23-04-2024, 01:44 AM
(23-04-2024, 12:53 AM)ReneZ wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Before this thread goes deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole, it may be good to take a step back and apply some common sense.
When an argument can be reduced to: "it is so because I say so", the whole argument should be ignored.
It takes a good amount of stepping back, but quite a lot of Voynich theories of all possible natures can be reduced to this.
There should be some evidence.
Circumstantial evidence can be used but can also be abused in order to mislead.
When all circumstantial evidence offered also allows for an alternative explanation, then it may still amount to nothing. The strength of the evidence matters.
Hi Rene: You wrote, "When an argument can be reduced to: "it is so because I say so", the whole argument should be ignored."
I agree absolutely. Which is why my constant attempt to couch my opinions AS opinions, and not as fact. Stating one's own opinions as though they were factual, declaring things absolutes when they are unknown, or undecided, speculative opinions, would be akin to saying "because I say so". And it is also why I expend so very much time and effort in pointing out to others those cases where things are stated by others as though they have been settled, when they are anything but.
About circumstantial evidence: That is all we all have to work with, outside of C14 and an ink test, and a smattering more. Nothing more but that. Claiming anything outside of those rises above "circumstantial" in nature would be incorrect, and misleading, and should not be done.
So we are in a rare state of perfect agreement. Yeah!
Rich.