05-10-2023, 11:54 AM
The 'expert' matter can certainly be a valuable learning experience for students.
By coincidence I was just listening to a presentation by Bart Ehrman where this topic was touched upon in one of the audience questions afterwards. His response may have some relevance here.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
"There are responsible historians and there are people who are not responsible historians ... How do you know the difference? One thing you do, is you look at credentials. Where do these people teach? Do they teach? Where did they get their degrees? Do they have degrees? Or are they independent researchers? ... They might be telling the truth, but where did they get their information from? Look at their footnotes and see if they tell you where they got their information from. And then read scholars who teach in reputable institutions, who have reputable degrees, and whose books go through the kind of vetting process that is typical in scholarship, which is [...] Scholarly publishers publish books that have gone though a scholarly process of evaluation and that's the kind of book you want to read if you want an authoritative account."
The question Ehrman is talking about is not exactly the same, but it is sobering for us nonetheless: nobody here on the forum is the kind of expert these students may want to contact. Even someone like Rene, who is without a doubt one of the foremost experts on the manuscript, does not have a background in art history. He could give them some pointers maybe and point out things that have been said before, but he cannot speak authoritatively about the art history aspect of the manuscript. I myself have published a peer-reviewed paper about the manuscript's images and have written some things on my blog that are kind of well regarded, but still I am by no means a qualified art historian.
I hope that if any of the students contact any Voynich researcher, this is at least as part of their research process, and the actual interviews with experts will be with professional art historians.
By coincidence I was just listening to a presentation by Bart Ehrman where this topic was touched upon in one of the audience questions afterwards. His response may have some relevance here.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
"There are responsible historians and there are people who are not responsible historians ... How do you know the difference? One thing you do, is you look at credentials. Where do these people teach? Do they teach? Where did they get their degrees? Do they have degrees? Or are they independent researchers? ... They might be telling the truth, but where did they get their information from? Look at their footnotes and see if they tell you where they got their information from. And then read scholars who teach in reputable institutions, who have reputable degrees, and whose books go through the kind of vetting process that is typical in scholarship, which is [...] Scholarly publishers publish books that have gone though a scholarly process of evaluation and that's the kind of book you want to read if you want an authoritative account."
The question Ehrman is talking about is not exactly the same, but it is sobering for us nonetheless: nobody here on the forum is the kind of expert these students may want to contact. Even someone like Rene, who is without a doubt one of the foremost experts on the manuscript, does not have a background in art history. He could give them some pointers maybe and point out things that have been said before, but he cannot speak authoritatively about the art history aspect of the manuscript. I myself have published a peer-reviewed paper about the manuscript's images and have written some things on my blog that are kind of well regarded, but still I am by no means a qualified art historian.
I hope that if any of the students contact any Voynich researcher, this is at least as part of their research process, and the actual interviews with experts will be with professional art historians.
![[+]](https://www.voynich.ninja/images/collapse_collapsed.png)