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Underduckling
Apr. 20th, 2015 07:27 pmI still don't get why people care so much about this, but some of these tweets did make me laugh.
"Yeah! Next is EARTH! I'm gonna demote EARTH! YEAH, YOUR WORST NIGHTMARES ARE COMIN' TRUE!"
Even at the beginning I was completely baffled by the backlash. I myself was pleased that we had reclassified it, since it showed that we are discovering more things and fine-tuning our understanding of classifications. We were creating more order.
But we get these protests all the time at the Space Place. It's crazy. A lot of these kids weren't even born when they changed Pluto's status. But we've made such a big deal that kids identify with the underdog.
So I've started to combat that. I've been explaining that Pluto's like the Ugly Duckling.
That's right, the story by Hans Christian Anderson about a little duckling who was, frankly, really bad at being a duck. Duckhood was beyond him, and he was weird and left out. At least he was until he realized something--he wasn't a duck at all, dammit, he was a SWAN, and presumably he was a lot better at being a swan.*
Same thing with Pluto, I tell the kids. It was really weird and bad at being a planet--until we figured out that it wasn't a planet at all! It was a DWARF PLANET, and there were other dwarf planets it could be friends with, and it was a forerunner for the new category and probably was a lot happier now, god dammit.
Hey, it's another story kids identify with. Maybe this will be enough to make them happy.
Or maybe the New Horizons photos will. I dunno. Pluto's not my thing, but it's still gonna be fun to see what it looks like. Just a few more months!
Discussion Question: Do you guys know the difference between a solar system and a galaxy? I'm always surprised at how many people don't. NDT isn't the only one who is quite used to getting that confusion.
*Though having been raised by ducks, he probably wasn't really exemplary at swanning, but he did find himself in a unique position to be able to bridge the gap between ducks and swans in the neverending duck/swan conflicts and perhaps lead the way toward peace between all waterfowl. But that's getting a bit esoteric for a fable about scientific reclassification.
"Yeah! Next is EARTH! I'm gonna demote EARTH! YEAH, YOUR WORST NIGHTMARES ARE COMIN' TRUE!"
Even at the beginning I was completely baffled by the backlash. I myself was pleased that we had reclassified it, since it showed that we are discovering more things and fine-tuning our understanding of classifications. We were creating more order.
But we get these protests all the time at the Space Place. It's crazy. A lot of these kids weren't even born when they changed Pluto's status. But we've made such a big deal that kids identify with the underdog.
So I've started to combat that. I've been explaining that Pluto's like the Ugly Duckling.
That's right, the story by Hans Christian Anderson about a little duckling who was, frankly, really bad at being a duck. Duckhood was beyond him, and he was weird and left out. At least he was until he realized something--he wasn't a duck at all, dammit, he was a SWAN, and presumably he was a lot better at being a swan.*
Same thing with Pluto, I tell the kids. It was really weird and bad at being a planet--until we figured out that it wasn't a planet at all! It was a DWARF PLANET, and there were other dwarf planets it could be friends with, and it was a forerunner for the new category and probably was a lot happier now, god dammit.
Hey, it's another story kids identify with. Maybe this will be enough to make them happy.
Or maybe the New Horizons photos will. I dunno. Pluto's not my thing, but it's still gonna be fun to see what it looks like. Just a few more months!
Discussion Question: Do you guys know the difference between a solar system and a galaxy? I'm always surprised at how many people don't. NDT isn't the only one who is quite used to getting that confusion.
*Though having been raised by ducks, he probably wasn't really exemplary at swanning, but he did find himself in a unique position to be able to bridge the gap between ducks and swans in the neverending duck/swan conflicts and perhaps lead the way toward peace between all waterfowl. But that's getting a bit esoteric for a fable about scientific reclassification.
