Several commenters on <i>semantics</i> in this thread (e.g., <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15473604" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15473604</a> , <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15473705" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15473705</a> , <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15473402" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15473402</a> ) seem to be missing the key empirical fact: that the Earth's crust comes in two distinct types: oceanic crust (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanic_crust" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanic_crust</a>) and continental crust (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_crust" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_crust</a>). More specifically, the distribution of crust density (and other properties) is <i>bimodal</i> due to being caused by distinct formation processes. The presence/lack of ocean water on top of a location on Earth is a consequence, not cause, of the crust type. This is why the continents are clearly visible on the Earth's topographical map without water. Otherwise, you'd expect the visible shape of the continental land masses to be highly dependent on the exact waterline, which is mostly not the case.<p>So sure, popular media is often framed around silly terminology changes, but this does not mean that calling Zealandia a continent fails to have real empirical meaning, or detract from the fact that Zealandia <i>is</i> unusual in being continental crust largely covered by water. Likewise, removing Pluto from the list of planets reflected the empirical fact that Pluto is qualitatively different than the other planets, and qualitatively similar to the other dwarf planets.
As I've grown older, I've come to find peace in letting go of semantics. Is it a dwarf planet, or is it a planet? I'm content simply pointing at the things that I recognize and saying, "There is that thing. Whatever the kids / scientists are calling it these days. I know a lot about that thing, but perhaps not it's name."
8 continents? I guess that's Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia, Antarctica, and Zealandia.<p>But I see:<p>* 1 mega-continent, i.e. Eurasia, which has sub-continents Europe and India tacked on<p>* 3 normal continents, i.e. Africa, North America, South America<p>* 3 "dwarf" continents, i.e. Australia, Antarctica, Zealandia<p>Not only are those 3 dwarf continents far smaller than the others, but one's covered with sand, another with ice, and the other with water.
It seems like tectonic plates are less arbitrarily defined than continents.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tectonic_plates" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tectonic_plates</a>
All the semantic arguments here would disappear if we all simply recognized the "set of continents" for what it really is: a set-valued sheaf on some parameter space (<a href="https://xorshammer.com/2016/07/24/the-cgp-grey-topos-of-continents/" rel="nofollow">https://xorshammer.com/2016/07/24/the-cgp-grey-topos-of-cont...</a>).
Granted, the definition of "continent" is not rigorous, and depending on where you grew up in the world, you might have learned there are 5-7 "continents."