> I hope that the mother isn't also teaching the child that polling for results is a good way to come to a scientific consensus on something like that subject matter though.
A word means what people to use it to mean, so in this particular case, polling is an entirely reasonable method of deciding whether pluto is (or should be called) a planet.
Of course, if the kid was claiming that "evul-ution is wrong because all my friends at Oral Roberts Primary School say so"...
Generally, what your saying is probably correct. However, in scientific discourse, there are different definitions of words. E.g. the word "work" in science is force * distance (or the appropriate calculus version) but in regular discourse it means something else.
A word means what people to use it to mean, so in this particular case, polling is an entirely reasonable method of deciding whether pluto is (or should be called) a planet.
Of course, if the kid was claiming that "evul-ution is wrong because all my friends at Oral Roberts Primary School say so"...