Actually that is NOT what these tests show. They show that someone has done an experiment which, using their apparatus, returns readings consistent with a micro-newton force. What the experiment has NOT shown is that this is due to some new, as yet unexplained, physics.

There are a myriad of other, far more mundane, possibilities to generate such results before anyone will seriously start believing in new physics as an explanation. For example did they account for the radiation emitted bouncing back and forth between the apparatus and the vacuum chamber walls?

After the results have been confirmed independently and all the possibilities people can come up with disproven then you have an interesting result which is unexplained. At this point there are still two possibilities: either new physics OR an effect so subtle that nobody has thought of it. The only way to prove new physics is therefore to come up with a theoretical explanation which allows testing.

Whether or not you agree with this this is how science works: there are simply too many ways that a precision experiment like this can be fooled and history is littered with examples of this happening e.g. faster than light neutrinos, gravitational waves in the cosmic microwave background, cold fusion etc. The results have to be confirmed and stand several years of scrutiny before people will start to believe that they are interesting. Even when that happens to get people convinced that there is new physics here you need a model for that new physics that makes predictions which can be confirmed.

Actually this is the one criterion missing from the list of "what would it take to convince you that it is real": a viable theory as to how the drive works which makes a prediction that can be tested by another experiment. If this is a real effect then we need a theoretical framework which can be used to explain and predict the size of the effect under different conditions which can then be tested.

This is how the solar neutrino problem was solved. For decades experiments measuring the flux of solar neutrinos had come up short by a factor of 1/3 to 1/2 of the expected value. Initially people thought the experiments were somehow wrong, then focus switched to the solar models predicting the flux but these were confirmed as correct so ultimately nobody had a clue as to why there was discrepancy. People were split between inaccurate experiments, inaccurate prediction or new physics. The problem was solved only when the model which theorists had proposed as a possible solution - that neutrinos changed their flavour as they move through space - was tested by the SNO experiment which measured both the total neutrino flux and the electron neutrino flux separately.

You need both theory and experiment to agree to get understanding and without that clear understanding I would not expect the 'warp drive' effect to be resolved. No matter how much you repeat and verify the experiment there will always be questions raised about some effect which is not accounted for (assuming the effect remains so small). After a few decades you might get to the point where people will admit that the effect is not understood but even then many will ascribe it to some subtle experimental effect rather than new physics. The only way you will change minds is by having a new theory whose predictions are verified by further experiments.

True, but unlike petrol driven cars they could be. Both renewable and nuclear power power are zero carbon methods of generating power and while renewable has issues with cost, limited locations and variability if it were supplemented by nuclear we could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In fact if you charge your Tesla in France then 75% of that power comes from nuclear so you might not be zero emission but you will be getting close.

The other problem is who decides the criteria for being "super"? Different people find different teachers effective. For example I know that Feynman was regarded by most as a "super teacher" but I hated his books and found his explanations needlessly complicated and far more confusing than most other textbooks. In short I found him a terrible teacher. I realize I'm in the minority with that but the point is that not everyone will agree on who a super teacher is because different people learn differently. This is why you need to learn from a variety of teachers and not just the most popular.

Not unless it is a lot bigger. The one that occurred around the time of the extinction of the Dinosaurs gave rise to the Deccan Traps.

To put the scale of this extinction-level eruption in context the article mentions that the new, larger chamber under Yellowstone contains enough magma to fill the Grand Canyon which according to here is 4,170 cubic kilometres. The Deccan trap eruptions produced 512,000 cubic kilometres over 30k years. A Yellowstone eruption would certainly cause a lot of devastation over a large area of North America but its peanuts compared to an extinction level event.

...and yet the vaccine prevents those people who already had Chicken Pox as a child being re-exposed to it the virus later in life which has been shown to prevent shingles in adults.

Now I could accuse you of spreading lies and deceit but really that would be behaving exactly like the anti-vaxxers: adopting a preconceived notion, ignoring all scientific evidence to the contrary and getting mad at anyone who disagrees. So how about we adopt a more scientific stance which is that for the specific case of the Chicken Pox vaccine there is no clear evidence that it is a net benefit to individuals or society over just catching the disease as a child and recovering? The risk of the vaccine is not measurably less than the risk of the disease and there are clear questions about the net affect of susceptibility of adults to shingles: it might be good or it might be bad but we really don't have a clue either way.

