I fully support Pluto as a planet because I want to add at LEAST half a dozen more planets to the system and I would be perfectly happy to add like thirty.
I have a philosophical objection to the idea that we have to err on the side of exclusivity because otherwise we'll have to know too much. I want haumea, makemake and eris to be recognised and taught in classrooms right alongside pluto and ceres. I want Orcus, Quaoar, sedna and gonggong too.
I want people to have to learn that the world is bigger than we thought, and as our physical sciences progress we will continue to uncover more details in even the most seemingly mundane and established concepts. I want named planets that don't rely entirely on the Roman gods for their names.
I want people to have to accept that the world is bigger than they think it is, but also that it takes genuine advancements and work to uncover truths, and I want the idea we'd erase the fame of one of the nine first identified major celestial bodies to be cut off the list rather than expand it to be a humorless joke nobody would believe we even considered.
I want the people who keep harping on about Planet X to have less ammunition in the form of "they're hiding haumea from you!". I want science to be open and accessible.
Honestly I genuinely think that, alongside the vaccine panic, the pluto debacle was one of the biggest drivers of science scepticism in otherwise rational people. It's not helpful that the two happened so close to one another. Regardless of the scientific argument for it, the message communicated is "we're hiding things from you now".
Science as a whole has a severe communication issue. As scientists, and enthusiasts, we should be doing better.
