[Article] The Singulion and the Sequence: A Methodological Review of Layfield and Davis 2026

[Torsten]

we say quite explicitly that the LSA data are NOT helpful for the herbal section

This applies to the resequencing experiment, where the herbal section was excluded. However, the herbal quire data in Table 8 of your paper is central to the singulion hypothesis itself. The paper reports conjoint/facing differentials for all seven herbal quires — for instance Quire 6 shows conjoint 0.448 versus facing 0.166, and Quire 7 shows conjoint 0.336 versus facing 0.138. These herbal quire measurements are the primary evidence for the conclusion in paragraph 56 that "there is very strong evidence that the Voynich was not meant to be nested and bound in quires at all." Without the herbal data, the singulion argument rests on only two quires.

This is in tension with the statement in paragraph 35: 'The results for the Herbal section suggested that each page is a distinct botanical topic (as also inferred from the illustrations, which change with each page).' If each herbal page is a distinct topic, that explains why facing pages are dissimilar — they depict different plants. But it equally predicts that conjoint pages should be dissimilar, since they also depict different plants.