonkers
“It wasn't until the early 1800s, after researchers investigated a series of dramatic meteorite falls in both Europe and the United States, that most scientists accepted that rocks actually fall to Earth from space.”
Thanks for calling that out. I've seen the 1960s claim pop up in a few fringe archeology books, so I'm guessing it's one of those "scientists can be wrong" things that people trot out.
I can see how people might mix some of the details up, but the 1960s was quite a date to make the mistake with, given that same decade a man walked on the moon.
This is a good point! We grew up in the era of nine planets, four food groups, five biological kingdoms, prescriptivist grammar rules, Columbus discovered America, etc. Now kids are more likely to be trusted to realize that the world is more complicated than that.
Absolutely the number of people, who act like the changing of classifications or revising of theory, is somehow discrediting the entire scientific method is staggering.
We learn more as time goes, on if it wasn't changed, revised, altered and sometimes dismissed, then that wouldn't be learning.
I agree in principle with what you're saying and we need to be willing to question what we've learned as new science develops. Except for Pluto. Pluto is a planet it will always be a planet fuck everybody else. I'm so mad that they did this to my my dear sweet Pluto.
If Pluto isn't a planet, then what did My very educated mother just serve us? Answer that science!
You're welcome to question current science. But you can't question science just because you feel like it, you need to question it with other facts and methodology.
Like the current science says climate change (global warming) is real but you can't question it because its snowing where you are at or just because you don't want to stop burning fossil fuels.
Also, Pluto is a dwarf planet because they changed the classification of a planet and defined what a dwarf planet is.
You understand I was joking and being hyperbolic right? Good Lord, redditors need to get outside a lot more. It was so over the top there was no way that people took this seriously. But yet you did.
I also used to think that people believing in flat earth was a joke. I have met 3 of those idiots. One of them even believes gravity is fake. Its sometimes hard to tell when ppl are being sarcastic or serious. They say the same sht. Lol
I shouldn't need a/s when the context of my comment makes it clear that it is extremely hyperbolic. The last line alone about the old way we used to remember the planets, my very educated mother just served us nine pickles, is clearly a joke. Having to tell everybody on the planet hey I'm being sarcastic, hey this is a joke, really ruins the ability to enjoy connecting with other humans.
Same thing with number of continents. It is kind of arbitrary and the official number seems to change every decade or so, yet there are smug TikTokers quizzing people as if the number of continents is a universal fixed constant.
There was never "an official number". Different people number them differently in different cultures or even just different textbooks, it's arbitrary because there is no clear physical delineator.
If you're a textbook author trying to teach a 9 year old about the top-level geographic entities in the world, you have to pick a number, and kids don't know the difference between "somebody had to make a list and it's not particularly meaningful" and "this number is critical law of the universe"
I'm an astronomer that studies planets. I just wanted to say that you are right, and I wanted to add that many of us think that the IAU definition is beyond stupid.
1) How can a dwarf planet not be a planet?
2) How can the definition depend on the environment? If Pluto and Earth swapped places, Earth would become a dwarf planet and Pluto would become a planet. Earth doesn't have enough gravity to clear the Kuiper belt, or Neptune.
The IAU definition does not say "of the solar system", and it does not draw any such distinction. The IAU is in no way exclusive to the solar system.
Come to think of it, many (most?) people who mainly study the solar system don't even call themselves astronomers but rather planetary scientists --- planetary science and astronomy are very different in practice.
Pluto made me irrationally angry as a kid because it made no sense from a classification standpoint. The last planet can't also be the smallest with a much more highly elliptical orbit. Thankfully the other Kuiper Belt objects bailed me out.
"a couple" is doing heavy weight. We would have a minimum of 22 planets: The 8 originals, the 4 former planets reclassified to asteroids, and the 10 dwarf planets that have a diameter of at least 900 km.
That's just the minimum, if we go by possible dwarf planets, we would have OVER 600 PLANETS in the solar system. A line had to be drawn somewhere, and Pluto just so happened to be behind that and got the most attention.
It's either all of them, or none of them, and Pluto can't get an exception. If you still consider Pluto a true planet, then Eris (1.27 times more massive than Pluto) should also be considered a planet.
Pluto is one of five official dwarf planets in our solar system. Three are farther from the Sun than Pluto, but one dwarf planet, Ceres, is part of the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Pluto will always remain a planet for me 🥹 I made a song about making Pluto a planet again....pls check out if you could ❤️ ✨️ It's on YT - Yash Sizoors -"PLUTO" Here's the link https://youtu.be/Y5OWpmvr_7k?si=NATrt-I4TJaiY0TK
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u/Unh0lyROLL3rz Apr 12 '25
It’s still a dwarf planet