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

[tavie]

The point is that unless there is a clear reference then any case (Rene's or otherwise) about whether Voynich had seen it is irrelevant.

It is irrelevant if the question is whether Rich's theory is wrong.  But I don't think it is irrelevant if the question is whether Rich's theory is falsifiable. 

If one found a letter that contains a clear reference (and of course that does mean the source of the reference itself must be unquestionably dated) then it would falsify the modern forgery theory.

I don't see how it falsifies the modern forgery theory without having settled the additional question about whether Voynich could have known about the reference and been inspired by it.  I don't think that is a straw man...firstly because a straw man is something that is intentionally misrepresented as the person's main position.  I am not doing that, intentionally or otherwise.  My posts were questioning whether the theory was falsifiable, not attempting to prove Rich's theory to be wrong, especially since others are far better placed in that regard than I am.

Secondly, it is relevant because it is an argument Rich has proposed in the past, and so it is conceivable, ceteris paribus, that it could be offered again in the future hypothetical case of a new discovered reference that is precise enough to meet your three criteria.  In such a case, the modern forgery theory would still not be falsifiable if Rich could still argue there was a chance Voynich knew of this reference and based it on that description.  The exceptions would be if we agreed conditions now about how low a probability of this could be tolerated to keep the theory alive, or if Rich agreed the lack of discovery so far of another book matching that description meant the probability of the Voynich being the subject of the description (rather than its result) was high enough to falsify the theory.   

But on the other hand, much of the discussion is unproductively lamenting that one will never be able to accomplish 3 simply because one person (Rich) will make it too challenging...But it is not a way to evaluate whether the manuscript is authentic or just a modern forgery.

It may well be unproductive for evaluating the strength of the modern forgery theory or the current consensus, but I only asked about falsifiability.  I felt it was relevant because some of Rich's arguments require tolerating what appears to be a low level of probability.  Maybe that itself seems a less productive question, but if it is falsifiable, surely we can agree exactly how and then move on? 

I agree that this is an effective way to denigrate Rich in order to more easily dismiss anything else he says.

I am not attempting to denigrate Rich for that reason or for any other.