The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet by Neil deGrasse Tyson Page B
Authors: Neil deGrasse Tyson
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adequately captured his views. So he submitted a 900-word letter to CCNet bluntly recounting his disapproval with what he saw among our exhibits at the Rose Center. He made his point of view quite clear:
…the issue at the Hayden is more one of poor pedagogy than a clarion call for controversy.
The exhibit on planets at best confuses those who look closely enough to catch the inconsistencies….
…scientific and pedagogical integrity would require that they prominently notify the public that they are taking an advocacy position to remove Pluto’s planetary status and acknowledge that at present the IAU officially designates Pluto as a planet.
That letter did not go unheeded. University of Memphis astrophysicist Gerrit Verschuur struck back as though it was he, and not the Rose Center, who had been attacked personally:
I was shocked to read the following from Mark Sykes…“When designing an exhibition, one needs to understand and take into consideration the expectations of the viewer. Given an opportunity, the viewer will see what they expect to see.” Surely an exhibition that does just that contributes nothing. If viewers only see what they expect to see they might as well stay home. Does the Sykes philosophy mean when designing an exhibit about UFOs in which one hopes to educate that one must give the viewers what they expect to see, which is a load of nonsense about aliens flying between the stars?…Surely the point of an exhibit in science is to inform and educate and not just to feed prejudices and expectations.
Verschuur goes on to make an insightful pedagogical observation about teaching Astro 101:
I feel sure most of us who have taught astronomy have felt troubled when we reach the chapter that shows Pluto looking at us from the end of chapters on the gas giants, or even worse, lurking among the terrestrial planets.
Verschuur, author of five popular books on astrophysics, continues with a second insightful observation, referencing the ruffled relations between pure research scientists and scientists who also choose to bring the frontier of science to the public:
Is the problem perhaps that the Pluto controversy has been stirred up by a planetarium, given that many professional astronomers are still inherently prejudiced against anyone who deigns to dedicate their time to the popularization of astronomy?
The hidden folly of it all was succinctly captured by Sonoma State University astronomer Phil Plait:
At the heart of the debate is our very definition of the word “planet.” Currently, there isn’t one. The International Astronomical Union (IAU), a worldwide body of astronomers, is the official keeper of names. It has no strict definition of a planet, but has decreed that there are nine major planets, including Pluto. This, however, is not very satisfying. If the IAU doesn’t really know what a planet is, how can it know there are nine?
Mark Sykes was not alone in his brazen ways. Many of my colleagues felt comfortable telling me directly, via e-mail, what their opinions were regarding our exhibit treatment of Pluto. They wasted no time, most arriving at my in-box within days of the story breaking in the New York Times on January 22, 2001, and with others trickling in over the years that followed.
Robert L. Staehle, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories, in Pasadena, California, sure that we were guilty of a simple oversight, candidly wrote:
What gives? Did someone there have a memory lapse? What will it take to get Pluto back up there where it belongs?
Staehle would later follow with an observation of nature that we can all agree with:
In the end, neither Pluto nor anything else in the outer Solar System cares in the slightest what anybody on Earth labels it. These bodies exist, and hold what they have to reveal about our collective natural history, totally without regard to any label assigned by an august body of scientists, or any other living thing that we know of.
Michael A’Hearn,
…the issue at the Hayden is more one of poor pedagogy than a clarion call for controversy.
The exhibit on planets at best confuses those who look closely enough to catch the inconsistencies….
…scientific and pedagogical integrity would require that they prominently notify the public that they are taking an advocacy position to remove Pluto’s planetary status and acknowledge that at present the IAU officially designates Pluto as a planet.
That letter did not go unheeded. University of Memphis astrophysicist Gerrit Verschuur struck back as though it was he, and not the Rose Center, who had been attacked personally:
I was shocked to read the following from Mark Sykes…“When designing an exhibition, one needs to understand and take into consideration the expectations of the viewer. Given an opportunity, the viewer will see what they expect to see.” Surely an exhibition that does just that contributes nothing. If viewers only see what they expect to see they might as well stay home. Does the Sykes philosophy mean when designing an exhibit about UFOs in which one hopes to educate that one must give the viewers what they expect to see, which is a load of nonsense about aliens flying between the stars?…Surely the point of an exhibit in science is to inform and educate and not just to feed prejudices and expectations.
Verschuur goes on to make an insightful pedagogical observation about teaching Astro 101:
I feel sure most of us who have taught astronomy have felt troubled when we reach the chapter that shows Pluto looking at us from the end of chapters on the gas giants, or even worse, lurking among the terrestrial planets.
Verschuur, author of five popular books on astrophysics, continues with a second insightful observation, referencing the ruffled relations between pure research scientists and scientists who also choose to bring the frontier of science to the public:
Is the problem perhaps that the Pluto controversy has been stirred up by a planetarium, given that many professional astronomers are still inherently prejudiced against anyone who deigns to dedicate their time to the popularization of astronomy?
The hidden folly of it all was succinctly captured by Sonoma State University astronomer Phil Plait:
At the heart of the debate is our very definition of the word “planet.” Currently, there isn’t one. The International Astronomical Union (IAU), a worldwide body of astronomers, is the official keeper of names. It has no strict definition of a planet, but has decreed that there are nine major planets, including Pluto. This, however, is not very satisfying. If the IAU doesn’t really know what a planet is, how can it know there are nine?
Mark Sykes was not alone in his brazen ways. Many of my colleagues felt comfortable telling me directly, via e-mail, what their opinions were regarding our exhibit treatment of Pluto. They wasted no time, most arriving at my in-box within days of the story breaking in the New York Times on January 22, 2001, and with others trickling in over the years that followed.
Robert L. Staehle, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories, in Pasadena, California, sure that we were guilty of a simple oversight, candidly wrote:
What gives? Did someone there have a memory lapse? What will it take to get Pluto back up there where it belongs?
Staehle would later follow with an observation of nature that we can all agree with:
In the end, neither Pluto nor anything else in the outer Solar System cares in the slightest what anybody on Earth labels it. These bodies exist, and hold what they have to reveal about our collective natural history, totally without regard to any label assigned by an august body of scientists, or any other living thing that we know of.
Michael A’Hearn,
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