14-08-2020, 07:29 AM
There are a few fundamental things that remain valid regardless of the field, and the intended impact of any paper. One of these is to be clear about one's input data and to worry about its quality.
Another is to find a way to verify one's results.
Another is to be familiar with earlier work about the same topic.
For this last point it is not sufficient to just list some references, one has to know them. They also have to be relevant. Of course, the Voynich MS, and particularly its text analysis is a fringe subject and there are no easily available introductory courses. It means one has to do a lot of homework by oneself. (I could add a few more points but they would only serve the purpose of annoying 75% of readers here, so I'll leave them out :-) ).
Taking the recent paper about hyper-vectors as an example, this is an interesting piece of work. It has original thought going into it. It describes one experiment.
The main weakness is in the fact that the conclusion is not placed in any context. It is not compared with anything else. There is no way of knowing (and it comes across that the author also doesn't know - but I am guessing) if this confirms earlier work, repeats earlier work, or is contradicted by earlier work.
The second weakness is the unfamiliarity with the source text, the general problem with transliteration quality and the text variations inside the MS.
Putting it on a web page and bringing it to the attention of the people here was (in my opinion) the right thing to do. Being open for discussion and suggestions is even more commendable. It is much more common for people to take a bastion approach and defend one's points against all odds.
Yes, academic publications can take basically all levels of quality, but taking a few bad cases cannot be used to condemn the whole thing.
One of the things I will never forget is, when the MS expert Abigail Quandt was asked for her opinion about any and all aspects of the Voynich MS, one of the first things she did was to ask the opinion about one specific aspect from a senior colleague in Holland, knowing that this was more his area. This is scientific collaboration, and mutual respect for peers. I know this also from my own field of work.
I suppose that in areas of great commercial interest this is likely to be different, but the Voynich MS is fortunately very far away from that.
Another is to find a way to verify one's results.
Another is to be familiar with earlier work about the same topic.
For this last point it is not sufficient to just list some references, one has to know them. They also have to be relevant. Of course, the Voynich MS, and particularly its text analysis is a fringe subject and there are no easily available introductory courses. It means one has to do a lot of homework by oneself. (I could add a few more points but they would only serve the purpose of annoying 75% of readers here, so I'll leave them out :-) ).
Taking the recent paper about hyper-vectors as an example, this is an interesting piece of work. It has original thought going into it. It describes one experiment.
The main weakness is in the fact that the conclusion is not placed in any context. It is not compared with anything else. There is no way of knowing (and it comes across that the author also doesn't know - but I am guessing) if this confirms earlier work, repeats earlier work, or is contradicted by earlier work.
The second weakness is the unfamiliarity with the source text, the general problem with transliteration quality and the text variations inside the MS.
Putting it on a web page and bringing it to the attention of the people here was (in my opinion) the right thing to do. Being open for discussion and suggestions is even more commendable. It is much more common for people to take a bastion approach and defend one's points against all odds.
Yes, academic publications can take basically all levels of quality, but taking a few bad cases cannot be used to condemn the whole thing.
One of the things I will never forget is, when the MS expert Abigail Quandt was asked for her opinion about any and all aspects of the Voynich MS, one of the first things she did was to ask the opinion about one specific aspect from a senior colleague in Holland, knowing that this was more his area. This is scientific collaboration, and mutual respect for peers. I know this also from my own field of work.
I suppose that in areas of great commercial interest this is likely to be different, but the Voynich MS is fortunately very far away from that.