To contrast General relativity to other models,
note that:

After Newton's model,
there were immediate and rapid advances
in mechanics, astronomy, etc.

After Maxwell's model
there were immediate and rapid advances
in chemistry, electricity, etc.

After Watson's and Crick's DNA model
there were immediate and rapid advances
in medicine, genetics, animal husbandry,
the history of the Earth and Mankind, etc.

I noticed in the news in the last few days,
that the DNA model was recently used to develop
a new form of rice that will prevent 500,000 children
from going blind EVERY YEAR,

and that it was used to convert blood types,
and that people with rare blood types will have a safe
supply of blood in the future.,

and I noticed today,
that the DNA model was used to
find out that chickens are related genetically
to dinosaur.

Now folks,
would you spend your own money conducting experiments
that predict things that are useless, non-cost=effective,
or far, far beyond man's capacity to
experience in time and space?

Things like the birth and death of the universe,
time travel, warping through space, worm holes,
black holes, gravitons, evolution of stars, etc.

Or would you spend your money on DNA projects to
develop better food crops,
improve animal husbandry,
develop better medicine,
reconstruct history more accurately,
cure cancer,
create bees that pollinate essential plants more surely,
create animals that can sniff out chemicals and diseases, etc.,
save endangered animals,
find criminals,
purify water,
etc.

As I posted on 11 April 2007 Wednesday 5:06 PM,
=======================================
"as can be seen by the recent news,
over one billion of the tax payers dollars have been spent
on just one of the many projects to rationalize General Relativity
( Gravity Probe-B ).

Papers on the General Relativity experiment will be forthcoming
in a few days, and maybe, just maybe,
the scientists on the taxpayer dole,
who promoted this project will make the astounding announcement
that "Yes Virginia, frame dragging MIGHT occur."
===============================================

Here is the report on the Gravity Probe B frame dragging experiment
which was released today 4/15/2007.

http://einstein.stanford.edu/

"The other effect, called frame-dragging, is the amount by which the
rotating Earth drags local space-time around with it. According to
Einstein's theory, over the course of a year, the geodetic warping of
Earth's local space-time causes the spin axes of each gyroscope to
shift from its initial alignment by a minuscule angle of 6.606 arc-
seconds (0.0018 degrees) in the plane of the spacecraft's orbit.
Likewise, the twisting of Earth's local space-time causes the spin
axis to shift by an even smaller angle of 0.039 arc-seconds (0.000011
degrees) - about the width of a human hair viewed from a quarter mile
away - in the plane of the Earth's equator. GP-B Scientists expect to
announce the final results of the experiment in December 2007,
following eight months of further data analysis and refinement.
<Data has been on file for two years, and although over one billion
dollars has been spent on this particular rationalization of General
Relativity,
they need at least eight more months to <cook the books?>

Today, Everitt and his team are poised to share what they have found
so far-namely that the data from the GP-B gyroscopes clearly confirm
Einstein's predicted geodetic effect to a precision of better than 1
percent. However, the frame-dragging effect is 170 times smaller than
the geodetic effect, and Stanford scientists are still extracting its
signature from the spacecraft data. The GP-B instrument has ample
resolution to measure the frame-dragging effect precisely, but the
team has discovered small torque and sensor effects that must be
accurately modeled and removed from the result.

"We anticipate that it will take about 8 more months of detailed data
analysis"
<to cook the books?>

"Two important discoveries were made while analyzing the gyroscope
data from the spacecraft:
1) the "polhode" motion of the gyroscopes damps out over time, and
2) the spin axes of the gyroscopes were affected by small classical
torques."

Note that at least two "classical" hacks were needed to <cook the
books>.

I might mention that I helped instrument a General Relativity
experiment
back in the 1960's that used a radio frequency generator to spin a
tiny ball bearing in a vacuum, and measure the angular velocity
decay of the bearing and account for thirty or so <Classical physics
hacks>
such as windage, stresses in the ball bearing, magnetic losses,
electric losses, light pressure, thermal effects, sound, vibration,
and hopefully, "flat space-time radiation".

Needless to say, they could tell when magnets were in the room,
when the lights were turned on, or cars were driving in the area,
but they never did hack away enough <classical effects>
to get down to General Relativity "flat space-time radiation".

I bought a nice car with my commissions on that experiment.

Stop and think about this folks.
Billions of dollars are spent educating [sic]
young folks on General Relativity,
and additional billions are spent running costly experiments
to rationalize General Relativity.

Note that
"According to Einstein's theory, ***over the course of a year***,
the <assumed> geodetic warping of Earth's local space-time
causes the spin axes of each gyroscope to shift from its initial
alignment
by a minuscule angle of 6.606 arc-seconds (***0.0018 degrees***)
in the plane of the spacecraft's orbit."

Now let's assume that Einstein's theory does in fact
make predictions <without cooking the books>
that require billion dollar experiments to <maybe> detect,

What good is this to mankind
<at this point in time>
other than showing that billion dollar experiments
<might> be able to find artifact in a good, simple,
easy to use, cost-effective model,
that can be factored away using a cumbersome,
non-cost-effect model?

To contrast General relativity to other models,
note that:

After Newton's model,
there were immediate and rapid advances
in mechanics, astronomy, etc.

After Maxwell's model
there were immediate and rapid advances
in chemistry, electricity, etc.

After Watson's and Crick's DNA model
there were immediate and rapid advances
in medicine, genetics, animal husbandry,
the history of the Earth and Mankind, etc.

I noticed in the news in the last few days,
that the DNA model was recently used to develop
a new form of rice that will prevent 500,000 children
from going blind EVERY YEAR,

and that it was used to convert blood types,
and that people with rare blood types will have a safe
supply of blood in the future.,

and I noticed today,
that the DNA model was used to
find out that chickens are related genetically
to dinosaur.

Now folks,
would you spend your own money conducting experiments
that predict things that are useless, non-cost=effective,
or far, far beyond man's capacity to
experience in time and space?

Things like the birth and death of the universe,
time travel, warping through space, worm holes,
black holes, gravitons, evolution of stars, etc.

Or would you spend your money on DNA projects to
develop better food crops,
improve animal husbandry,
develop better medicine,
reconstruct history more accurately,
cure cancer,
create bees that pollinate essential plants more surely,
create animals that can sniff out chemicals and diseases, etc.,
save endangered animals,
find criminals,
purify water,
etc.

I made this post because
I wanted to use the "Gravity probe B" experiment announcement to make
a point,
about how General Relativity compares to other scientific models.

I plan to cease posting for two or three weeks,
in order minimize the effluent that emanates from a few immature
posters,
( Who are worked up over my previous posts.)
in order to keep sci.physics from becoming too much of a
"River of *****",

so I won't respond to any replies to this post,
unless the reply is rational, intelligent and
requires a response.
Tom Potter

As I posted on 11 April 2007 Wednesday 5:06 PM,
=======================================
"as can be seen by the recent news,
over one billion of the tax payers dollars have been spent
on just one of the many projects to rationalize General Relativity
( Gravity Probe-B ).