With 2012 – the centenary of Wilfrid Voynich’s 1912 purchase of his subsequently-eponymous manuscript – inching ever closer, we will doubtless soon see a broad international wave of quick-turnaround documentary makers sniffing around its margins, snuffling for pungent historical truffles in the florilegial undergrowth of the Interweb.
If, dear reader, that thumbnail profile just happens to describe you, then here’s what you need: a brief guide on how to make a worthwhile Voynich Manuscript documentary that should continue to earn you money for years, regardless of whether its secrets somehow (and, frankly, against the run of play) get cracked in the meantime. Follow these basic rules, and I think you should do OK…
- The first rule of Voynich Fight Club is: evidence kicks theories. Don’t get tempted by fancy/fanciful hypotheses, just stick to the evidence – simply because it’s brilliant, confusing, paradoxical, splendidly detailed and evocative evidence. Sorry to point it out, but if you think Voynich theories are more fun than Voynich evidence, you’re probably the wrong person to be making the documentary. It’s a million-piece jigsaw, and everyone loves intricate puzzles!
- Don’t allow your own theories about the Voynich to guide you in any way whatsoever: they’re almost certainly wrong, and will just get in everyone’s way throughout production. And don’t trust Wikipedia to inform you (because it won’t)!
- The Voynich’s post-1600 history is worth no more than three minutes of anyone’s viewing experience. Don’t bother with overdressed period reconstructions of Rudolf II’s court, Sinapius, John Dee, Edward Kelley – by their time, the VMs had probably already had ten or more owners, none of whom showed any sign of their being able to read a word.
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Keep in mind at all times that there is no external pre-1600 evidence linking the VMs with anything, anyone or anywhere – yet radiocarbon dating indicates that the manuscript is 150+ years older. The only evidence we have to help us bridge that gap is hidden inside the manuscript itself – its pages, its inks, its design, its accidents, its execution, its forensic inner life.
- Hence, as early as possible, get high-calibre international experts on board to focus on the only two issues that really matter:-
* codicology (How was the VMs constructed? What was its original state? What happened to it since?); and….
* palaeography (What language are the marginalia written in? What do they say? What do the Voynichese letter shapes tell us? What structural similarities does Voynichese share with 15th century abbreviating Northern Italian scribal shorthands?) -
Once you have top-end experts on board, make friends with the Beinecke as quickly as you can. Go there; engage with the curators. Dismiss all theories (specifically don’t talk about alchemy or heresy, either would make you look speculative and foolish), while showing an appreciation of the limitations of the current evidence, and an active desire to improve academic knowledge.
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The viewer’s guide – the historical narrator – should be someone who can dive deep into a roiling mass of multi-faceted, heterogenous evidence and yet emerge the other side smelling of roses, all the while managing to make the (apparently contradictory) subject matter clear and accessible. An intellectual historian, in other words.
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Your challenge, therefore, is to produce a documentary that merges cunning forensic vision with big-brained intellectual history – essentially, “CSI: Voynich” meets Anthony Grafton. Can you do this? Really?
OK, it’s no big secret that the above basically describes the Voynich Manuscript documentary I’d really like to make. But all the same, I’d be utterly delighted if anyone else stepped up to the line (and in any language). But… will anyone ever do this? I’m not so sure… 🙁
PS: I lied about there being ten rules – you’ll have to make up the last two yourself. 😉
Hi Nick,
there’s a part I like best, and a part I like least in your post.
What I like best is 1. and 2.: DO NOT present a documentary about ones/your own theory. The Austrian documentary got this right, but as we now know, only after the forensic results were known.
What I like least is 7, and this is because it ignores the audience. It is impossible to present a lot of details and keep it interesting for a broader audience. There would be about 200-500 people in the world who appreciate the topic enough to go to this depth.
Your guidelines are perfect for setting up an initiative that has a chance of making real progress in what we know about the Voynich MS. I’m not sure it would make a sellable book or TV programme. Then again, I personally find making such progress far more interesting than publicity.
