Comment on Are humans the only great apes that can be "holy", or could for example an Orangutan be divine?

• jesterraiin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  How are we not great apes?

  How can Pluto cease to be a planet overnight?

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  • Contramuffin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I know that you’re asking rhetorically, since you have no idea how science works. But to anyone else who’s interested, the reason is because we found a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt that was bigger than Pluto, and it became hard to justify that Pluto was a planet if the planet that we found was a dwarf planet. Either both had to be planets or both had to be dwarf planets. And we ended up making both of them dwarf planets

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    • jesterraiin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I know that you’re asking rhetorically, since you have no idea how science works.

      I know how science works. It discovers, analyzes, proposes a hypothesis, that becomes a theory and then - widely accepted “truth”.

      …and then, often the same truth becomes an obsolete relic of old, once enough new findings emerge, or enough of scientists agree that new definitions, approach and formulas are required.

      I know, you don’t exactly understand it, you prefer to follow to the letter everything you’re being told, and trust what people in funny uniforms say, no matter what. The bad news is that it places you in the same spot medieval (and unfortunately current) Flat Earthers occupy. The good news is that you’re about to see many changes to current “truths” across your lifetime.

      So, enjoy the ride.

      And we ended up making both of them dwarf planets

      Imagine if the opposite camp would be more convincing/charismatic/numerous and instead of stripping off Pluto of his former status, we’d get more planets to our Solar System. Wow, what a preposterous idea!

      In reality, nothing has changed. Pluto is still what it was, and it continues to move in its own slow pace across its trajectory. It’s just that some funny people decided to settle a difficult topic by a compromise.

      Same thing with the funny people who decided to equate humans with gorillas. Their distinction is also artificial, forced and imperfect. A compromise. Nothing else.

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  • charonn0@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The meaning of “planet” has changed greatly over the centuries as our understanding improved. It originally meant “wanderer” and referred to the five naked-eye planets known since antiquity plus the sun and moon, but NOT the Earth.

    As astronomers and astrophysicists learned more about them, it became clear that classifying all stellar objects as the same category was unworkable. Earth was re-classified as a planet, the moon as a moon, and the sun as a star.

    Likewise, Pluto was reclassified because the old classification made little sense.

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    • jesterraiin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      …and, given time and enough of a change to relevant peoples’ mindset, so does the classification of both some animals and humans might change, as well.

      Because that’s how science was, is and will ever be - a mutable “phenomenon”, where rigidity means lack of progress.

      I see no problem in that.

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      • charonn0@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        …you seem to be vacillating between anti-science and science-literate positions.

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