I've been puzzling over this, and the discussions we've been having here and in the EU thread ... and I think I can now put my finger on it (sorry Tim, Duane et al, I'm in the slow class).

This section is called 'Alternative Theories', and my expectation was that we would be discussing just these .... from the POV of scientific theories, not 'theories' as the word is used in everyday English. To me, a scientific theory has at least the following:
- a domain of applicability
- internal consistency
- equations and stuff (i.e. some means by which quantitative aspects are described or explored).

In addition, a demonstration that it 'reduces' to well established theories 'in the limit'; so for example, GR becomes so close to Newtonian gravity for 'light', 'low density', 'slow', etc things that even the best observations couldn't tell them apart. In physics (and astrophysics, and geophysics, etc) this means QFT and GR, or something derived from these, or a subset.

If concrete, specific, testable (even if only in principle) predictions come from an alternative theory (to QFT or GR), so much the better.

Wrt the Arpians, unless I've missed it (and VanderL, who seems to be a proponent hasn't - so far - given any references): there is no alternative theory!

(and in the other threads I've read, Savov's idea isn't an alternative theory, but CREIL is (or would be if better developed?), and so are some of the plasma cosmologies. EU isn't; nor the electric Sun).

So what are we discussing, in this thread? Here's my first draft:
- interesting relationships among good observational data (e.g. quasar periodicities)
- apparent anomalies (e.g. a high-z quasar 'in' a low-z galaxy; a nearby galaxy with an abnormally high redshift)
- statistical analyses whose conclusions appear inconsistent with the mainstream (e.g. sky distributions of quasars and galaxies)
- 'Friday evening ideas' (e.g. quasars are ejected from Seyfert nuclei)

So maybe I should send a note to Fraser or other moderators, suggesting they be a little more crisp in their guidelines?

Actually Nereid, the original idea was to allow these quasi-scientific (or psuedo as the case may be) premises to be aired in a forum where they could be prodded and poked to see if any actual substance could be found. It was hoped that by bringing these concepts out into the open for all to see, that the more obviously flawed ideas would be exposed for the bunkum that they are.

In turn, this would allow the general readership to see the pseudoscientific means by which alot of these so called "theories" are actually propagated, and begin to view these "new" theories with the critical eye that they deserve.

That many of these theories are based solely on handwaving and slight of hand becomes apparent when they are dissected in a forum like this. This should explain the header for the forum "Put on your skeptic hat and get ready to debunk."

Too many otherwise bright people get taken in by the pseudoscientists like Hoagland or Atcheson or Kaysing or Leider or Scott, to name a few. While our gentle voices of reason will not dissuade these people or their ilk from making these preposterous claims, at the least we will hopfully cause some to stop and ponder, then ask questions.

It is those who have the ability to question using science that make the biggest impact. In that light, your contributions are duly noted!

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All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct.~ Carl Sagan ~

Humanity must rise above the Earth, to the top of the atmosphere and beyond, for only then will we fully understand the world in which we live.~Socrates, 500 B.C. ~

Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has himself read, not by what others tell him. ~Albert Einstein~

What references are you looking for? Maybe you mean Arp's variable mass theory?

Sure there is an alternative, it is just not worked out beyond collecting empirical evidence, imo. Arp himself thinks we don't live in an expanding Universe. But I think there is still room for an expanding universe even if his model is correct . This all depends on the exact nature of the intrinsic redshift mechanism, so until such a mechanism has been found (CREIL or some other plasma-related effect seem the most promising) the "theory" will have to wait. The discussions (arguments) arise mostly about accepting or denying the presented evidence.

It seems you are demanding equations and fully worked out theories where none can be given (yet in some cases). I think the people who propose alternative ideas can be divided in two categories: observationally driven ideas and mathematically driven ideas. Both have their own problems; observations without an underlying mathematical model (that's where I would think the EU belongs to), and mathematical models looking for confirming observations (string theory maybe?). But both approaches need to produce evidence or predictions to be taken serious.



Yep, and that too.

Cheers.

There is no "empirical"(adj: Verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment: empirical laws. ) evidence. There are 2 dimensional pictures that Arp and his collaborators say "look funny". That is not empirical evidence.

Pure speculation.

Not theory VanderL, speculation. At this point, there is no evidence of intrinsic redshift, and there is not even speculation on what could cause this thing that does not exist. It is the epitomy of bad science.

