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How is understanding that there is nothing bad about the human form potentially dangerous?

If you can be jailed for being 'offensive', then there is no freedom of speech.

I know that they don't have anything as hard and fast wrt speech in the UK, but I doubt any of the laws that they would have broken would have resulted in the punishment they actually got. As far as I can tell, they'd probably get a trespassing fine and maybe a fine for disturbing the peace (or whatever the UK equivalent is).

You're probably not going to find a lot of sympathy here. This website is populated primarily by westerners (mostly USA, UK, and Canada). With people who live in these countries, you're not going to get any sympathy. The response is heavy-handed even assuming you get sympathy for there being a response at all. See, in the USA, this situation seems even more dramatically absurd. In our federal (and in many state) Constitution(s), we are guaranteed the freedom of speech. Unless you actually hurt someone with your speech, you cannot be jailed for offending someone. If they were trespassing, they could be removed from the premises. If they actually did property damage, they could be fined. If they actually harmed someone, they could be in serious trouble in both the criminal and civil courts. However, Churches are typically open to anyone who wants to be there. As far as I know, they didn't actually damage anything or anyone. Jailtime for being 'offensive', if it had happened in the US, would result in riots in the streets.

How were they harmed, exactly?

I'm currently reading, among other things, Susskind's second volume of The Theoretical Minimum. This one is about QM. Fun fact: my current Uni president tried to censor Zinn from Indiana when he was governor.

A good rule is to not cite things you didn't use and not use things you don't cite.

I guess the real question is: "Did you use more than 18 sources?".

Well, you can derive the basic rules of probability from the propositional calculus and the fact that we can order our beliefs in terms of credence. From there, it's a short hop, skip, and jump to Bayes's theorem. Bayesian statistics has a firm grounding. Unfortunately for frequentist statistics, it's more of a messy jumble of stuff.

To be fair, bananas are like 90% horse.

! Moderator Note Moved to Speculations

Where'd that 'thus' come from?

Be sure to quote me so I get a notification.

Indeed, it was. And in the split, you claimed the results supported champagne bubble cosmology. I, however, have demonstrated that that is not the case. Not only are the results not evidence for your cosmology, they're not even explained by your cosmology. It's been a page since I last posted explaining why your cosmology doesn't explain the results, and you've not yet responded. That's ok, though, it was at the bottom of the page and easy to miss. And you probably have the automatic quote notifications turned off. Don't worry, I'll just copypasta it here. I didn't say it was inconsistent with the data. If it were probabilistically inconsistent with the data, then P(polarization|champagne bubble cosmology)<P(redshift). If it were logically inconsistent with the data, then P(polarization|champagne bubble cosmology)=0. I did, however, say neither of those things. What I said is that your vague 'prediction' doesn't get to claim the BICEP results as evidence, because it didn't predict the results. It predicted something that there would be on any cosmological theory if light is being scattered by a cloud of particles. You didn't derive from your model an amount or direction of polarization. You just said that there should be polarization. There would be polarization anyway. So, P(polarization|champagne bubble cosmology)=P(polarization). Anyone even vaguely familiar with the literature knows that something is evidence iff P(e|h)>P(e) [and it's true]. Equivalence is not the same an a greater than inequality. According to the Bayesian theory of evidence, the results are not evidence of your model. Actually, it does and in every relevant theory of explanation. It is deductively deducible from lawlike statements and other assumptions, so it satisfies the Deductive Nomological model of explanation. It makes the individual data more likely on the theory than not on the theory, so it satisfies both the Inductive Statistical model of explanation and the Statistical Relevance model of explanation. It provides a causal process for the results, so it satisfies the causal models of explanation. Your model, however, fails every single one of them. Keep in mind that there would be polarization on any cosmology if light is scattering in a cloud of particles. You can't derive the specific polarization from the lawlike statements in your model and the accompanying assumptions from observation, so it fails DN. Your model doesn't make that specific polarization more likely than it would be otherwise, so it fails both IS and SR. Finally, your model doesn't provide a causal story for the BICEP results, so it fails the causal models as well. Your model only even arguably satisfies two of the models of explanation for just "there is polarization". You can provide a causal story, so you get that one. You may or may not be able to make a valid deductive inference from the model and empirical assumptions to the fact of polarization, so you may or may not get DN. So, no, your model doesn't explain the BICEP results. Nor are the results evidence for your theory. Actually, no, they weren't. If you'd bothered to actually read Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper, you'd know that his derivation of SR and the predictions therein weren't wishy-washy at all. In fact, it's quite precise. What he didn't do is take a specific result and make it vague as possible to the point that it is something that is expected on any cosmology. You, however, did.

