The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[asteckley]

There is some sliding around between disproofs of specific counter-positions, the "1420 position" as a whole, and the proofs of the MFH that should probably be laid out explicitly. There is a striking lack of consensus around what many of the drawings are, even among proponents of the same dating, and that should weigh on how we talk about the large groups under each umbrella.

First, those places where the consensus is poor can't fairly be said to be part of the 1420 position as widely held, so there isn't really a coherent refutation of "the 1420 position" to be had along those lines. This only applies where one is addressing the 1420 hypothesis as a whole, and it is an actual weakness of specific responses I am seeing. On the whole, though, it is perfectly possible to be agnostic about, for example, the drawing on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and still hold the balance of the evidence points towards the early 15th century.

Second, this lack of consensus rebounds on the MFH with a vengeance. Adding post-Columbian identifications to the discordant views merely strengthens the point that this line of evidence is not widely accepted evidence for any position, and that includes Voynich authorship. There is simply no widely held post-Columbian identification right now, and no surprise that this is not convincing to the great many people who do not share it.

While I agree that identification of a pre-Columbian possibility for the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. beast is poor evidence for the 1420 position, it is mostly because this isn't ground anyone is going to "win their case" on. I do think the focus on the beast on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. obscures things like research into clothing styles, which is fairly affirmative and concordant with the dating given by the C14 testing, though I don't have a good sense what the consensus or lack thereof is around it or how productive it would be if that were the main controversy here instead.

Those are a lot of words to say nothing more than that you don't think the drawing looks enough like an armadillo to count for much.

The fact remains that, if "proven" to be an armadillo, it is a killer for the 1420 theory.  And if it holds even a significant possibility of being an armadillo then it adds to the the body of evidence against the 1420 theory (and also towards a theory such as MFH). Even if it is just not enough to convince you that it outweighs the collection of other evidence for it.

Certainly, one can remain agnostic and feel the weight of evidence is in favor of the 1420 theory, but even then, one is admitting it contributes some level of evidence against it. Otherwise, one would not be agnostic. By your standard that adding this to the collection of evidence "rebounds ...with a a vengeance"  because of its level of acceptance implies that any evidence that isn't widely accepted to the point of consensus cannot contribute anything to the body of evidence -- and therefore to the balance of evidence that having a position on any theory depends on.