In support of bbrout's non-doppler redshift suggestion, here is a paper on the subject, attributing redshift to scattering by gas. This was all news to me. (Note to bbrout -- LOTS of math, enjoy! 
)
http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/hubble/index.html
And here is the program summary from a conference dedicated to non-doppler redshifts -- lots of alternate theories here.
http://flux.aps.org/meetings/YR03/APR03/baps/abs/S3890.html
To be fair regarding the history of non-doppler red shift theories, the major one is the tired light theory which is almost always ridiculed and discarded for lack of a mechanism to tire the light and conserve energy. However, as much as the theory is discounted, it does explain a heck of a lot which an expanding universe theory does not. If a mechanism can be found to explain the red shifting of light over great distances, the big bang theory would be a dud. Scattering by dust is not that bad an idea, however, there is no intergalactic dust. However, to toss a fox into the hen house, there are heaps of gravitational fields out there. I shall look at the other theories as well.
Just checked out Pressler. Close but no math. Neutrino scatter? I don't think so.
Definitely. You gotta have the math. Looking at galactic structure, I tend to believe there is a lot of substance to the idea of a black hole at the centre of the galaxy. I even think there is a pair of them but no joy finding proof. There is substantial proof in finding at least one though. I also see no reason why the population of black holes has to be restricted to the galactic plane. (dee plane! dee plane!). Other than the fact that there is some evidence to say perhaps, maybe, some unobserved mass in the halo; saying that 70% - 90% of the universe is arm waving is worse than Pressler.
For the casual reader, here is a standard rebuttal of the tired light theory:
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/tiredlit.htm
For the VERY casual reader , here is wikipedia on tired light:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tired_light
Thanks for playing! 
Here's a really good (I think) MOND survey from the informed pro-MOND perspective.
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~ssm/mond/
Wright has some excellent stuff. MOND is an interesting hypothesis but insists we discard the assumptions of a homogeneous and isotropic universe. Non-Newtonian phenomena should be produced in the lab, like experiments revealing relativistic effects. I haven't gone through all the MOND stuff, there is a lot of it, but will check it from time to time.
I have just posted a little write-up that may have something to do with dark matter.
http://vixra.org/abs/0909.0007
Yes, I'm the author. It is written very straighforwardly and there is no advanced mathematics. Rotational dynamics, which we all learned in high school, and gravitational attraction, al la Isaac Newton, which we also learned in high school, demands that if the components of any geometric figure have the same constant rotational velocity, then the geometric figure must have a linear orientation with a constant density. In layman's terms, it's a stick. It's a straight line. It cannot be anything else. Our galaxy, by simple inspection and from radio astronomy data on the hydrogen line, shows our galaxy looks like a stick. Not a sphere, not a central nucleus with a disc, not a dance of magic fairies singing dark matter days are here again, but a stick. Therefore, in the reference frame of a star in our galaxy or NGC 3198, all the stars appear to be lined up nice and even. But it takes time for the gravitational influence (ie. attraction) and light to reach from the inner to outer stars and vice-versa. Therefore, in a reference frame away from the galaxy, the galaxy appears as ... (wait for it) ... a spiral. Imagine that. We can then work out the equation for the spiral from knowing the speed of light and the galaxy's rotational velocity. This gives us a size scale for the galaxy. We take a picture of the galaxy which is in a scale of angular separation, or minutes and seconds of arc. We know size of galaxy from our generated spiral, we match size scale in light years to picture scale in minutes and seconds of arc, and we can then directly measure the distance to the galaxy. (Use arc length of giant celestial sphere ... radius of sphere is distance to galaxy). We don't need no red shift, we don't need no pulsating variables. All we need is the rotating velocity and a decent image of the galaxy. There is definitely no dark matter or exotic material in either NGC 3198 or our galaxy. There might be dancing fairies though and this will require more research. I am applying for funding now. Nevertheless, I am madly measuring the distance to galaxies, about 900 of them, and plotting a realistic and true Hubble diagram. I am trying for 2-figure accuracy. The resultant diagram is a little scary. Details to follow. I hope that helps. Glad to answer any questions.
Um, bb ... are you saying that the spiral structure is, in effect, an optical illusion? How does that work for elliptical galaxies with no spiral structure?
To put that another way...
1. The rotation curves for elliptical galaxies resemble those for spiral galaxies.
2. If Spirals are really sticks (to explain the rotation curves without recourse to dark matter) then Ellipticals are presumbably sticks as well.
