The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet by Tyson Neil deGrasse

Author:Tyson, Neil deGrasse [Tyson, Neil deGrasse]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2009-01-07T22:00:00+00:00

I would later learn that in addition to his PhD in planetary science from the University of Arizona, Mark Sykes also wields a law degree from the same institution and was admitted to the Arizona bar. So this, from my point of view, accounted for at least some of his urge to argue.

The media was unrelenting. For every story, every account, and every analysis, the story grew in the hearts and minds of the public, with the Rose Center continually landing in the middle of the credit or the blame. One mailing I received in May 2001 contained 100 pages of typed essays from Mr. James Dixon’s ninth-grade honors earth science class at Silver Lake Regional High School, in Kingston, Massachusetts. Invoking my published writings on Pluto as well as media accounts and other sources, each student pleaded a case. The votes were evenly split among Plutophiles and Pluto demoters—a rare result this early in the debate. Regardless, here was a resourceful educator turning a science controversy into a teaching opportunity—the pedagogical equivalent of using lemons to make lemonade. I applaud his effort as well as that of other teachers who organized their curriculum to include topical discussions of Pluto’s status.

This was not the first time Mr. Dixon had corresponded with me. Two years earlier, before the Rose Center had opened to the public, he and his class had sent in their first stack of letters, in response to my “Pluto’s Honor” essay for Natural History magazine. At the time, I didn’t know I had a Pluto pen pal in the making.

Not much time would pass before people started to see the humor in it all. A February 16, 2001, op-ed for the New York Times, written by Eric Metaxas, a writer for Veggie Tales Children’s Videos, could not resist a tally of abominable headlines to come, but only if our treatment of Pluto started a cultural trend:25

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