I disagree that it implies a preferred reference frame. How would it imply that?

Because that's your initial condition, Grapes. If you started at two or pi or the number of inches in the distance to the moon, the peak of your probability distribution is likely to be there.

Likewise if you start at the Earth you are choosing it to be the "initial condition" as a biased choice or a preferred reference frame.

By the by, the only reason we consider using the CMB as a preferred reference frame is because the theory is that it is uniform throughout the universe. So far that theory has been extremely successful. In the future we may find flaws with it, but for now that's the best we got.

What peak in the probability distribution? GR considers all reference frames to be equivalent. I don't think there is a peak.

Well, I agree with that. That's why I don't buy the Drunkard's Walk argument.

Grapes, I seldom check my personal messages--sorry. I do understand that geocentrists are not asserting an inertial reference frame--I was instead criticizing what I saw as a misconception in what Prince did post: "[The Earth's] frame is non-inertial because the rest of the universe, rotating around the Earth diurnally, makes it so. The rotation of the cosmic mass makes the stationary earth a non-inertial frame of reference."

My intention was to point out that this explanation is not the only reason Earth's frame cannot be considered inertial. It was a minor correction which I apparently expressed so clumsily that it was universally misunderstood, all the way from the geometrickal, magickal, and theologickal center of the universe outward to the most distant quasars. Arrgh. I did not mean to assert that geocentrists do in fact treat the Earth as an IRF!

Jeez, sorry for the confusion. It really, really is a minor point.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DStahl on 2003-01-24 01:30 ]</font>

Yes, that frame of reference is the same as any other. In that sense, it is not an extraordinary one. I think that's the only point, it's a particular case, not an extraordinary case.
I threw that in for free.

That's the same thing that many providers of the finest quality junk mail say in their correspondence with me. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]