The Pluto Files -- a review

See all those pink Post-Its? They mark things I wanted to quote in this review; new bits of information I wanted to remember; funny things he said that I wanted to tell somebody -- my husband, my daughter, anybody who'd listen.

Too many, too many.

In The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet, Neil deGrasse Tyson tells the history of not just Pluto but of our understanding of our solar system.

He explores America's proprietary attitude toward Pluto. Pluto has always been practically an American planet. It was, after all, discovered by an American and made famous as Mickey Mouse's best friend. How more American could it be? How could it be demoted from its planet status by a bunch of mere scientists?

Tyson recounts his own part in that demotion. The decision to exclude Pluto from the new Rose Center's exhibit of Solar System planets was made in order to save money should discussions, then ongoing in the world of cosmology, redefine 'planet' making Pluto no longer a planet and instantly rendering the exhibit wrong. 

Not because he led the anti-Pluto-as-a-planet movement, but because he was Director of the Hayden Planetarium and he had tacitly accepted the role of astrophysics-interpreter-in-chief, he was the lightning rod. He drew the fury of the American Press and school children from across the country, incensed and offended that their planet was no longer officially considered a planet. 

Third grade teachers throughout the nation recognized a teaching moment. 

And suddenly, Tyson (not the boxer) was a household name. Not, in my opinion, a bad thing. Anything that focuses America on something scientific rather than sports has got to be good -- any publicity is good, right? Even bad publicity. Or detestations from third graders.

And it wasn't just children. Songs were written. Editorial cartoons were published. Comedians had fodder. And other scientists, even astrophysicists, took professional exception.

There were debates. According to Tyson's accounts these debates were every bit as passionate and acrimonious as the current crop of political debates, complete with verbal fireworks. (Though I don't think birther considerations came into any of them.)

The International Astronomical Union did not define 'planet' until 2006. The same year the other Tyson retired from boxing and six years after the Rose Center opened setting off the Pluto-as-a-Planet controversy.  

But more seriously, how can it be that physicists come so late to the method of taxonomy long employed by biologists? Tyson does not explain that, but he does explore the current modes of organizing the celestial bodies by their physical properties.

As the brouhaha subsided, the letters from children changed. This letter Tyson received from 8-year-old Siddiq summed it up. "We just have to get over it. That's Science."

As all good scientist should do, indeed sensible humans of any stripe should do with any of our life questions, Tyson leaves open the possibilities of new information changing our closely held views of reality. Again.

To give Pluto the last word, Tyson shares how political cartoonist Aislin in the Montreal Gazette imagines Pluto's concern with all things human: 

Probably the best news for me is Tyson identifies Ceres as a Dwarf Planet. It was the largest of the asteroids in the Main Asteroid Belt when I first started writing Murder on Ceres. A novel my husband describes as science fiction for people who like murder mysteries and a murder mystery for people who like science fiction.