__________________
All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct.~ Carl Sagan ~

Humanity must rise above the Earth, to the top of the atmosphere and beyond, for only then will we fully understand the world in which we live.~Socrates, 500 B.C. ~

Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has himself read, not by what others tell him. ~Albert Einstein~

Well, observations are empirical evidence, and your remark that it concerns 2-D pictures that Arp and his collaborators show (the "they look funny" is your interpretation) is exactly that; empirical. If you would point your telescope at NGC 7319 (supposing you have a comparable telescope) you can verify for yourself (= provable) that this same object is there with the same redshift of 2.11.


Cheers.

Yes, you can verify that a quasar is shining through (in?) a galaxy. That is not empirical evidence for intrinsic redshift, it is empirical evidence that a quasar is shining through (in?) a galaxy.

"Looks like" as in, one says "there is no intrinsic redshift" to which the Arpinians reply "look at this picture". In other words, the picture "looks funny". As in odd. As in unusual. You know, "funny".

__________________
All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct.~ Carl Sagan ~

Humanity must rise above the Earth, to the top of the atmosphere and beyond, for only then will we fully understand the world in which we live.~Socrates, 500 B.C. ~

Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has himself read, not by what others tell him. ~Albert Einstein~

I have no doubt that there is a quasar in that direction. I'm just saying that it is shining through the galaxy. Duane's biggest point is that there is no evidence for "intrinsic redshift", aside from what I've mentioned earlier about the positron annihilation gamma-rays from the surface of the neutron star.

This whole thing is a "what if" speculation, just like CREIL. There's no test or evidence of it in any lab or observation, but what if there was some kind of intrinsic redshift that could uniformly affect normal matter spread over a ten thousand lightyear space... hmmm. then there might be a way to show that everyone else is wrong. OK, lets go with it.

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Hold that thought there, your interpretation of the observation is that the quasar is shining through the galaxy, Burbidge et al's interpretation is that an object shining through a galaxy's core should show reddening (which is a fact), and this object isn't showing the expected reddening.

Only two possibilities here, either the quasar is close, or it is shining through.

Now, you can come up with all kinds of interpretations based on this observation, but for this object to be a background quasar, you'll have to show that either there is a hole in the galaxy, exactly matching the size of the observed quasar, or find an explanation why the background quasar isn't reddened.
Otherwise the object is close, which begs the question what causes it's redshift. It's really quite simple.

Cheers.

Wrong, I made no such interpretation.

First, the object does show reddening (its redshift is z=2.11), second it is not a fact that such an object shining through a galaxy should show redding, as that assumes opacity.

Regardless, where is the empirical evidence?

__________________
All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct.~ Carl Sagan ~

Humanity must rise above the Earth, to the top of the atmosphere and beyond, for only then will we fully understand the world in which we live.~Socrates, 500 B.C. ~

Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has himself read, not by what others tell him. ~Albert Einstein~

I did.

Concerning reddening, as we discussed earlier, the evidence for reddening was not clear, but since the quasar is already red-shifted z=2.11, there is very little blue light to get reddened. This would be hard to see.

With luck, Geoffrey Burbidge et al. used their time with the big telescope to get a nice detailed spectrum of the quasar, and we can look for absorption lines at z=0.02 in the quasar spectrum. If so, we'll know more by March.

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Forming opinions as we speak

If it's a theory, yes. I'm also interested in a reference to Arp elaborating on the quasar -> BL Lac object -> ... -> ordinary galaxy idea. Something other than just words would be nice.
Here's part of the difference between us, I feel; 'collecting empirical evidence' is not the same as stating an alternative, whether theory or model, or even hypothesis; it's just a bunch of experimental and observational results, possibly organised according to some categorisation or classification; in this sense, de Vaucouleur's, Arp's, Hickson's, ... the 2dF, SDSS, ... catalogues are excellent resources, but not theories.
But what IS his model?!?
Again, we seem to be almost 180 degrees out here ... let's suppose we observe a bunch of distant type Ia SN, and plot their estimated distance (from the light curves) against observed redshift. Suppose we find a systematic variation from the Hubble relationship. Does that mean there is 'an intrinsic redshift mechanism'? No matter how well we can characterise the observed data, we are not entitled to declare 'an intrinsic redshift mechanism'. Any such mechanism must come from a theory (or, more likely, an hypothesis).
This is probably quite important ... my strong impression reading the papers is that the proponents do seem to have made some interesting observations, but trip themselves up in two ways:
1) their analyses of the data, to support their conclusion that the observations are inconsistent with the mainstream, are flawed, sometimes badly flawed
2) instead of presenting just the observational results, they wave their hands and present qualitative ideas that offer little or no path towards further investigation.
Eventually yes, but OOM calculations would be nice to start with.
Per my post in the EU thread, you can do OOMs in no more than a weekend, particularly the 'sanity check' kind; yet I see we're still discussing ideas that should have been laid to rest within days of their being created, because even simple OOMs show they are hopeless. And, at the risk of boring readers silly, if all there is is a collection of very interesting observations, then we can't introduce extravagences such as 'intrinsic redshift'.
Ideas may come from anywhere; it's what you do with them that matters.