The critical point remains staying away from a particular theory/proposed solution. It is a known feature of the Voynich MS that it has allowed for scores of proposed solutions, but it has not been highlighted enough, that each of these solutions/theories is generally accepted by exactly one person, namely the author of this solution.
Rene: I think 7 is not only possible, but the only genuinely honest presentation style that is currently possible. In my opinion, talking-talking-talking about Voynich theories has now finally run out of steam, not least of the reasons for which is that Andreas did such a good job from such a poor starting point. When the evidence itself is so amazing, why wouldn’t anyone find it entertaining? 🙂
I think it would be great to have such a generic Voynich documentary… but would you really be able to keep all thoeories out? Even if you did not mention your Averlino, or Strong and GC’s Askam, or even Christine de Pizan… all in roughly the C14 time frame, or soon after… Even if you did not mention these, some conclusions would be inevitable, and those conclusions would be… “theories”.
For instance, if the evidence points, as you feel, to Northern Italy, and it looks like a 1420 herbal, and since the C14 points to 1420 (-ish)… then that is in itself a theory. My point is, it’s not so simple to avoid all theories… any documentary about the Voynich, and website or any article, will have to make a choice of what theories to include, and what to exclude, at the producer’s discretion. I do sense that one who believes strongly that a particular theory is correct, as previously mentioned, “1420 N. Italian Herbal”, will not see it as theory, they will see it as fact… but that is my point, also… since we do not know what the Voynich is, it is still a theory, and a decision will have to be made to either include or exclude it. So how would you decide, given this opportunity?
As an aside, to keep it in one post: You say, “Keep in mind at all times that there is no external pre-1600 evidence linking the VMs with anything, anyone or anywhere – yet radiocarbon dating indicates that the manuscript is 150+ years older.”
That has always struck me (and others) as fairly odd. I mean, for something which made such a splash when found, both times, what would account for it’s invisibility from creation until about 1639? I guess a trunk would do it… what do you think?
Rich: I hate to say it, but it sounds as though you’re finding it difficult to separate out ‘evidence’, ‘inference’, ‘hypothesis’ and ‘theory’. For me, evidence is the raw stuff of physical observation, archive and textuality; inferences are the endpoints of secondary logical reasoning chains that rest on the shoulders of the evidence; hypotheses are imaginative / speculative / tentative explanations that seek to explain all the evidence and inferences; while theories are like hypotheses, except that they are typically so strongly held that their proposers insist that various historical facts and/or chronologies must be wrong in order to accommodate the difference. If you like, theories are where hypotheses try to spill out onto the historical stage: for example, Newbold’s insistence that Roger Bacon must have invented both the telescope and the microscope. I’m sure you can think of many other Voynich-related instances of this phenomenon that would-be documentary-makers would be well advised to exclude. 🙂
As for its apparent invisibility, that is arguably the real mystery here: for its subsequent owners added quire marks, foliation, attempted cipher keys, many pagefuls of Stolfi’s “heavy [i.e. heavily-applied inorganic] paint”, while they also restitched / rebound it a number of times. Hence, it may well have been “invisible” (as far as the archival historical record seems to go), but it was certainly not silently locked in a single obscure trunk until 1608-ish – people were actively engaged with it, in one way or another. My best guess is that it may have been known under a completely different name for much of that time, possibly even as some kind of “Roger Bacon” manuscript in a Savoyard or Montpellier archive.
*** Creo que no es el momento de hacer ningún documental, todavía no se sabe nada del libro.
Ni es correcta la entrada de wikipedia, el 99% del contenido no se ha demostrado, solo hay teorías.
Por tanto, el documental puede hacerse de teorías, y todas son igual de validas. Las fantásticas y las que parecen posibles.
*** I do not think it’s time to make any film, yet nothing is known about the book.
Neither is correct wikipedia entry, 99% of the content has not been demonstrated, there are only theories.
Therefore, the documentary can be made of theories, and all are equally valid. The fantastic and those that seem possible.
“I hate to say it, but it sounds as though you’re finding it difficult to separate out ‘evidence’, ‘inference’, ‘hypothesis’ and ‘theory’.”
