Things in science change and ideas are refuted. Nothing is absolutely concrete, everything is a theory. So if your schoolbooks had outdated text and your teachers never bothered to find out different that doesn't mean that it didn't change.Originally Posted by The Ceej
That's not what I learned in college. So, unless Mercury grew or Pluto shrank, one of us learned wrong.
We were taught, in college, that Mercury was the smallest planet, and at that time, Pluto was still a planet, though by the end of the semester, it wasn't anymore.
EDIT: Come to think of it, we learned all that same information in high school, middle school, and elementary school. So, unless all of my schools were out to misinform me, which is highly unlikely, then Mercury is smaller than Pluto.
Which brings along the next thing I want to say, which is that you state things as if they are concrete irrefutable fact instead of presenting them scientifically as a theory for others to test and come to other conclusions. And when people do present information to disprove what you say you just act as if it's a huge conspiracy against you. Not to mention that things like this are worked on in real lab environments with sensitive equipment and lots of peer review and the fact that you have a single piece of anectdotal evidence really isn't going to make some huge dent in the scientific community. Though if you think it should then you could always present it to some highly regarded scientific publication.