I really must refer you to his books, but maybe as an overview of the different stages in Arp's model this link helps.

I'm not very keen on discussing his variable mass hypothesis (which he developed together with Narlikar), because I think this model is incorrect. But I do think his observations are important.
On a general note: intrinsic redshift is not something away from mainstream, imo, because all kinds of effects have been described already that influence the value of redshift (gravity, K-effect, Wolf effect).
I'm surprised with the the response by most here that the observations are not enough to even consider non-cosmological (intrinsic) redshifts. Velocity and cosmological (expansion) redshifts are the only ones that are accepted as being important, the question is whether this is always true.
Calling the report of observations and the call for an intrinsic redshift mechanism handwaving is unfair, imo. I think if you don't have the mechanism it can still be inferred. If the same logic is applied to dark energy, you would have to shoot that down as well.

Cheers.

Part of the reason non-velocity explanations for cosmological redshifts are ignored is the observed time-dilation in the light curves of supernovae. I know that JMB promised to rework his paper on the Type II Malmquist Bias, but that was the better part of a year ago, and Ari, hasn't published anything new on it either [JMB's source]. I suspect that they are stuck facing the light of better observations, and have to realize that there is no bias, and the observed time dilation is real; hence the cosmological redshift is largely a result of recessional velocity.

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I think you confuse Jerry Jensen, who published on the SN lightcurves, and JMB (Jacques Moret-Bailly) who published on CREIL together. And Ari would that be Ari Brynjofsson? I wasn't aware he had published on the SN lightcurves, he has papers on Plasma Redshift as a mechanism.

Cheers.

You are right about my confusion there. It was Jerry, and I remembered it as Jacques who did the light-curves paper. Sorry for any confusion, and yes, Ari is Ari Brynjofsson.

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Forming opinions as we speak

Indeed that would be a good approach, as well as exactly measuring the reddening of the source (if possible).

I know that Ultra Luminous X-ray sources (ULX's) can be found in galaxy cores. Some of them could be in the same category as this z=2.11 quasar. Is there maybe a list somewhere with information on redshift and reddening? I suppose any distant object shows reddening because of extinction of the light through the intergalactic medium. Looking through a galaxy this reddening must be stronger, are there any numbers known?

Cheers.

A list? I don't know exactly what you're looking for. Generally there isn't much reddening from intergalactic media. All you get from that is Hydrogen absorption from the various redshifts of the clouds the light goes through. This doesn't redden as much as introduce aborption lines. There is no dust.

Concerning the details of the spectrum of this z=2.11 quasar, the earlier data did not have a very detailed spectrum because of the difficulty of isolating the signal from the light of the stars in the galaxy in front of [or around] it, but also because the visual magnitude is very high [weak], and the amount of telespcope time required to get it, and the customized jigs required to isolate the signal would be difficult to get.

I do not know the nature of Burbidge's observations with the big tool, so it is possible that he did not specifically get a detailed spectrum this time either. There's no need to speculate about this though, as the results will be published in a small number of weeks.

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Forming opinions as we speak

"- statistical analyses whose conclusions appear inconsistent with the mainstream (e.g. sky distributions of quasars and galaxies)"

What are the sky distributions of quasars and galaxies?

Can somebody post a link to sky distributions of quasars and galaxies?

I will follow rules of the forum but one has to be open to new ideas where the old ones are helpless.

