Scientific Progress

[Pepper]

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. 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 a good example of the problem with theory-driven research. Until/unless the manuscript is cracked nobody can say with honesty with any of these theories are impossible, which means one or more of the researchers mentioned are so captured by their theory that they plough enormous amounts of time and energy into defending and proving it despite the fact it, when weighed against the evidence and probabilities, is almost certainly false [I'm not naming names as I don't want to debate specific theories here]. That's their choice and I hope it makes them happy but personally I find it a real waste. 

Nick Pelling is not blinded by his Averlino theory. He puts his energies into learning more about the manuscript, not on proving a specific theory, so his research is useful to the whole field. 

There's nothing wrong with having theories, especially if you use them as a starting point to answer questions about the MS. The problem is when you start ignoring evidence that doesn't fit your theory.