3. Why don't ellipticals appear to have a spiral structure as well?
Good questions guys. The spiral is not an illusion. It is just as "real" as the stick. It depends on your reference frame. If you are rotating around with the stick, then the stick is stationary in your reference frame. Then it doesn't look curved. If your reference frame, let's say where you are not rotating around with the stick, is relatively inertial, then it appears curved -- a spiral. The stick is really long eh? Like 300,000 light years. Think of some very strong person in the middle spinning it. It takes 150,000 years for the spinning of the middle to reach the ends. By that time, the middle is wound up a fair bit. You get a spiral. But if you are sitting on the end, then you see the middle 150,000 years ago when the "spin" hits you. The stick ain't moved yet, it appears straight.
Regarding ellipticals and barred spirals, I have not investigated them yet. I am only investigating one spiral galaxy in this paper. That's all. And this spiral galaxy definitely rotates with a constant rotational velocity profile of 151 Kps if my memory serves me right. If it has a constant velocity profile then all the stars in the galaxy see the other stars lined up in a straight line. We see the same thing in our own galaxy. If there is any mass distribution other than linear, meaning a sphere or a disc or a large central mass rather than a linear mass distribution, then you cannot have a constant velocity profile. That is irrefutable.
Your points concerning ellipticals are well taken, however they are presented as antithesis rather than thesis. Just because ellipticals behave in ways we find difficult to explain, and I haven't looked at them yet, does not mean my findings are invalid. After examining the rotational velocity curves of over 900 spiral galaxies, I am confident in reporting that there is simply no evidence of any exotic, bizarre, transparent, imaginary substance such as "dark matter" unless it is also completely massless as well.
What's holding the stick together?
Sticks exist because gravity on our scale is trivial compared to the molecular forces holding the stick together, but any stick the size of a planet or larger should collapse to a sphere, or, if rotating, to an ellipsoid.
A stick the size of a galaxy would have collapsed long ago. So what's keeping it from doing so? Not gravity.
Haven't you just replaced one impossible thing (dark matter) with something even more impossible?
Good grief! Of course it is not an actual stick!!!! It is a linear orientation of matter, stars, interstellar dust and gas, black holes, pulsars, white dwarfs and so on, which are all held together by their mutual gravitational attraction which is an inverse squared field. Of course it is not an actual stick! It just looks like a stick if you are going around with it. I was using an analogy. The stars, etc, are all going around their mutual centre of mass with the same tangential velocity. The farther out from the centre of mass you are, the more mass there is in the central part pulling you in so you don't slow down as a result of increased distance from the centre. You don't have to speed up either. It all works out, because everything is in a linear orientation, that you keep orbiting with the same tangential velocity. Now, since we only see this situation for a short time and we don't detect the orbits, in our own galaxy everything looks like it is moving at the same speed in the same direction, which it is, including you. If you are traveling with some speed, then everything else traveling in the same direction and with the same speed as you appears stationary to you. In very straightforward terms, it LOOKS like a stick. All the stars appear lined up. But it is not an actual stick. For that you would need to cut down all the fricken' trees in Nottingham Forest. The peasants would be pissed.
However, my dear friend, if you are not going around with the stars orbiting the centre of mass of the galaxy; if you are just some innocent bystander minding his own business and just looking about and not bothering anyone and not intending to steal wood from the forest, the galaxy would look like a spiral. If we know the tangential velocity of the stars and the shape of the spiral, coupling the whole thing with the fact that gravity moves at the speed of light, then we can figure out how far away the galaxy is.
Furthermore, it is an extremely stable situation. Things have been this way for a rather long time.
Good grief! Of course it is not an actual stick!!!! It is a linear orientation of matter, stars, interstellar dust and gas, black holes, pulsars, white dwarfs and so on, which are all held together by their mutual gravitational attraction which is an inverse squared field. Of course it is not an actual stick! It just looks like a stick if you are going around with it. I was using an analogy."
I actually did get that it’s an analogy 
, but if it looks like a stick, quacks like a stick, rotates like a stick, it’s still a very low entropy (improbable and unstable) arrangement. We all just agreed to call it a stick.
The stars, etc, are all going around their mutual centre of mass with the same tangential velocity. The farther out from the centre of mass you are, the more mass there is in the central part pulling you in so you don't slow down as a result of increased distance from the centre. You don't have to speed up either. It all works out, because everything is in a linear orientation, that you keep orbiting with the same tangential velocity.
It doesn’t work out precisely because everything is in a linear orientation.