You see new ideas are like flies. One's reaction is first to flip them rather than to explore. There are deep running similarities in behaviors and across the scales and this has to be studied.

Quasars and Galaxies are distributed relatively evenly across the whole sky.
Here is a map [probably not what you're looking for that shows the distribution of a narrow wedge of quasars as seen in the third dimension in the 2df survey.
2df quasars

The center of these two pie-slice shaped wedges is us.

BTW, thanks for being friendly about the rules.

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Forming opinions as we speak

So, we agree on gravity VanderL; and while the Wolf effect is nice, AFAIK, there is no good observational data that suggest its signature in any astronomical object (if I have understood the papers you pointed me to correctly, a detailed look at a spectrum will reveal features that can distinguish between the Wolf effect and Doppler).

What is the 'K-effect'?
We probably agree more than it would seem ... in that good observations if combined with decent analyses can characterise an effect whose mechanism is unknown. The example you give ('Dark Energy') is a good one - the data from distant Type Ia SN is quite interesting, independently observed (at least two teams), etc; the flurry of papers on DE, quintesscence, generalised Chaplygin gas, etc can be seen as 'theoreticians' searching for a mechanism. Then when DE (in some form) was added to the factors used to analyse WMAP (and other CMBR) data, the fit (of the concordance model) improved.

Compare this with quasars (for example): in the early days, the observational data was sparse, and what little there was seemed to pose a challenge to mainstream views (e.g. the z-brightness plots didn't look at all like those for galaxies). In those days, the Arp, Burbidge etc ideas were taken just as seriously as any other.

Fast forward to the 21st century ... there is now a great deal of good observational data on well over 50,000 quasars, and models which do a very respectable job of accounting for ALL aspects of that huge data set.

Compare this with the Arpians ... no model (unless there's one about how quasars evolve to become normal galaxies, bleeding redshift and luminosity along the way - you still haven't posted a reference to this VanderL), weak analyses (wrt z periodicites, quasar-galaxy alignments, etc), ... not even (AFAICS) a characterisation of the supposed effect! (other than periodicities; compare this with DM in galaxy clusters, for example - several independent sets of observations, estimates of the amount and distribution, and consistency ... we don't know what the DM is, but its footprint is well characterised). In my book, that's handwaving.

There's also the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey, which is now done, [/b][/quote]
It is earlier in this very thread Paul21!

A 'sky distribution' of 'distribution on the sky' is simply a (2D) map; you plot the RA and Dec of the object you observe. These days it's all held in relational databases, which are structured to permit easy analysis.

What 2dF and SDSS are producing (produced, in the case of 2dF, the surveys are complete) is an 'unbiased' set of data of a great many quasars and galaxies, across a large part of the sky ... the data is much more than just position (RA, Dec), it includes redshift, magnitude and colours, and spectra. SDSS also produces 'postage stamp' images (maybe 2dF did too). The surveys are 'unbiased' in the sense that the identification, selection, and measurement of the objects was done entirely mechanically, using techniques that a great deal of work went into (to ensure they were robust, etc). Further, the two used quite different selection methods, so the results - which are quite consistent - can also be used to look for any subtle selection effects or other systematics.

In the context of our present discussion, these surveys are particularly pertinent because
a) AFAIK, they do NOT reveal any systematic anomalous redshifts
B) they are public; anyone - yes, even any UT member - can get the data and do their own analyses
c) they are large and unbiased (did I say that already?).

There are several 'medium-deep' and 'deep' surveys underway (or completed); the data from these are also in the public domain (and no, VanderL, none seem to have shown any systematic anomalous redshifts).

Can't let this go (even when split between Huygens and redshift), lumping in more redshift data points will not change Arp's observations. It will probably wash out any periodicities, because if Arp is correct all the periodicities should be found in reference to the parent galaxy. If the parent galaxy's redshift differs, it's "offspring" will show a periodicity plus the parent redshift.


That's what is happening with dark matter and dark energy, both are patches (imo) to make theory accord with observations. As long as we can't tell what any one of these two mysterious entities is, they don't impress me much. Maybe that's even comparable with your "handwaving" qualification of the unknown redshift mechanism; both lines of reasoning are either acceptable or both are unacceptable. We should keep our minds open to the possibility of an intrinsic redshift mechanism, it would at least explain Arp's, Burbidge, Bell, Russell at al. observations.

