I would say not really! The real problem isn't the effect can't be replicated it is that replacing cosmological expansion with something else requires the somet

I would say not really! The real problem isn't the effect can't be replicated it is that replacing cosmological expansion with something else requires the something else to exactly mimic all the other things we can observe about the universe. Dark matter is a great example. Due to gravitational lensing this can mimic directly the redshift we can observe. But then you have to explain how all this dark matter is distributed(not to mention created) in a way that doesn't mimic cosmic expansion in one part of the sky but everywhere at once. I found the teaching company course on cosmology(from what I saw of it) to be absolutely fantastic as a general introduction: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=1830 http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.asp...