In article ,
Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:

We have damn-all direct evidence of general relativity at high space-
time stresses, or even that the red shift is due to recession

I disagree with the position that there is a bright line between
observation and inference,

Eh? I never claimed there was one. I was drawing a (blurred) distinction
between direct and indirect evidence - where the former rests on a basis
of only theories themselves established by direct evidence, culminating
in actual measurements.

but I presume that you consider the various
standard candle techniques, the correlation between luminosity and
redshift, and the variation of galaxy morphology with redshift to be
indirect evidence.

Of course, because they are.

Would the light echo of SN 1987A be the greatest
distance that you accept as directly measured?

I would need to study the paper in detail, to see whether it relies on
any so-far-unproven hypotheses.


This is off-group, so will be my penultimate post.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.