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Well, the consensus among the cosmologists at Penn (as of last summer, anyway) was that Webb's quasar results were probably incorrect. For one thing, his methodology was suspect, and for another thing, at least one attempt to reproduce his result, using a larger sample of quasars, failed to see any effect.

Last year I floated an alternative explanation on FR: that all of the results might be correct, if Webb's anomaly represented a change in fundamental constants not over time, but over space. (The Penn cosmologists didn't think much of my idea, FWIW.) The advantage to that hypothesis is that it makes the anthropic principle worth discussing: the only sort of Hubble volume within the larger universe that we would be permitted to see would be the ones capable of supporting life, but there would exist many other types of Hubble volumes besides.

All that said, it's almost unavoidable that the coupling constants have in fact changed over time, albeit at a much earlier epoch than is probed by quasar studies. As we probe higher and higher energies, we see that the coupling constants do in fact change. (Google the phrase "running coupling constant" for more.) At some point in the very very early universe, alpha really was different.

Thank you.

And little lambsie divey!

Something to add to the discussion.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/04/050418204410.htm

(sorry I am so late getting to the thread) sigh.