Questions needed for Stephen Bax interview

[nickpelling]

[quote pid='16309' dateline='1503839720']
UM, I am going to be completely blunt back agan. Do you know any theory or idea about the Voynich which is NOT controversial or unproven? Even the carbon dating is contested! From day one I have also made it clear that my discussions are provisional and partial.

[/quote]

Almost no notions about the Voynich Manuscript that get put forward in and of themselves give rise to controversy: the recent furore about Nicholas Gibbs wasn't at all about his ideas, but rather about the way that the TLS (misre)presented them as fact, and about the way that Wikipedia editors immediately deemed his ideas notable (and hence worthy of immediate inclusion). Hence I don't really see "controversial" as being a very productive or revealing test here.

I similarly don't see "unproven" as a useful heuristic: if that is intended as the opposite of "proven beyond all practical doubt", it's a set that is empty beyond a handful of mathematical tautologies.

And however "provisional and partial" your discussions are, it hasn't stopped you from promoting them, though without any obvious evidential backup.

So I'm not hearing much of an argument here.