Hello Rene et all:
"- one to a page that addresses the arguments put forward by Rich Santacoloma why it should be a modern fake by Voynich
I have just removed the second page, because the arguments it was addressing are unreasonable."
I would think that is my arguments are "unreasonable", then it should be easy to address them, rather than delete your reasoning. I would be very interested in seeing why you think this is so.
In any case, I was not aware of the "One Minute Debunking" video, until stopping by the Ninjas. This gave me the opportunity of addressing the points there. I'll copy my comments below, here... which I think we'd all agree is fair, since my theories, and myself, have been named again.
I hope everyone is staying safe in these difficult times, no matter where you are. And here is hoping it is all over sooner than later...
Rich.
My rebuttal to the the debunking of my theory video:
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Many have suggested that the Voynich may be a forgery, and even a forgery by Wilfrid Voynich himself. However the above video seems to a great extent a reaction to my own hypothesis, since I call it "The 1910 Voynich Theory", and the opening title here states specifically "The manuscript was created by W. Voynich in 1910". I have come to believe it most likely that the work was made between about 1908 and 1910, by or for Wilfrid Voynich, and possibly created in the Libreria Franceshini using materials found there. Anyone interested in my work, and how I came to assemble this hypothesis, can check it out here: You are not allowed to view links.
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I always appreciate discussion, and even rebuttals to my ideas, because I think they are valuable ways to move forward. If one does not really consider criticism, and take it into account, and understand it, then ideas stagnate. One get stuck in a loop if they only consider their own viewpoint. In my case, I have moved through several ideas, prompted to a large extent by criticism. Looking at the reasons my critics believe some of my past ideas false has helped me to move forward, by discarding some, and coming up with new ways to understand what it is we are all looking at. I've moved through at least two major theories, in fact, discarding hundreds of individual ideas, and replacing them with many others.
But when any idea cannot be properly and explained in other ways, that is, when the critics cannot properly answer the elements of a hypothesis, that is an indication that one may be closer to the truth of the matter. This is what has happened with my modern forgery hypothesis. As it formed, I found that it became impossible for the critics to come up with reasonable (to me) reasons to dismiss it, or the elements it is made up with.
What is left is a reliance on silence, or the use of old saws that have actually been countered, or dis-proven entirely, or are actually, on examination, unreasonable alternatives to the elements of a forgery hypothesis. And I appreciate the attempt to debunk the theory, here, just as any criticism, but for one thing, it does use some old assumptions that are at best questionable, and at worst, demonstrably incorrect, to support the debunking. I think it is fair for me to point these out, and I am sure it will be taken in the spirit for which I intend it: To help others understand my point of view, so that they are free to make up their own mind about it. So I will address all the points of this claim of debunking. I may not get the quote exactly, as I am transcribing them, so please take them as a paraphrasing, and correct me if I get them wrong:
"The manuscript's vellum was eventually carbon dated to the early 15th century"
This is correct, although it is important to point out that the date range given, 1404 to 1438, was arrived at by "combining" a wider date range of the samples, based on the "assumption" that the book was made all at one time... or withing 10 or so years. The dating samples actual cover a date range of 60 years or more. This does not go specifically to your debunking, but is important to point out, as it is implied the dating is an accurate bit of evidence, supporting the later claims that it would have been unlikely Voynich would have gotten "lucky" and picked vellum "of the right age".
The second point to the dating is that he didn't pick the "right age". Before the carbon dating, the mass of paleographers, herbalists, and other experts didn't pick the early 15th century. That is, the content does NOT match the age of the vellum, it is only said now, by picking the two or so experts that "got it right", that it does. It is bit of circular logic, "20/20 Hindsight", combined with cherry picking those past and present experts who DO place the Voynich in the time of the carbon dating, that it is now said "It cannot be a forgery by Voynich, because he could have not predicted carbon dating". No, it is the opposite. He could not predict carbon dating, true, which is probably why the content does not match the age of the calfskin. But today, any evidence that does not fit the DATING is ignored, or discarded, to fit that dating (as one of dozens of examples, think of the "foldouts", which even the Yale experts admitted was very unusual "for the time" [i.e. the carbon date]).
"... which is right in its 'bingo zone' for its provenance".
Well not actually. Yes it predates the letters of the Kircher Carteggio, but part of that provenance includes the opinions that the work was by Roger Bacon (the Marci Letter), and so it would be far too new to fit that provenance, if early 15th century. So the carbon dating is actually well out of the given provenance, not in the bingo zone at all.
