(03-02-2024, 12:03 AM)Hermes777 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.A few more recent posts here, including this one on 'Pelling traps', a matter of relevance to all Voynich researchers.
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Frequently in my life outside of the VM, I talk about "the spin". For years, I have been using the term with various supervisors and managers in the workplace as a reality check. For example, I may be asked to provide a particular statistic, for which the raw data can be obtained and presented in more than one way with differing results and either a favorable or an unfavorable slant. And I tell them every time, I can make the data look virtually however you want it to look, however you want to spin it.
Businesses, the government, the media, etc. do this on a regular basis all the time.
Click here for an interesting article in the UK House of Commons Library about spin:
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Spin is not quite the same as confirmation bias or a "Pelling trap" - most will tell you there is a difference - but it could also, and likely does frequently, occur in VM research, perhaps without the researcher even being aware. Because we all have conscious and subconscious tendencies to look at the glass as half full or half empty. It all depends on one's point of view and whose point of view, presenter or recipient, and the same raw data and even the spun data can look different to each such person. But usually with the spin, the person spinning the data is fully aware they are deliberately manipulating the data to achieve a specific outcome and slant, often with the intent to psychologically and subconsciously manipulate the recipient as well.
Like today, Groundhog Day being a good example, Punxutawney Phil in Pennsylvania didn't see his shadow (neither did General Beauregard Lee, the groundhog here in Georgia), which means there will be an early spring instead of six more weeks of winter. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. We all know that, in Pennsylvania, they hold that groundhog up to the audience and he isn't actually given the chance to stay outside or retreat indoors. And then someone reads from a scroll, purportedly with results provided by said groundhog, that say whether he saw his shadow or not and whether it will be an early spring or not. Meanwhile, Beau in Georgia is allowed to freely choose to stay outside or retreat indoors, providing his own result directly. But while one is overtly fake and the other one seems to be genuine, both are just a bit of fun, never to be taken too seriously, even though people do so anyway. We viewers don't know all the ways in which both groundhogs and their predictions can and possibly are manipulated but we
should know that a groundhog is not necessarily a good indicator of spring anyway. The nay sayers have their own data and their own spin that say otherwise, including the statistics as to which groundhogs are the most accurate (you can look at that on You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view., if you're curious and don't mind having your mind blown, assuming you are a believer). In the end, we viewers may really really be wanting an early spring, or less likely wanting six more weeks of winter, and so we may believe the groundhog prediction simply out of that strong desire, which the Groundhog Day event organizers and the media are more than happy to spin that way for us.
That's just one in perhaps millions or even billions of examples out there where we create or are presented biased data and results due to the way the data has been spun, intentionally or unintentionally. All you have to do is look at the news or vote in an election to see other examples. And we will view that data consciously or subconsciously with our own biases that alter our perception and reception of it. The article above provides some good tips for seeing through the spin and avoiding the trap. But it only helps if each of us is willing to change and is persistent in our pursuit of it (i.e. self-discipline and conscious awareness).
In the end, finding a solution to the VM may not be as much about researchers avoiding confirmation bias or "Pelling traps" or the spin but rather us viewers recognizing and accepting the solution when presented to us instead of us arbitrarily dismissing it based on our preconceived notions of what kind of solution we expect or want it be.