New Post: "I Do Listen to the Experts. Do YOU?"

[proto57]

The radiocarbon results were averaged to be made into 1404-1438, based on an assumption the Voynich is genuine, and was made in less than ten years. But the results of the individual samples actually span 60 years or more!

All of this is incorrect.
The radiocarbon results were combined. No assumption was made beforehand (*). The combination was made because the results of the four samples were clustered closely together (all within each other's standard deviation).

My use of assumption is not at all wrong, I am actually quoting you on this. "Assumption" and "combined are your own words, as is the entire explanation I relate. From your page, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , you wrote,

"The uncertainty in age for each folio is some 50-60 years, and in the case of fol.68 even spans two centuries due to the above-mentioned inversions of the calibration curve. These folios have been bound together into one volume centuries ago, and the book production process is likely to have taken considerably less time than these 50-60 years. Under this assumption, and in particular the obtained result that the dating of the folios is tightly clustered (as shown above), each sheet provides a measurement or observation of the MS creation."

So if it is "incorrect", it is not my doing. I've only repeated the reasoning you have, yourself, given. It was "under this assumption", that the "book production process is likely to have taken considerably less time than these [raw data results of] 50-60 years". That is your prerogative, and Greg's or whomever, but it is a fact that this was done. I still disagree that it should have been done, as manipulating data to fit "assumptions" of any kind is bad science, in my opinion.

However, you are saying here that the time span should perhaps be expanded.

No, not "expanded". I say the actual data arrived at should be left intact, and not manipulated based on any assumptions.

Going along with that idea, it moves both Panofsky's second guess and Toresella's only guess closer to the correct answer, so that means we have four or five hits: Salomon, Panofsky (2x), Lehmann-Haupt and Toresella.

What do they have in common? Two things.
First of all, none of them was ever misled by Voynich's Roger Bacon story.
Secondly, at least Panofsky, Lehmann-Haupt and Toresella all had the opportunity to handle the original.

Now, while 1450 is a relatively hard upper limit for the age of the parchment, I would still argue that both Toresella and Panofsky (his second guess), just a few decades later, were 'pretty damn good'.

But respectfully, Rene, you can't have it both ways. Yes, by retaining the actual results of the C14 data, the range is larger, and thus encompasses, or comes closer, to that list of rejected expert opinion, but the fact still remains that those expert dates are still far away from each other. They are still at odds with each other. So whatever the dating range used, mine or your adjusted one, it does not change one iota the important point that expert opinions were "all over the map", as to age, geography, content, etc..

After all, there is no legible text that gives any clues, and there is no other handwriting to compare to.
Legible text can provide or imply dates, and text variations can imply age. (And in fact can be evidence of forgery).

Plenty of old books are just listed as "14th century", "15th century" etc. showing that dating of manuscripts is sometimes barely possible even for perfectly readable books.

P.S. note the absence of the word 'expert'  in the above. I find it an awkward term.

Again, all this discussion amply makes my overall point here, as your answers are rife with examples of it: To accept the overwhelming bulk of expert opinions, one cannot explain a genuine and 15th century Voynich manuscript. In this one comment, there is excuse after excuse as to why all those opinions should not be accepted. If anything, you have added to the list with a couple... such as now saying how it is "barely possible" to date manuscripts.

(*) Edit: it was understood by all involved at the time, including Greg Hodgins and the Beinecke responsibles, that the experiment had the capability of detecting a forgery, for example if the material turned out to be new, or had too varied dates.

Well it does have "too varied dates", that is exactly my point! No, not "proof of forgery", but there is a suspicious range there, a range which was partically erased from the record, and rarely reported when discussing the Voynich: It is always simply repeated "1404-1438" as though it was fact. What you have done here is to "unvary" the dates, then state the dates are "unvaried", by suggesting they were not "too varied". The evidence was first found, then removed, and now it is wrongly claimed it does not exist! It is like a defense attorney having the bloody knife removed on a technicality, then saying their client is innocent, because there is no bloody knife.

My championing these points, as often as I can, is to make these issues clear to everyone who is listening, so that they can make their own minds up. They need to know what has been done, and seen, and found and not found, every step of the way, so they have a true picture of the Voynich. The squeaky clean image of the manuscript as a proven old and genuine medieval artifact is an invented one. The reality is that it is sick with anachronisms, anomolies, contradictions, and lack of good evidence, which needs such manipulation of what is really "in there" to be seen otherwise. And if it is real, as you believe, it is despite the actual data, not because of it.

Rich