No not really… I understand the difference. But it is not as cut and dry as you describe: My point is that if you choose ten people to decide what feature of the Voynich fits in which of those categories, you will have ten choices for each. So I was asking you personally, if you do make this documentary, what will you put in these categories? I was pointing out that every thing after “It’s vellum, it’s ink, it’s 1420″… everything after those is a theory… and your list (which I like as I said) is meant to avoid all theorizing. That is, I think, impossible… so the question was, what would you include? What would you tell the audience, beyond “vellum, ink, 1420”, that the Voynich might be? Because if you even whisper the word, “Italian”, you have introduced a theory.
Nick,
little amount of trustable information ( thanks God it grows, though slowly) dont allows to make “proper” documentary by amateurs, it is work for professional historians… I do not want to look pushy or cynical, but sometimes disputes concerning the promotion and description of VMS for masses recalls the old joke: writer and critic argued at the bar whose job is more difficult:
– Writing of books is easily, no needed a lot of effort and skill – says critic.
– It’s easy to criticize, try to write the book by self, – writer argued.
The third man sitting nearby rose, came to them and said:
– To write and to criticize is easy work, but you guys try to read it…
Now we have similar situation with VMS, and only http://www.voynich.nu site by Rene Zandbergen (in new design) is more suitable as “must read for first time”. IMHO…
** Nick & Rich: Por eso creo, que no es posible hacer un documental de 45 minutos. Con 2 minutos es suficiente: Manuscrito de autor anónimo, escritura no entendida e ilustraciones fantásticas.
El resto son teorías.
Si hay que poner teorías para llenar el resto de 43 minutos, mejor de forma aleatoria. O las que están de moda. O las que mas le gusten al director.
Pero es importante advertir que son teorías, no verdades demostradas.
** Nick & Rich: So I think that it is not possible to make a 45-minute documentary. With 2 minutes is enough: Manuscript by an anonymous author, writing not understood and fantastic illustrations.
The rest are theories.
If you have to put theories to fill the rest of 43 minutes, better than random. Or the ones that are fashionable. Or the one you like the director.
But it is important to note that theories, are not proven truths.
Nick, I think one needs to be a little more rigorous.
We have at least four elements in the manuscript which we must first define and then explain.
First and most obvious is the chapter about the Voynich manuscript’s physical material. Of that, now, we know only that it belongs to the early 15th.
Questions of its inks may assist provenancing, but otherwise we have only specifics of the order of its quires etc. So much unbinding and rebinding suggests to me that the work has been separated for bulk copying, or for printing. Indeed, I’ve often thought that we are dealing with some work already known to us in the form of a work that was printed during the late 16th-mid-17thC. I shouldn’t be surprised if it had been put to print in England, either.
Secondly – we have the language in which the 15thC manuscript is written. That issue, including questions of whether the language is encoded forms such a huge topic that it has filled the vision of most researchers, and for many years, but still it is just one “chapter” for investigation.
Thirdly, content/subject-matter. I’m rather surprised by the relatively dismissive tone with which this issue is mentioned by some. But surely it is the subject-matter, and the original source from whence it came, that informs the encoding of the text, if indeed it is encoded.
And while it is widely supposed that knowledge of the manuscript’s subject must await discipherment of its written text, I don’t believe that is necessarily so.
Fifteenth-century European Imagery was and was still intended to be a kind of parallel text, or ‘alternative’ text, in which the alphabetic text of the literate existed in tandem with the pictorial text of the illiterate, so that the former might explain the latter, which was then committed to memory. Look in any bookshop’s language-section and you will see that just the same technique remains effective to this day – except that we now write the ‘tags’ onto the pictures.
Younger students of history commonly fail to appreciate the “textual” value of imagery, or that stylistics can offer the historian clues as valuable as those provided by linguistics.
I like to explain the importance of broader methodology by comparing the case of the Voynich manuscript, to that of a person who, in the 25thC, found a notebook written in Pittman’s shorthand – supposing all other record of that script meanwhile vanished.
From analysis of the notebook’s paper one then learned that the notebook had been put together first during WWII, and that it had thereafter been unstitched and restitched.
