Astronomy
Astronomy is the observational study of objects beyond the Earth. On this wiki it is the discipline that supplies most of the evidence in dispute: nearly every argument about cosmology, redshift and gravitation catalogued here rests on an astronomical measurement, and the disagreements are usually about what those measurements mean rather than about the numbers themselves.
Category: Astronomy holds over 260 items.
What is disputed
Astronomical observation is indirect. Almost nothing beyond the Solar System can be sampled, weighed or repeated; distances, masses and ages are all inferred through a chain of assumptions, and the criticism collected here generally attacks a link in that chain rather than the observation at its end.
- Distance — the redshift–distance relation underpins the extragalactic distance scale. Halton Arp's intrinsic redshift work argues from physically associated objects with discordant redshifts that the relation cannot be read as a simple distance indicator.
- Age and evolution — the Hubble Deep Field and its successors are argued to show galaxies more mature at high redshift than the standard chronology permits.
- Mass — galactic rotation curves are explained in the standard model by dark matter; the alternatives catalogued here modify gravitation instead.
- Compact objects — the interpretation of black holes and of the objects identified as them is contested.
- Light propagation — whether deflection near the Sun occurs in curved spacetime or in the solar plasma, a case argued by Edward Henry Dowdye.
Solar System work
A distinct and more testable strand concerns the Solar System, where measurement is direct enough to constrain theory sharply: planetary radar ranging, the Allais effect during solar eclipses, the Pioneer anomaly, lunar laser ranging, and satellite orbital dynamics. Tom Van Flandern's arguments on the speed of gravity draw on this material, as does Ioannis Iraklis Haranas's work on modified gravitational potentials.
Researchers on this wiki
Astronomers and astronomically-minded researchers catalogued here include Halton Arp, Tom Van Flandern, Paul Wesson, Alexander N Dadaev, Edward Henry Dowdye, Eric J Lerner, Harry Hamlin Ricker and Ioannis Iraklis Haranas, alongside the historical figures Isaac Newton and Nikolai A Kozyrev.