"Is "therefore our understanding of the situation is woefully inadequate" also not a viable conclusion - seems reasonable to me. "
..... Relativity predicted plenty of phenomenon before we had the means to test them: time dilation being one. We have predicted extra matter in the universe based on very simple observations, and whilst we currently cannot detect it, hopefully we will be able to in the near future.
Having said that, its not unfeasable that there is an alternative explanation of why the universe is not expanding at its expected rate.
Just because we don't know everything doesn't mean our understanding is "woefully inadequate".
"Agree with that, I've been advocating an open minded position throughout the debate. "
I am in full support of replaceing a theory with a better one, i just don't think the main body of relativity will ever be changed.
"Naturally. The same can be said of anyone. People are either so expert in a field that they lose sight of the bigger picture, of have a broad enough overview to see the problems but not the details. "
That is false, people who are professors of physics, know exactly the strengths and weakness's of the theories in their subject, they are the only ones who are in a position to evaluate them. There is no "bigger picture" that cosmologists are missing.
"I would suggest that you think that's what they would produce, because that is what you think. I am prepared to accept that they may, or possibly a completely different self consistent model might emerge. "
The above argument could be applied to the Earth's geometry, take a bunch of mathematically orientated people, don't tell them anything about the shape of the Earth. Then ask the to come up the Earth's geometry... I'd say they'd conclude the exact same thing we conclude now: The Earth is round.
Now, if we don't consider what the problem actually is, then we could quite easily conclude that they might conclude something different
I realise i'm not going to convince you, because i lack the knowledge to do so. If you cover relativity in DETAIL, you will convince yourself.
"So we have two objects, stationary with respect to the space they occupy, but in two parts of space that are travelling above c relative to each other... "
No we don't, because spacio-temporal geometry is not linear, the reason they aren't travelling faster than light relative to each other is because of time dilation.
"I am not going to lose my doubts while there are so many fiddle factors added to make things look right"
But there ARENT, I hear the same argument about evolution by people who don't know the theory well enough, they think there are all these problems that actually have already been solved by specialists in the field (i do better in evolution arguments because i know more about it).
"I was at a seminar a year back where two groups were presenting their work and arguing for a ressurrection of the "cosmological constant". Fun thing was, their estimates of it's value had opposite signs!"
Yup, the cosomological constant is making a comeback.
"I'm not going to lose my doubts, and I suspect you are not going to accept them!"
Guess only time will tell eh.
