I just wanted to add something to Bill's comments here.
Don't feel too sorry for Arp.
He works at Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in Germany.
He's hardly been excommunicated from the scientific world if he works at such
a prestigious place.
He's also published at least 99 professional papers between 1956 and 1995 (http://users.aol.com/arpgalaxy/arpbio.html). It would be hard to argue that
he's being in any way censored for his views.
About telescope time. It's my understanding that telescope observation time
is expensive and competitive. Getting time is like getting an NSF grant - you
have to write and submit a formal proposal which is then ranked by a committee
of astronomers. If he was actually being denied telescope time at all the
different observatories around the world for the past 15 years, then maybe his
ideas aren't all that compelling.
Finally, while YECs may like to bring up Arp, it's worth remembering that
Arp's controversial claims in no way support a young universe. He's claiming
that specific objects may have large redshifts for reasons other than recessional
velocities. I haven't seen any indications that he in any way would support a
6,000 year-old universe. As a matter of fact, I'd be willing to bet that he
would strongly oppose such a viewpoint.
- Steve.
-- Steven H. Schimmrich Physical Sciences Department schimmri@kutztown.edu (office) Kutztown University schimmrich@earthlink.net (home) 217 Grim Science Building 610-683-4437, 610-683-1352 (fax) Kutztown, Pennsylvania 19530 http://home.earthlink.net/~schimmrich/