Irrelevant. Hmmm.
I have been looking for good copies of those images showing the texture of the Universe. This:
http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/uiu_plus/cosm/cosmology.htmis the best I can come up with in available time. Sure would like to have big ones for my wallpaper.
These images and my post on GR are meant to establish key, realistic, and germane fundamentals. In summary, any new theory must address our location out on a spiral arm of the Milky Way, the gradient in space described by GR, and the location of galaxy clusters along surfaces best described as bubbles. GR is verified. All suppositions must be based upon it or must incorporate it just as it incorporates Newtonian mechanics. Any theories pushed by avant garde scientists (or creationists) must simultaneously account for all of the above.
On the outside looking in:
The Earth cannot be at the center of the Universe because it is not even at the center of its own galaxy. There is a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy and it holds our spiral arm in orbit around it. I believe the period of our arm is about 126MY. What makes anyone think the Earth has more influence on the Universe than that supermassive black hole? Our neighboring galaxy, Andromeda, is on a collision course with the Milky Way. Its spiral arms are also orbiting a supermassive black hole. Thus, any "center" (or centre!) of the Universe is outside a region 1.5M light years in diameter that contains both galaxies. There is no evidence of any Universe event horizons within this volume other than the event horizons of the 2 supermassive black holes and some mavericks. Every galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center. So actually, any "center" must take all galaxies into account equally.
The Great One:
Just the fact that gravity has a gradient means that gravity is not the same everywhere on any scale and that the density of space is not the same everywhere. Inflation means the substance of space is intrinsically spreading out, galaxies are all spreading apart from each other. Galaxies are also intrinsically inflating. But the distance ratios between galaxy size and galaxy cluster size leave room for dynamic state changes. Photons are red-shifted because their phase velocity is reduced by the inflation of space on their way to the telescope photon detector. The greater the time they have been traveling, the more time that space has had to inflate before they travel through it. Crossing ever-inflated space reduces a photon's phase velocity. Gravity gradients are local but act on space the same way as inflation (coupling & mechanics), just locally symetric instead of universally symmetric. Photons traversing a gravity gradient can be blue or red-shifted. Just because inflation has red-shifted a photon and gravity or relative motion blue-shifted it again does not mean the Earth is the center of the Universe or that the Universe exists in shells around the Earth.
Clumps:
Since space has non-uniform texture, galaxies will collect and disburse where the gradient is greatest. Amazing to see that the Universe is organized as vast intertwining intersecting sheets. Galaxies seem to travel in the plane of the sheet and collect at edges. The gradient in space also causes physical motion. If physical motion is faster than inflation, maybe a red-shifted photon could be blue-shifted toward higher phase velocity. Nothing about this says anything about center (or even centre). Center is the anthropic notion and is actually very limiting in perspective. Based on the evidence, it looks to me like the gradient in the density of the space that became our Big Bang was non-uniform. The discontinuities grew into the bubbles. Maybe the size of the bubbles tells us the age of the Universe. Maybe space in the bubbles is inflating faster due to the extra momentum represented by these postulated intital discontinuities. Why does there need to be a limit on gravity flux density?
What we need to do is allow science the time to map the Universe just as it maps the DNA and gene codes. There are not 50-some shells around us upon which the galaxies of the Universe are embedded. Quantization of red-shifts looks like good evidence that inflation changed gears in the past, and that it will do so in the future. Speculation on dark matter and dark energy are not excuses to re-introduce man as the center of the Universe or that there must be a supernatural species or being to blame. What they are is part of the iterative process on the path of scientific discovery. Getting there, the path is rocky. In hindsight, every natural phenomenon is elegant. What say you?