The force of gravity decreases as the distance squared – not linearly. Sticks or ‘linear orientations that look like sticks’ distribute mass…linearly. That’s why this construct is so improbable. In order for the rotational velocities to be constant as you proceed out from the center there has to be an uneven distribution of mass away from the center. The ‘stick’ has to get more massive out near the edges. That’s unstable. The force of gravity will concentrate the mass at the center, not the edges.
The question “what holds the stick together?” amounts to “What force maintains that unstable distribution of mass?”
No guy, if there is a linear distribution of matter, the amount of matter pulling you in minus the amount of matter pulling you out increases linearly as the distance from the centre of mass increases. If it is a sphere it increases as r^3 and if it is a disk it increases as r^2. If it is a linear distribution of matter of constant linear density, it increases linearly with r. Therefore the amount of force pulling you in, and thereby maintaining circular orbit, is proportional to r. Or, F=kr for some constant k. This is just plain and simple high school physics. I am sure you can follow it. Since the force of gravity, which is the force we are talking about, is proportional to 1/(r^2), r's cancel and we are left with a force that is proportional to 1/r. Or, to spell it out so you don't get lost here, F = kr/(r^2), r's cancel, and F=k/r. r is in both cases the distance to the centre of mass. We are dealing with circular motion in which the centripetal acceleration is equal to (v^2)/r. Since F=ma, the masses cancel on both sides to give us the force, or k/r, which is equal to the force necessary for circular motion. we then get k=v^2 because the r's again cancel. This means the tangential velocity is a constant throughout the linear distribution of matter. Any other distribution, spherical, disk, or non constant linear density, invalidates the observed data.
You have postulated with rather great enthusiasm on your particular theories, but have not presented one iota of math or any substantiation of a thesis. All you have presented is antithesis. If you have an alternative, then show us the math.
You have postulated with rather great enthusiasm on your particular theories, but have not presented one iota of math or any substantiation of a thesis. All you have presented is antithesis. If you have an alternative, then show us the math.
Did I appear to be postulating a theory? Apologies. My bad. I have no theories, only questions.
It's not the math in your model that bothers me, it's the physics.
You can get mathematical predictions to an arbitrary level of accuracy using Ptolomy's epicycles -- but the physics is wrong.
You are describing a distribution of matter in a galaxy that simply defies physics. Gravity is a one-way force. All the matter in a galaxy is mutually attractive. The only stable configuration of that matter is one in which the density increases towards the center.
Nope, the physics is sound. Yes, gravity is mutually attractive. I did not say otherwise. If you are a star in the galaxy, the stuff farther out pulls you away from the centre, the stuff farther in, pulls you towards the centre. Simple physics. The force is 1/r^2 from the centre of mass in, vs 1/r^2 going out. Adding both we get an inverse squared field. Or, if you like you can integrate the forces along the matter distribution but using the centre of mass approach is a heck of a lot easier and you can see the physics better. The force of attraction depends on the amount of stuff towards the centre vs the amount of stuff further away from the centre. Since there is a linear distribution of matter with constant linear density, the attractive force is proportional to the mass, or, in terms of position, it is proportional to r. We now got r/r^2 which is simply 1/r. This is not Ptolemy, this is Newton and the physics is absolutely correct. We set the force necessary for circular motion equal to the force of attraction and the r's cancel, the mass of the orbiting star cancels, and we are left with a constant rotational velocity which matches the data.
"You are describing a distribution of matter in a galaxy that simply defies physics. Gravity is a one-way force. All the matter in a galaxy is mutually attractive. The only stable configuration of that matter is one in which the density increases towards the center."
That is complete hogwash my friend. Otherwise cough up the math that proves it. Feel free to use Newton's principle of gravitational attraction coupled with rotational dynamics which can probably be attributed to Kepler and Galileo. Magical substances, spells, charms and D20 rolls are not allowed.
Now, I don't mean to be facetious here. But please realize that the world of science, actually only a shrinking number of the confused who have yet to do high school physics, is postulating the existence of undetectable and invisible stuff which has never been defined as to what it is and has no properties other than that predicted by the world of magic to substantiate it.
To clarify on the presentation of an antithesis to attempt to fool everyone into believing it is a thesis, consider that you are saying you don't understand stuff, therefore there must exist stuff you don't understand and that if no one understands it, then it has to be right. Uh, I disagree on that one, especially if well established scientific principles explains it to a "T".
And please don't say math has nothing to do with physics. It was Galileo who said that mother nature speaks in the language of mathematics and without knowing mathematics, you cannot understand a word of what she is saying.
ha!