Discussion of "A possible generating algorithm of the Voynich manuscript"

[geoffreycaveney]

I raised a question about this topic in a different thread, and RenegadeHealer helpfully pointed me to this long (in time and volume) thread. I am not qualified to evaluate all of the statistical methods that Torsten, Rene, and Marco discuss: While I have plenty of advanced mathematical training, it was focused in areas of mathematics other than statistics, unfortunately. But I believe I can make a general comment and observation, perhaps a meta-observation, about the discussion:

Setting aside the details of the statistical points and arguments that Torsten, Rene, and Marco are raising, I observe one other major difference between Torsten's claim and Rene and Marco's arguments: Torsten claims that he has made THE discovery that shows the world how the Voynich manuscript text was actually composed. Rene and Marco are making arguments of their own, but they are not claiming to have THE solution to this question about the ms. This is a BIG difference.

If Torsten were to succeed in persuading the scholarly community (however that may be defined in relation to the enigmatic subject of the Voynich ms) to agree with him and adopt a consensus view that his theory of the method of creation of the Voynich ms text is correct, that would be a BIG DEAL in the academic and scholarly world. It would get a lot of attention in the press globally, and for example the Wikipedia page on the Voynich ms would then state that it is a meaningless text composed in a particular manner, as first demonstrated by Torsten Timm, et al.

Torsten's claim thus rises to the level of significance of any other claim to have deciphered the Voynich ms. It is a claim to have THE solution to understanding the whole manuscript. As Rene has said in the context of discussing one such previous claim that I made, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." In other words, the burden of proof is on Torsten, much more so than it is on Rene, Marco, or others, because Torsten is the one who is making the more extraordinary claim.

Perhaps all of the above observations are or should be self-evident to those who are participating in and following this discussion. But I thought it might be useful to add these comments here at this stage of the discussion, to give some context and perspective to readers who are trying to make sense of the intense debate that has been carried on between Torsten and other participants in this thread.