My position is that if there is no clear evidence for any benefit from a medical procedure then you don't do it. If that changes with more studies and they can show that there is a clear benefit then great I'd be 100% behind it. In the meantime I would argue that it is unethical to coerce people into undergoing a medical procedure for which there is no evidence of a net benefit to them or to society. Worse, because in this one specific case, the evidence is lacking you give the anti-vaxxers ammunition which they can use to shoot at the cases where the vaccine is incredibly beneficial and absolutely should be taken by everyone.

It also turns out there is another reason this vaccine is bad. Older adults in contact with children who have chicken pox get a boost to their immune response to the vaccine which helps prevents shingles. The vaccine prevents this from happening: see this.

No, go an see a doctor fours times at 20 year intervals AND remember to ask for this shot because unless you go to the same doctor throughout your entire life it is unlikely that they will.

Correct - once you have the virus you never lose it and shingles can emerge if something compromises your immune system. However if you have the vaccine and then the immunity wears off and you are exposed to the virus again then you can get shingles even without a compromised immune system.

Umm...so how is it wrong to say that Shingles and Chicken Pox are the same disease given that they are caused by the same virus? All you stated I already knew. Indeed Shingles often emerges when the immune system is compromised.

However if you had the vaccine and so never caught Chicken Pox. Then your immunity wears off (which does not happen with Chicken Pox since you have the virus inside you) then when you then get exposed to the virus again you will have no immunity and so end up with Shingles EVEN IF your immune system is fully operational.

If the measles vaccine does not work then why is the rate of cases so much lower than before the vaccine? At this point the vaccine has been given to so many people the evidence that it works is because nobody worries about their child dying or going blind from measles any more... unless there is some reason why this was due to some other factor?

So should it be illegal to go out in public if you have a cold? People with weaker immune systems, such as the elderly, could die if they caught your cold.

A better law to fix this problem would be to allow kids to consent to having vaccinations without parental knowledge. As it is this law will encourage anti-vaxxers to home school and spread their ignorance to the next generation. Allowing kids to consent once they are, say 10, would let you educate them about the advantages of vaccines and then let them have the benefits without their idiot parents getting in the way. It also means that there is no need to force anyone to undergo a medical procedure which they do not want.

It ends at the point that you force someone else to have a medical procedure for your benefit. Anti-vaxxers are ignorant idiots but you do not cure ignorance or stupidity by making it illegal (tempting though that is)...you cure it through education. However the ironic thing about this law is that it encourages these idiots to home school their kids where they will be able to propagate their ignorance to the next generation.

The moment you force people to have medical procedure you are on a very slippery slope. Vaccines are incredibly safe but there is no zero risk medical procedure: one in every N million vaccines will produce severe complications and sometimes even death. So, to flip the argument around, how many people's lives is it fair to risk to reduce the risk to yourself? Now I realize that this is not entirely fair since, by not having the vaccine the risk if they catch the disease it prevents is far higher but the fact that either way there is some risk means that the proper solution is to educate people about the risks and then let them make their own decision which, will hopefully be to get vaccinated. If not then why stop at forcing vaccinations? Think how many lives could be saved by forced live kidney and liver donation!

The OP got the figures very wrong - there is no way a vaccine with a 1 in 30k chance of death would be approved. However lurking in all that misinformation there is a point struggling to get out. The rate of severe complications and/or death from the Chicken Pox vaccine is probably comparable to the risk of serious complications or death from the disease at least to within the limits of statistical analysis because the risk from either is so incredibly low.

There is also something particular to Chicken Pox which makes the vaccine even less desirable: length of immunity. If you actually catch Chicken Pox you get immunity for life. However if you vaccinate against it you need to continuously remember to get boosters - I believe currently every 10 or 20 years - otherwise your immunity may lapse. What is bad about this is that Chicken Pox for adults is known as Shingles which is far nastier than Chicken Pox. So in this case taking the vaccine to protect against a very mild childhood disease may lead to an increased chance of a more serious disease later in life...unless you set a 20 year alarm so you never forget a booster shot!

Pushing extremely dubious vaccines like Chicken Pox is a very bad idea. There are very legitimate questions you can ask about the value of this vaccine - it's certainly not dangerous but it is of very questionable benefit. The problem is that idiots then make the illogical leap that if one vaccine is dubious they all must be.

Surely the more appropriate answer would have been: "That? Oh it's nothing.".