Dear Ruby,
before he contacted the community in general, he has contacted several people, including also the Beinecke library. In fact, he contacted the Beinecke first of all.
I cannot copy contents of the related E-mails here, but I can guarantee you that he has received constructive suggestions from the very beginning, but took a different approach by his own initiative.
It really got worse when he published an unacceptable paper in a peer-reviewed journal, and his own university retracted their recommendation of that work.
He has gone through about 8 different plants over the last 6 months or so, writing a paper on each plant. I haven't read them as I have made no attempt to identify the plants myself and so am not well-placed to give an opinion on the merits or otherwise of a given plant identification. On the language question I have already formed an opinion like others. It is conceivable that he may have made some useful identifications of or observations about plants even if his translation is flawed.
To make it clear I have put in considerable time, from all I can tell more than anyone ever, matching the large herbal plant drawings to the small botanical plant drawings. However this is completely different from matching those plants to plants in other manuscripts or in nature, which I have not done at all.
Rene, whether his article is acceptable or not, I deplore the current lack of cooperation. Admittedly, I'm not at the origin of this forum and I cannot transform it into a Voynich Sanctuary where the researchers could come to meditate and draw their inspiration, but I have the naivety to hope it, nevertheless.
I don't speak for this forum, and it is important to point out that this forum is just a small part of the global community of people interested in the Voynich MS.
The rejection of his work extends far outside this forum, and also outside the community of people interested in the Voynch MS, I am afraid.
Rene is right here, Ruby, I know several people who tried to offer constructive criticism to Cheshire. The problem in his particular case was not lack of community support. It was that he behaved from the very beginning like a rude charlatan and ignored all well-meaning and constructively formulated comments.
I have a degree in historical linguistics so I am capable of offering comments on a linguistics-centered paper. The problem is that his paper was just so wrong. I do not exaggerate when I say it was the equivalent of sending "4+4=2" to a mathematician and asking for his comments, then start insulting him when he patiently explains why the statement is wrong. That is exactly what Cheshire did to me and other well-meaning commenters.
It looks like he has made some effort with his plant identifications, though if they are biased by his supposed translations then that would be a problem.
Knowing nothing about plant identifications and at the moment having no plan to embark on such a task I get the impression that there is no widely accepted study of this subject. I am not even sure what is the best way to approach this subject, by comparing drawings in herbals of that period especially those referred to as "alchemical" or by direct comparison with images of real plants or of course both. I would guess comparison with drawings in herbal manuscripts would be more productive, especially those that seem to be more closely related.
(28-04-2020, 10:18 AM)Ruby Novacna Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
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P.S. I have not read its translation carefully, but I do not see how it's worse than other "translations", it takes at all to make a world.
Many of the other translations are subjective, completely lacking in any kind of replicable methodolory, lacking in logic, and lacking in historical accuracy.
All those are also true of Cheshire's work and yet he belligerently defends it, plays sock puppet on blogs (and probably also on the forum), and outwardly attacks other Voynich researchers (and has from the beginning).
He wrote to many Voynich.ninja members before publishing his paper, and when they offered helpful advice, he apparently reacted with rudeness to several of them, and ignored the good information provided by the rest.
There's no advantage in trying to attract and pacify someone who continues to dish up unsubstantiated research and has a hot-headed attitude.
(28-04-2020, 02:42 PM)Ruby Novacna Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Rene, whether his article is acceptable or not, I deplore the current lack of cooperation. Admittedly, I'm not at the origin of this forum and I cannot transform it into a Voynich Sanctuary where the researchers could come to meditate and draw their inspiration, but I have the naivety to hope it, nevertheless.
I do sympathise Ruby. There can be a tendency at times for all of us to treat other researchers and well as one another with some disregard. However I strongly doubt that is confined to Voynich researchers, but rather not uncommon across academia and the wider world.
I don't think Gerard is right and I communicated to him around the time he first started his research that I think he was going along to wrong path. Whilst on a couple of occasions he acknowledged that he might be wrong, overall he was pretty stubborn; though I don't thinking sticking to what one believes is true when others disagree is intrinsically a problem as long as one is open and has considered alternatives.
Whilst I have been critical of appeals to authority I do think Koen's background in historical linguistics is relevant given that Gerard does not have any such background.
I think people can be understandably frustrated when they see theory after theory from theorists with a steadfast conviction that they are right and an unwillingness to engage with an open mind with the community. Ultimately it is a two way street, so it is not only the communities fault if they don't gel.
I have found the whole Gerard Cheshire situation frustrating and frankly a bit sad; I mean I wouldn't want to get international publicity and acclaim only to have that later reversed publicly. It is a bit like having one's sporting medal reclaimed or literary prize cancelled; in short it is a bit embarrasing and humiliating. I am sure he believed(s) his theory, but just can't see that he is wrong. Also people sometimes don't like to back down and admit their mistakes. People can also get emotionally invested in their theories. I think when you have put a significant amount of time and energy into something then it is hard to admit to oneself that it was all for nothing; I wonder if that is related to the cognitive bias towards "loss aversion".
Nevertheless, we could easily over-emphasise how friendly the Voynich community is, but probably compared to twitter it is a realm of pure tolerance and harmony.
(28-04-2020, 06:03 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
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I have found the whole Gerard Cheshire situation frustrating and frankly a bit sad; I mean I wouldn't want to get international publicity and acclaim only to have that later reversed publicly. It is a bit like having one's sporting medal reclaimed or literary prize cancelled; in short it is a bit embarrasing and humiliating.
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He didn't respond as though he was embarrassed and humiliated, what he did was to vocally and heatedly disparage anyone who disagreed with him (including those trying to give constructive criticism).
Human psychology is complicated. Sometimes people have self-defense mechanisms, so how they react on the outside may not always completely reflect how people feel on the inside. It is hard to say that his experience was not in some way embarrassing. I imagine he felt quite angry with the people in the Voynich community due to their reaction to his theory, which from his point of view was treated quite unfairly. Probably we all didn't handle him as best we should, but then we are human so that's that. Anyone what can one do when there is a fundamental seemingly irreconcilable disagreement on the merits of a theory?