Scientific Progress

[Mark Knowles]

Torsten's theory. Pelling's Averlino theory. Stephen Bax' theory. The Turkish theory. My theory that the rosettes contain heavenly Jerusalem. Your theory about the rosettes. Anyone else's theory about the rosettes. Good luck falsifying any of those in a convincing way.

I don't think most of those theories can be said to be unfalsifiable. The one that comes closest to that is Torsten's theory is the text isn’t deciphered. It is certainly true that they haven't been falsified yet and in some cases it may be very difficult to falsify them, but that is quite difficult from being unfalsifiable.

And even if you do, I'm sure goalposts will be moved and arguments will be made to make it unfalsified again.

I think this is undue cynicism. Lots of theories and ideas about the Voynich are difficult to falsify or haven't yet been falsified. In fact within that frame of thinking one could argue that most theories of the manuscript are unfalsifiable. You have suggested a connection between the various Zodiac drawings and Strasbourg manuscript workshops. Is that an unfalsifiable theory? As far as I know it hasn't been falsified and if it is false I would think it would be quite difficult to falsify.

The reason that so much remains unknown about the Voynich is that Voynich research is still in its infancy.