My Strained relationship with science
The day those people who call themselves scientists declared Pluto was no longer a planet was the day it got complicated for me and science (more accurately it is the day l heard of the decision, presumably years later). Come to think of it, it might have been on the show Big Bang theory when Mr Neil deGrasse Tyson was justifying his involvement in the whole debacle to Sheldon Cooper. Of course, in my mind l offered the same retort as the fictional nerd...to say the least l was peeved.
To understand my anger, you have to know how l came to know of Pluto in the first place. It was in primary school, don't remember the grade l just remember it was that teacher who beat the reading culture into me. Before all those holier than thou, “teachers shouldn't beat Kids yadah yadah people” (relax l happen to be one of you) start judging her, l deserved those beatings. She was a practical human being, so she tried the so called talking with kids’ thing, if you have handled human beings not yet developed to a certain stage (aka kids, preteenagers in this case) you are in the same group as those compatriots who handle terrorists. And as a certain overbearing government declares, you ''don't negotiate with terrorists''. Apparently, she got the memo, so she dutifully made our butts take the punishment for the disorganization in our heads. As proved by her intervention, our butt nerves pleas to our brains were heard, and the necessary improvements were made...and those idiots (including me, claim beating children doesn't work).
Okay okay l digressed...back to Pluto. So, my teacher one fateful day taught us about planets with an admonishment that the following day we would be quizzed. She even for good measure taught us a mnemonic...which went something like my (mercury) Very (venus) ....okay l totally forgot...but there is a mention of porridge somewhere in there.
The morrow after the lesson your beloved was quizzed and as fate would have it I named all planets but one...PLUTO. Accordingly, my buttocks received the punishment on behalf of my forgetful left brain. Unfortunately, the left brain could not forget that particular beating, neither did it ever forget the planethood of Pluto.
Fast forward some moons, and Mr Tyson and Cooper discuss the dethroning of Pluto. To add salt or whatever painful thing one might add to a sore butt, Mr Tyson claims the dethronement was done in the most unscientific way possible... via a vote. So yeah l was peeved and my relationship with science have been strained since that moment. Part of me wonder how those venerable prudish nerds were schmoozing each other trying to convince one another to support their conclusions. (Again, please relax l am a certified nerd as well).
Of course, to console myself l claim l already somehow innately knew Pluto was not a planet, so my forgetting was my brain doing the right thing. It was some kind of academic martyrdom, “dying” for a fact l could not verify at that moment.