Discussion of Voynich MS-related theories

[ReneZ]

Discussion of Voynich theories with their proponents is, from my experience, a fruitless and generally pointless way to spend one's time.

Let me just present a shortlist that can be used to clarify this point.

Rich Santacoloma is strongly convinced that the Voynich MS is a modern fake by Voynich. He has been challenged for more than 6 years by now, without any visible effect. This is the one case on which I spent more time discussing than any other, well before the Voynich Ninja forum existed, and I have decided that that has been enough.

Tucker and Jannick are strongly convinced that the Voynich MS was written in the 16th century in Central America. I have had many exchanges with one of them, all very friendly, but without any impact.

Gerard Cheshire is convinced of his proto-italic theory. All discussions with him have been fruitless.

Jutta Kellner is not generally known in the various Voynich fora, but she is well known to the Beinecke, and she is as convinced of her theory as all the others in this list.

Giuseppe Bianchi is even better known to the Beinecke (in a negative way) but he is really an OK guy. His views about the MS cannot be changed.

Most of these are not (actively) present in the Voynich Ninja forum. Some that are include:

Morten St. George and his Nostradamus theory (one of the longest threads ever).

Antonio Jimenez Garcia, another very long thread and again someone who will not revise his opinion

Torsten Timm, very active in this forum and with many interesting statistics, none of which demonstrate his theory, and he is as resistant to changing his opinion as anyone else in this list.


Everyone can decide what he wants to spend his/her time on, and this is also what I do.
I have never seen that discussing any of the above theories brings anything.

Of course, all of them will argue that they are right and all the others are wrong, and it is unfair to throw their work into the same pot as these invalid theories, but that is irrelevant. It is a matter of what people interested in the Voynich MS prefer to spend their time on, and for me forum discussions have moved down the priority list very considerably.