13-01-2017, 02:22 AM
I certainly am *not* questioning the science or the information thus provided. I am saying that there are different ways to interpret the data. As it is, we have four samples and four different dating results. And it turns out that these four results are close enough that they can be statistically combined *as if* they were all samples from a single batch of parchment production. That is not necessarily wrong, but it is *not* a proven assumption. The parchment used in the VMs *could* come from different dates of production. Having two production batches, early and late, shifts the date of manuscript completion to a year that *could* be after 1450.
There were only four samples tested. If a fifth sample gave a date c. 1475, what would that do to the investigator who imposed a cutoff date of 1450 and refused to consider 1451 and beyond?
What if the creator of the VMs was not a modern and contemporary person of the mid-1400s, but lived in an isolated, backwards monastery that was a century behind the times during the mid-1500s? The VMs is a unique manuscript and it occurs only once along the potential timeline. What if its origins are unusual as well? That cannot be determined by probability.
I have no problem with accepting that the standard scenario is a highly probable hypothesis. If researchers want to impose cutoff dates on their research, that is up to them. However, stating that something is a fact, when it is only something that is presumed to be a fact, leaves a bit to be desired, IMHO.
For example, in the first three pages of the VMs Zodiac, patterns of alternating stripes have been created on certain tubs using an artistic technique that *might* be described as the use of hatching lines. Is that an accurate description? If not, what is the alternative explanation? And if the patterns seen on some the VMs tubs correspond to traditional, heraldic examples, as some of them seem to do, then the combination of hatching and heraldry has yet to be demonstrated in the period defined by the current dates of parchment manufacture.
There were only four samples tested. If a fifth sample gave a date c. 1475, what would that do to the investigator who imposed a cutoff date of 1450 and refused to consider 1451 and beyond?
What if the creator of the VMs was not a modern and contemporary person of the mid-1400s, but lived in an isolated, backwards monastery that was a century behind the times during the mid-1500s? The VMs is a unique manuscript and it occurs only once along the potential timeline. What if its origins are unusual as well? That cannot be determined by probability.
I have no problem with accepting that the standard scenario is a highly probable hypothesis. If researchers want to impose cutoff dates on their research, that is up to them. However, stating that something is a fact, when it is only something that is presumed to be a fact, leaves a bit to be desired, IMHO.
For example, in the first three pages of the VMs Zodiac, patterns of alternating stripes have been created on certain tubs using an artistic technique that *might* be described as the use of hatching lines. Is that an accurate description? If not, what is the alternative explanation? And if the patterns seen on some the VMs tubs correspond to traditional, heraldic examples, as some of them seem to do, then the combination of hatching and heraldry has yet to be demonstrated in the period defined by the current dates of parchment manufacture.