The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[eggyk]

As I've said earlier -- and you also said indirectly by referring to "normal science" -- it is indeed natural to fill in some gaps with speculative explanation. But I think that his point (at least part of it) is that there is a  practice by opponents of his theory to not only come up with plausible explanations for various discrepencies (in the counter-theory), but to twist some facts as needed to do so. And to do this persistently regardless of what evidence - or how much of it--  is presented. If it does not align with the standard version of the story (i.e. the 15th century theory), then just devise yet another explanation to save the theory. But the aim of speculations within the "story" for a theory should be to assess if there are plausible explanations for a discrepency -- not to just save a theory (nor to act as evidence for a theory,)

I said "normal in science". In science, it may be natural to fill gaps in with speculation, but it isn't scientific at all unless that speculation is testable or provable. It's also very usual for new data to come out, causing the various aspects of a theory to be questioned and then for the theorist to justify, adjust or "save" their theory (like dark matter and MOND).

Many of his examples did not lend themselves to that type of testable speculation (for the other side). Like asking why the signature wasn't mentioned; you can't ever answer that in a way that will be objective unless theres a personal note from voynich stating why.

So adjusting the theory is normal, to a point. Addressing discrepancies with plausible answers is normal too, and doesn't mean that things are being twisted.  

What facts that have been twisted? 

No, you obviously weren't suggesting that anyone literally said "that's why". But the point is that your argument is asymmetric.  The examples that proto57 listed were dealing with potential inconsistencies affecting the standard (genuine 15th century) theory and the speculative explanations that are put forth for each. But you then list examples that are not discrepencies in the MFT theory, but rather statements of his evidence -- and you then apply the "that's why" phrase to them as if the two sets of examples are of the same kind.

You are essentially pulling a 'switcharoo' to equate the two different things, And conveniently implying in the process that each piece of evidence is being claimed to support his theory all on its own, which is a misrepresentation.

I understand what you're saying now. It may have been more fair if I said something like "That's a reason why the traditional theory may be wrong", or something similar. In my mind, these two theories are effectively black and white (its either a forgery or it isn't) so I conflated the denial of one with the attempted proof of the other. That's my fault.