Have you ever been to a niche scientific community conference? It’s always been 90% politics.
The Magellanic Cloud community collectively decided that they didn’t want to study objects named after someone who had subjugated the communities of ancestors studying it, so they agreed to call them the Milky Clouds. A pop science article went out about it and people complained that it wasn’t science, it was politics. But unless you’re a part of that community, you don’t get to decide on the names of the objects that these people understand better than literally anyone else alive or dead. They’re doing more science regarding these objects than anyone else has ever tried, they get to decide what’s best, even if it appears political.
I see it as the exact opposite. If we let the professionals, i.e. cartographers and historians hold the reigns rather than people who don’t have anything to do with it, eg. some pedophile politicians, nothing would have been changed.
Well yes, generally that’s how jargon is developed. Typically people who don’t contribute to the knowledge base of a field don’t have any say in how that field uses language.
Have you ever been to a niche scientific community conference? It’s always been 90% politics.
The Magellanic Cloud community collectively decided that they didn’t want to study objects named after someone who had subjugated the communities of ancestors studying it, so they agreed to call them the Milky Clouds. A pop science article went out about it and people complained that it wasn’t science, it was politics. But unless you’re a part of that community, you don’t get to decide on the names of the objects that these people understand better than literally anyone else alive or dead. They’re doing more science regarding these objects than anyone else has ever tried, they get to decide what’s best, even if it appears political.
And that’s how you end up with Gulf of America
I see it as the exact opposite. If we let the professionals, i.e. cartographers and historians hold the reigns rather than people who don’t have anything to do with it, eg. some pedophile politicians, nothing would have been changed.
Remember, it’s only “revisionist history” if it’s the history you don’t like. Otherwise it’s “because totally valid reasons”.
“unless you’re a part of the community fuck you”
I can see why it got heated…
Well yes, generally that’s how jargon is developed. Typically people who don’t contribute to the knowledge base of a field don’t have any say in how that field uses language.