I didn't say it was inconsistent with the data. If it were probabilistically inconsistent with the data, then P(polarization|champagne bubble cosmology)<P(redshift). If it were logically inconsistent with the data, then P(polarization|champagne bubble cosmology)=0. I did, however, say neither of those things. What I said is that your vague 'prediction' doesn't get to claim the BICEP results as evidence, because it didn't predict the results. It predicted something that there would be on any cosmological theory if light is being scattered by a cloud of particles. You didn't derive from your model an amount or direction of polarization. You just said that there should be polarization. There would be polarization anyway. So, P(polarization|champagne bubble cosmology)=P(polarization). Anyone even vaguely familiar with the literature knows that something is evidence iff P(e|h)>P(e) [and it's true]. Equivalence is not the same an a greater than inequality. According to the Bayesian theory of evidence, the results are not evidence of your model. Actually, it does and in every relevant theory of explanation. It is deductively deducible from lawlike statements and other assumptions, so it satisfies the Deductive Nomological model of explanation. It makes the individual data more likely on the theory than not on the theory, so it satisfies both the Inductive Statistical model of explanation and the Statistical Relevance model of explanation. It provides a causal process for the results, so it satisfies the causal models of explanation. Your model, however, fails every single one of them. Keep in mind that there would be polarization on any cosmology if light is scattering in a cloud of particles. You can't derive the specific polarization from the lawlike statements in your model and the accompanying assumptions from observation, so it fails DN. Your model doesn't make that specific polarization more likely than it would be otherwise, so it fails both IS and SR. Finally, your model doesn't provide a causal story for the BICEP results, so it fails the causal models as well. Your model only even arguably satisfies two of the models of explanation for just "there is polarization". You can provide a causal story, so you get that one. You may or may not be able to make a valid deductive inference from the model and empirical assumptions to the fact of polarization, so you may or may not get DN. So, no, your model doesn't explain the BICEP results. Nor are the results evidence for your theory.

There would have been polarization anyway. So, your retrodiction that there should be polarization means nothing whatsoever. P(polarization|champagne bubble cosmology)=P(polarization). We all know that for something to be evidence, the likelihood must be greater than the probability of the evidence. So, for it to be evidence, you would need P(polarization|champagne bubble cosmology)>P(polarization), but that's not what you have since you can't get any more specific than 'polarization'.

How do you know? Your model doesn't say how much polarization and in what direction. Light scattering through moving particles is always going to have some level of polarization. What's significant about the BICEP results is that the amount and direction of the polarization fit the model. "There should be polarization" is worthless. Unless you can say how well the data fits your model, you don't get to claim the data fits your model.

Would that be possible to do with multiple wave sources creating an interference pattern?

Then you don't get to claim the data as evidence.

Well, the waves might be able to cancel out a gravitational field temporarily. Would you consider that anti-gravity?

How much? What direction? If you can't provide a specific answer that we can check against the data, your ad hoc 'prediction' is worthless. And that's why one should read all posts before replying. Swansont beat me to it.

Darn, we lost our CVS affiliation

Hijacks and off-topic posts have been split off and moved. Can Gravity Waves Produce Anti-Gravity? Were Gravitational Waves Actually Detected? Champagne Bubble Cosmology

The 'of any nation' part is often forgotten--especially by our American members. The two former military staff members I mentioned (myself and mooey) were military members of different countries. With which military is SFN supposed to be affiliated?