Myth vs. Science

Count me as one of those people that doesn't like that Pluto is no longer a planet, or that the Triceratops is apparently no longer an official dinosaur. There's something unexplainably sad about something that you've believed in your whole live suddenly coming to and end, no matter what the explanation. Robert Krulwich at NPR depicts the problem much more succinctly:

The lesson here is that when science slips from the academy into popular culture, people love, honor and protect what they know, what they've learned. What they don't understand is all science knowledge is tentative. Something is "true" only as long as the facts support the premise. When the facts change, science has to change with it.
People don't want their eternalities to change. They hate that. But, in the end, science has to win.