"As a trader of historic artifacts, its not impossible that Voynich had access to a large quantity of blank vellum, and with enough luck, it still fits."
Yes, in 1908, Voynich bought the vast collections of the Libreria Franceshini in Florence. Some accounts place the mass of items at over half a million. The son of the previous owner was selling off quantities of the 40 year collection as scrap, by weight, when Voynich bought the entire operation, and made it a branch of his business. But as to the "luck":
"The provenance that Voynich provided accurately describes a genuine codex. A description of this codex matches the Voynich manuscript [video shows a graphic with some text from the letters of the Kircher Carteggio, 'From the pictures of herbs, etc.']"
The text of those letters is actually a very poor representation of the Voynich, and it could describe a great many other works far better. It leaves out most of the important, identifying features of the Voynich, although the very purpose of the letters was to help Kircher identify whatever manuscript it actually may have been. It is unreasonable to think they would leave out the nude women, the zodiac, the constellations, the tubes, the cylinders, and much more that strikes us as characteristic of the work, when they would have far better helped Kircher fully appreciate the true content of it. The letters also leave out the supposed "signature" on f1r, which was visible to Voynich in 1912, and would arguably have been easily seen by Marci, Kinner, Baresch and Kircher. I mean, it would be very strange if these men were looking at the actual Voynich, and describing it to Kircher, to ignore the elephant in the room: That it was [supposedly] signed by Horcicky.
Also, it stretches credibility that of the great many "scripts" "unknown" to these 17th century men (hundreds, if not thousands), almost all of which are known today, and many translated, that one of the many unknown to them, but which by Wilfrid's day were well understood, that Wilfrid HAPPENED to find one that both they, and we, still do not know. That is hard to explain, so I'll try a different way to clarify: If one were forging a document about 1910, and wanted to pick an unknown script from the 17th century, to fit that part of the letter description, they would not and could not find a good example, as almost all were by then known. So, they would have to make up a new unknown script to fit that part of the description.
(you can see the many other scripts they discuss, by visiting the Kircher Carteggio collection. I was not able to find one other "unknown" script in there, that we didn't have a very good idea about, let alone fully know, by 1910).
But for the often used "provenance" of the descriptions in the letters, there are those and many more reasons to realize that this is actually not good provenance at all, and actually, in many ways, works AGAINST these men referring to the Voynich we know today: You are not allowed to view links.
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I call the manuscript referenced by them the "Baresch Manuscript", and think it may be somewhere, hiding in plain site. There are few candidates.
"To be a forgery, Voynich's luck would need to be astronomically ridiculous"
I would say his luck would actually have been pretty bad. For one thing, the work itself was never sold. He died in debt, his business struggling, and he and his wife and secretary struggled to sell the work. The reason was that it didn't actually fit the given provenance at all: A Roger Bacon. And the confusing and hodge-podge nature of the contents has persistently eluded any attempt to pin down an age, a style, a genre, a meaning... and people tend not to pay huge sums of money for unidentifiable items. They want to know what it was. No, if Voynich was at all "lucky", the work would have been identifiable as some thing or another, making it desirable and saleable; he would have picked the right age vellum for his attempt at a Roger Bacon provenance; or alternatively, he would have picked the age vellum for the majority of expert opinion; his friend Newbold would have come up with an acceptable proof of Bacon, which was not quickly "debunked". But instead, I think what happened here was that he shot and missed the mark: Created a work he hoped was interesting enough to be valuable, with nothing in it so identifiable as to be shown wrong, and that would be good enough to pass the standards at the time he announced it. But those standards quickly changed, casting the work into the limbo it is in to this day. I think, also, if we applied today's standards to the work, and actually listened to the experts and what they actually say about it, instead of relying standards we no longer use, it would be quickly rejected as quite a poor forgery.
My "rebuttal of this one minute debunking" only touches on a few of the issues, which relate to the formation of the video. But my comments by no means encompass the very great number of finds, by myself and others (whether or not they think the Voynich a forgery), the many anomalies, inconsistencies of the Voynich, nor on the flip side, the great many individual characteristics the manuscript actually shares with many historically known forgeries. For all of those, I encourage anyone interested to visit my blog, or watch my videos.
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Rich SantaColoma
