I strongly disagree. I am speaking as an interested amateur, of course, but I have read large portions of the popular literature published by astrophysicists. So I think what I am about to say is cogent. I invite @physicists to correct anything that I might explain poorly or just incorrectly.
Guth inflation is only hypothesized in the first femtoseconds of the universe’s existence, when the density of matter-energy was so extraordinary that its physics could plausibly be weird.
The variable speed light hypotheses proposed within the astrophysics community all still leave us with a universe that is many biillions of years old.
Dark matter is inferred by the gap between observed gravitational fields and observed mass. Astronomers have detected some phenomena that suggest “dark flows” consistent with the dark matter hypothesis. The jury is still out on the question, of course.
Regardless of whether these three concepts are right or wrong, the fact that light emitted from stars in the Andromeda Galaxy 2 million years ago is reaching us tonight is basically beyond dispute. And this fact is completely undisturbed by any of the three concepts. Would you agree with this?
Lamoreaux and Torgerson have calculated any fluctuation in physics constants to have been no more than 4.5 in 108 over the last 2 billion years. (And quite possibly less, as no one has been able to reproduce their results, per Wikipedia.) Even if their results stand, we are still left with an earth, solar system, and universe that are billions of years old, are we not?
The thing that I find interesting as I look at the hypotheses you mentioned, @stcordova, is that they leave us with a solar system that is approximately 4.6 billion years old and a universe that is billions of years older than that. In other words, any YEC cosmologist who would look to them as support for a universe that is 6K years old is without question barking up the wrong tree.
Now let’s look at the YEC propositions you cite. Let’s see: are they reducing the age of the universe by a theologically insignificant amount like the unorthodox published theories? No, the YEC propositions are reducing the age of the universe by over six orders of magnitude.
This means the YEC propositions are six orders of magnitude different than the three published concepts you cited, @stcordova. They are not equivalent. VSL, dark matter, and Guth inflation do not leave the door open to every stray, unparsimonious mathematical equation that a YEC cosmologist can write down on the back of an envelope.
It seems you actually agree with this, as you have stated elsewhere on the forum that pretty much every YEC cosmology is unworthy of support:
Thus I do not understand why you backtracked and tried to justify YEC oddities that are not published in the mainstream literature.
Best,
Chris