Cheers.

Indeed ... now all you have to do is show that this is at least possible, even in an OOM sense! Please, no more handwaving; give me the straight scoop - show me the data!

(Oh, and BTW, why do you think that the analyses of the the 2dF and SDSS data wouldn't have revealed such an association? Have you had a good look at these analyses?)
The key difference, ihmo, is that a quite small 'patch' is sufficient to account for an enormous body of high quality data! Quantitative vs qualitative - the former is much easier to subject to robust testing than the latter.

As to 'mysterious entities', in what sense is the (Einstein) cosmological constant any more mysterious than (say) neutrino flavour?

Oh, and whatever DM or DE may (or may not) be, at least the observational results which these seek to account for are well characterised.
On this, we are surely in complete accord!

All I'm asking is that you (or Arp, Burbidge, Bell, Russell et al.) provide the data and accompanying analyses which indicate that there is any significant inconsistency with the mainstream view.

Here's part of my problem: a statement such as "We should keep our minds open to the possibility of {insert your favourite qualitative handwaving here}, it would at least explain {insert your favourite poorly characterised dataset here}" doesn't really help anyone make any headway. For example, if I give you 100 hours on the HST, what are you going to do (to test these ideas)? Can you show that these 100 hours of precious observing time will have any likelihood of making a difference?

Would a list of publications of the analyses of these people help? I can scour Arp's books for examples but that'll only work when you see the accompanying images. I'll get some sleep now, and if you want to dig in deeper I can provide articles/papers tomorrow. My main concern is that you repeat your earlier contention that all those papers amounts to bad analyses and bad science.
Asan aside there some new papers coming up, maybe those will better suit your quest for "harder" data.

Cheers.

Here's the way I see it. There is overwhelming evidence that at least most, if not all quasars, are at the cosmological distances that standard theory says they are. There are thousands of pages of research literature that atest to this. One example would be Evidence consistent with the cosmological interpretation of quasar redshifts by Yi-Pin Qin, et al. (this preprint is dated 29 April 2000, a later version by Qin & Liang only, appeared in the Publications of the Yunnan Observatory in 2002, a publication rarely seen outside of China; also see Distribution of the extensive Doppler redshift of quasars, Yi-Pin Qin, et al., Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 351(4): 1319-1326, July 2004; the 2004 paper cites the 2000 preprint, but not the 2002 Yunnan publication, probably due to the obscurity of the Chinese journal). My link to the 2000 preprint goes to the abstract page. If you download the PDF and look at figure 1, it is most revealing. Not only does it show that the redshifts of the Lyman-alpha absorbers are consistently less than the redshift of the QSO, but it also shows that the larger the QSO redshift, there are systematically more Lyman-alpha absorbers counted. The latter systematic trend only lessens for QSO redshifts greater then 4, probably because the high redshift QSO's are systematically dimmer (which is also consistent with greater distance). The few emission redshifts that are greater than the QSO redshift are consistent with emission from a moving source in the QSO. It is certainly self consistent, and externally consistent, to say that the QSO's in this study are at cosmological distances.

Another good example is that more & more QSO's are observed to be associated with host galaxies, which are clearly at cosmological distances due to their apparent brightness & angular diameter (see Hubble Surveys the "Homes" of Quasars & Hubble Resolves Quasars' Host Galaxies for representative examples).

Arp has made a career of finding unusual objects, and images that he has used to challenge standard cosmology. As it turns out, for me at least, most of his work has indeed been shown to be poor statistical analysis (a weakness he has never repaired), and misinterpretation of images, where his connecting bridges between objects of disparate redshift either disapper altogether, with improved imagery, or are shown spectroscopically to be simple superimpositions. As a result os his substandard track record of achievements, he is indeed mostly ignored by the professional community, and I think with good reason. (This was all hashed out in the early 80's, over 20 years ago now, when I was a grad student, and contemplating a never written thesis on Arp's work.)

However, this does not mean that all of his images are easily explained, and there are indeed interesting challenges presented, or at least potentially interesting challenges. But my big complaint, and it's really big, is that Arp and others will use one image, such as the NGC7319 image, to argue that all QSO's are non-cosmological, and that all QSO's have significant intrinsic redshifts. To me it seems so embarrasingly obvious that this cannot be so, that I cannot understand why anyone as smart as Arp would say such a thing. It literally boggles the mind.

