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Ha....good ol' Halton Arp. He just can't seem to let go of his idea when just about every observation ever made has shown him to be at fault. The problems with Arp's hypothesis are quite well known. For a start, his sample size is only rather small when compared to to the numbers of galaxies and quasars that have been observed....a couple of hundred or less compared to several million (for quasars) and billions (for galaxies). Statistically, his sample size is meaningless and can be easily explained as just random alignments of objects at different distances. Secondly, in order to explain any connection between a quasar of high redshift and galaxy of low redshift, you have to come up with a satisfactory explanation for why there are the disparate redshifts. No satisfactory explanation has been proposed, or even observed for that matter. Various "throw away ideas, have been proposed by Arp and his disciples but none of them make either logical (scientific) or observational sense. Things like the old ideas about "tired light" and such. Some of his latest observations, like quasars that appear to lie "in front" of galactic nuclei and have been "ejected" are nothing more than misinterpretations of the observations being made....optical illusions. Quasars are bright enough to appear as "foreground" stars through the bodies of galaxies. You only have to look at piccies of galaxies where background objects can be clearly seen through their structures to understand why it's easy to make the mistake of thinking the quasar is lying in front of the galaxy. Then, the selection effect of seeing a connection because you believe one will be there starts to kick in. Thirdly, you also have to come up with a satisfactory explanation as to what mechanism could actually eject a quasar from the centre of a galaxy. especially at the high velocities that the redshifts say they're being ejected at. You also have to explain why just redshifts...if the objects are being ejected, then why aren't there also blueshifted quasars. Why would there be a preferential direction of ejection??. There's no known mechanism that can satisfactorily explain why an object should be ejected in one particular direction in preference to another. Statistically, the direction of ejection should be the same for any quasar/galaxy combination...they should be ejected in any random direction. This is also why such a small sample size, like the one that Arp has used, is meaningless. There is no correlation between between redshift and the supposed ejection of quasars from a host galaxy. Nor is there any correlation between the direction of ejection and the mechanism of ejection. They simply don't exist. Now, despite all that I've said, there is a possibility of finding an actual quasar/galaxy connection where a quasar has been ejected from that galaxy. It could happen, given the right conditions, but so far we haven't observed anything like that. If we did, it would be news and magazines like Astronomy and Sky and Telescope would be writing it up. The journals would be full of papers on the subject. They're not.
Halton Arp came up with his idea in the late 50's early 60's when they didn't know what quasars actually were, and were just beginning to make observations of these objects. They didn't know what mechanisms were behind the nature of these objects and had no concept of the physics that explain them. Arp's ideas were speculation then...they're tired, misguided and outdated ideas now. Like quite a few scientist, when they get old, they become controversial because they start to become potty. They want to go out with a bang, so they revive old ideas that are clearly nonsense, or they push ideas they once had which have been proven wrong in order to justify their continuing tenures. Invariably, they get some old colleagues come along for the ride (like Geoffrey Burbidge), especially when they've been a bit maverick themselves, in the past, and also some younger ones who want to make a name for themselves with some new ideas or standout observations...which is just a case of hero worship. Understandable, simply because these old scientists were very good in their day and are excellent teachers. However, just because you come up with an idea (brilliant or otherwise) doesn't make it correct, even if you still believe that it is, despite everything else to the contrary.
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