A PhD student from IIT Madras asked me to comment on the reported discovery of gravitational waves in relation to my points about Einstein. My comments were as follows.
Any claim that the experiment has confirmed general relativity is wrong; scientific theories can only be refuted, never confirmed. It is faith which is confirmed.
My own theory of gravitation, RGT (Retarded Gravitation Theory), was most recently explained in an expository paper.
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“Functional Differential Equations. 4: Retarded gravitation”, Physics Education (India) 31(2) April-June, 2015.
There is no fundamental competition between GRT (General Relativity Theory) and RGT any more than there is a fundamental competition between Lorentz covariance and general covariance. One may however speculate on the generally covariant theory which would result if the flat spacetime limit is RGT, not Newtonian gravity, and so on.
After the solar system the galaxy and its structure is the next big problem in gravitation, not gravitational waves. However, it remains a fact that GRT cannot be used to understand the galaxy, which requires that we solve a billion body problem. At any rate the billion body problem in GRT could not be solved in the last century. It does not matter if GRT is the ultimate theory, for it has little practical value in the context of the galaxy.
Newtonian gravity fails for the galaxy, a failure which RGT corrects. Of course we can invoke dark matter. However, even if we grant the existence of some dark matter, the correct process is to use RGT not Newtonian gravity to calculate the amount of dark matter. Thus, being Lorentz covariant, RGT is surely a better approximation to GRT than Newtonian gravity. Hence, RGT is what ought to be used even by dark-matter theorists.
Long ago, the anomalous perihelion advance of Mercury was declared on of the three famous tests which “confirmed” GRT. However, that can be derived within RGT, though I have yet to publish on this. (The 2-body equations of RGT are published, you are welcome to solve them.) That is, the observed phenomena may be proof merely of Lorentz covariance, not general covariance. Lorentz covariance is, of course, an essential principle needed to measure time or anything else.