The correct interpretation, as I see it, is that just because something looks superficially like a quasar, does not make it a quasar. In the EU thread, a major mistake made by the EU proponents is the assumption that the effects of E&M can be scaled up in size arbitrarily, ignoring other forces. But there are things in nature that do scale up more or less comfortably, and accretion around a central massive object is one of them. The dynamic environment of a stellar mass accreting black hole will look quite similar to that of a much more massive, galactic black hole, and will even resemble in many ways the less energetic process of accretion in star birth. I don't know what the object seen in NGC7319 really is; it might be a quasar seen through the galaxy, it might be a "microquasar" in NGC7319 or even in our own Milky Way, or it might be a totally new class of object, a real find. It might have an intrinsic redshift, or the spectral lines used to determine the initial redshift could have been misidentified (this actually happens more than you might think, but rarely makes it to publication past the referee's hawkeye).

I'm not in the mood to say it's this or that, because I really just don't know. But I am in the mood to say that this image, regardless of its implications for the objects in it, can say nothing at all about the large number of objects that are obviously quasars and are obviously at cosmological distances. It is just plain illogical & unreasonable to assume that the effects of this object apply to all objects everywhere, that look something like that.

Happy weekend.

Hi Paul21,

Here is a paper that addresses your question, it seems quasars are mostly found near (or in the general direction of) galaxy clusters.

Cheers.

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the links, those papers are indeed very hard to find and give valuable information.

I'm not sure about this, but this seems to be a finding that would be consistent with predictions by Jacques Moret-Bailly on how the CREIL effect explains the way the Lyman-alpha "forest" should be interpreted as an intrinsic mechanism where H* is the cause of the redshifted spectral lines.

These finding are not inconsistent with Arp's idea that QSO's evolve into normal galaxies; intermediate stages are expected.

Thanks for open-minded approach, as the papers from Arp et al. testify, the discussion is not over.

The underlying problem is that unless this (admittedly disputed) intrinsic redshift mechanism is found there is no way of knowing if and by how much current theory must be adapted/discarded.

And this all boils down to what you say in the first line of this last quote, we simply don't know. And until the issue is resolved, it does not strike me as "illogical & unreasonable" to think this object could have implications for other quasars.

Cheers.

Hi Nereid,

What's an OOM calculation?

Cheers.

"Order of magnitude"; a.k.a. 'back of the envelope'; I've also heard it called 'spherical cows'. An example might be: assume that galaxies cover 50% of the sky, quasars are point sources, and that the distributions of each are independent; then half of all quasars will be on the same line of sight as galaxies. Assume all quasars have higher redshifts than all galaxies, then all the 'quasars in/on galaxies' will have a higher redshift than the galaxies they appear to be associated with. This is an OOM ... galaxies do not cover 50% of the sky, galaxy-galaxy superpositions haven't been considered, quasars are not point sources, the extent of quasar-galaxy association depends upon the details of the distributions of each, etc. However, this kind of calculation can give you a quick indication of whether you're in the right ballpark or not, and save months of work (by not working on something that has little likelihood of yielding an interesting result).

Ah, I know of the back of the envelope but OOM was something I hadn't seen written before. It seems to me that Arp's empirical model is very difficult to abstract into a "spherical cow".

This paper shows Arp's model but I wouldn't know where to begin with the calculation you ask for. There are just too many variables.
You could start with active galaxies and search for aligned X-ray sources and check if they are quasars. You could look for periodicities. You could start with regions of "concentrations" of quasars and look for active galaxies. In the above paper Arp and Russell checked galaxy clusters and looked for evidence fitting the model. You could look for X-ray sources in galaxy cores. You could look for bridges of material connecting low-and high redshift objects. A lot of objects fit into Arp's model, actually if the man is right, almost every visible object must be related to other visible objects like in a family tree; parent galaxies ejecting quasars who evolve into galaxies and can give rise to further offspring etc etc. I don't think there's an envelope large enough to start calculating those kinds of odds.
So, what Arp and others are doing is breaking the model into parts and verify (or try to verify) those parts. They keep describing examples, and that's all they can do for now, because the only thing lacking imo, is a redshift mechanism (maybe CREIL, or some mechanism like it is the solution).

Cheers.

Btw did you find any links useful, do you still need links to more papers?