Yes, the vote was held at the end of the final day of the two-week IAU conference, when fewer than 500 of the 2500 attendees were still there. This scheduling was almost certainly a deliberate move to take advantage of the predictably low number of members who would still be present.
I can buy that but it leads to an interesting question…
If it was deliberate, why? To what purpose? Is there a cabal or cult or even one thought leader who was on the committee that had strong enough opinions on this, enough to scheme.
Maybe a kid who, in school, got a question wrong about Pluto and was made fun of. Looked it up afterwards, rationalized his answer instead of accepting they were wrong in forgetting, Vowed to get revenge. Studied and progressed to get on the committee and slowly over the years, schemed to engineer this. I hope they slept soundly that night.
To what purpose? To get the outcome they wanted. If they personally knew a lot of people who favored declassifying Pluto as a planet, and could encourage them to stay until the very end - maybe schedule a great party that night, I dunno. They could also make a point of shmoozing attendees who had rooms until the last night, spreading talking points. I mean if congresspeople use this tactic, why not astronomers?
Yes, the vote was held at the end of the final day of the two-week IAU conference, when fewer than 500 of the 2500 attendees were still there. This scheduling was almost certainly a deliberate move to take advantage of the predictably low number of members who would still be present.
I can buy that but it leads to an interesting question…
If it was deliberate, why? To what purpose? Is there a cabal or cult or even one thought leader who was on the committee that had strong enough opinions on this, enough to scheme.
Maybe a kid who, in school, got a question wrong about Pluto and was made fun of. Looked it up afterwards, rationalized his answer instead of accepting they were wrong in forgetting, Vowed to get revenge. Studied and progressed to get on the committee and slowly over the years, schemed to engineer this. I hope they slept soundly that night.
To what purpose? To get the outcome they wanted. If they personally knew a lot of people who favored declassifying Pluto as a planet, and could encourage them to stay until the very end - maybe schedule a great party that night, I dunno. They could also make a point of shmoozing attendees who had rooms until the last night, spreading talking points. I mean if congresspeople use this tactic, why not astronomers?