An Anthropocentric Universe?
. . . The IAU said Pluto meets its proposed new definition of a planet: any round object larger than 800 kilometers (nearly 500 miles) in diameter that orbits the sun and has a mass roughly one-12,000th that of Earth. Moons and asteroids will make the grade if they meet those basic tests.
Roundness is key, experts said, because it indicates an object has enough self-gravity to pull itself into a spherical shape. Yet Earth's moon wouldn't qualify because the two bodies' common center of gravity lies below the surface of the Earth.
"People were probably wondering: If they take away Pluto, is Rhode Island next?" Binzel quipped. "There are as many opinions about Pluto as there are astronomers. But Pluto has gravity on its side. By the physics of our proposed definition, Pluto makes it by a long shot."
IAU President Ronald D. Ekers said the draft definition, two years in the making, was an attempt to reach a cosmic consensus and end decades of quarreling. "We don't want an American version, a European version and a Japanese version" of what constitutes a planet, he said.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at New York's American Museum of Natural History — miscast as a "Pluto-hater," he contends, merely because Pluto was excluded from a solar system exhibit — said the new guidelines would clear up the fuzzier aspects of the Milky Way.
"For the first time since ancient Greece, we have an unambiguous definition," he said. "Now, when an object is debated as a possible planet, the answer can be swift and clear."
Reading this article on the proposed addition of planets to this solar system, I was saddened and frustrated and angered at secular science (and secular academia in general), realizing how ultimately futile and useless ("Vanity of vanities!") and misguided any endeavor for knowledge or worldview is without having "the fear of the Lord" (Prov 1:7) as its starting point. On one hand, how dare we humans presume to classify and categorize the creation of the Almighty God! What an offence and what folly that we presume to be able to package it into some neat little system! And yet, we've been told to do just that, in being given dominion and stewardship over God's creation (Gen 1:26, 28-29).
Indeed, the universe and its billions of galaxies were created for the good purposes and enjoyment of God, and to display his glory, which is indefinable. John Piper is at his best and most passionate when talking about the purpose of creation. I recently read one of his online messages on the purpose of creation. He presents a striking quote from Charles Misner on Albert Einstein's view of preaching back in the '40s and '50s:
I do see the design of the universe as essentially a religious question. That is, one should have some kind of respect and awe for the whole business. . . . It's very magnificent and shouldn't be taken for granted. In fact, I believe that is why Einstein had so little use for organized religion, although he strikes me as a basically very religious man. He must have looked at what the preachers said about God and felt that they were blaspheming. He had seen much more majesty than they had ever imagined, and they were just not talking about the real thing. My guess is that he simply felt that religions he'd run across did not have proper respect . . . for the author of the universe.
This sort of attitude that Einstein recognized is still prevalent--more prevalent, in fact--today.