But then what would we do- just supposing efforts to decipher the script failed?
Well, obviously, we would look at the imagery and compare it broadly with imagery earlier than our WWII date.
Suppose that its imagery reflected generally the Byzantine environment, but most closely the style of tenth-century Russia?
Suppose too, that the imagery has devices and details in it which refer to Christian beliefs, or to any other longstanding culture of which the Russian revolutionaries, and WWII invaders disapproved?
Wouldn’t this assist in narrowing the likely range of languages in which the notebook had been written, as well as the sort of subject-matter it might contain?
Just so. Art as a form of ‘personal expression’ is a fairly late notion, and I do not believe that the imagery in the Voynich carries any hint of it.
So –
presuming that our aim is to provenance and understand the Voynich, our four topics are:
—
Physical material/s and related issue
Language and codicological queries
Subject matter
Source and Provenance for both (a) content of the manuscript and (b) physical object of the Voynich manuscript.
PS What I meant to imply was that I shouldn’t dream of making a documentary yet, because of those 4 ‘chapters’ only part of one is at all certain yet.
Diane: I think that we have a surprisingly large amount of art history evidence relating to the codicology and palaeography already, to the point where we can frame particularly productive research questions. I wish more people grasped that being able to ask good questions and identify useful physical tests is a great position to be in. Also, I – like you – believe that much of the subject matter is in plain sight, and directly relates to the subject matter of the text, whether herbal, astronomical, zodiacal, water, pharmacological, etc. So we arguably know quite a lot about the subject matter already. And finally, I think the marginalia hold many useful clues to the VMs’ pre-1600 provenance, we just need to find a reliable way of reading them to see what they say. I suspect the top line of f116v holds an addressee’s name, that alone might unlock a whole archive’s worth of study material if we could but read it.
Sergi: I think our knowledge of the VMs amounts to much more than this! If all we knew was Leonardo da Vinci and Edward Kelley theories, it would be a poor research field indeed!
Rich: there is a vast amount of codicological/palaeographic observation and reasoning which helps to tell the manuscript’s hidden story – I covered a fair amount of this in Chapters 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 of “The Curse” – and these fall into the categories of evidence and inferences: similarly for parallel hatching, cipher alphabets, vat gr 1291, etc. You shouldn’t need to believe anybody’s theory (no, not even mine) in order to discuss observations and inferences: “vellum, ink, 1420” is a particularly restricted view on the subject matter… we know more than that, much more than that.
Rene: personally, I’d pitch the potential audience number close to 200-500 million. 😉
Nick,
I think a live enactment of the biological section (including green mud) would do it…
Rene: isn’t that on Sky already? Or did I just dream it? XD
“You shouldn’t need to believe anybody’s theory (no, not even mine) in order to discuss observations and inferences…”
I guess my point is, in a nutshell, “One man’s inference is another man’s theory.” But I’m never a man of few words, so:
By setting the baseline of a future documentary to “no theories, only evidence and inference”, one is then limited to their own opinion. It would end up being one man’s opinion… and that opinion should not be cast as fact, when there are alternate possible inferences to identical evidence… no matter how strongly the producer believes their own to be true.
I feel it is better to show alternate possibles, alternate inferences, based on other’s, different, interpretations of the evidence. That is harder to do, when one is personally invested in their own viewpoint… but it would be a disservice to the field, I feel, to do otherwise.
Don’t get me wrong here… in case you were wondering… in such a documentary I am not suggesting a hint of my old theories at all. I am only saying that in addition to your theories… Averlino I mean, there are many other possibles shown by the evidence, and should be in there. It would be more complete, informative, and interesting, I think. I would like to hear more about the herbals of the early 15th century, for one… Rene is very involved in that area. And perhaps GC could give input on Askam, as this has been long a popular idea, well respected, and only a few decades down the vellum time-line. There are others, which I know you do not favor: For one, Christine de Pizan’s life and works now falls soundly in the C14 frame, and also, the reasonably inferred VMs subject matter… woman’s issues. And there are others, of course.
The point is, it’s not a done deal, by a long shot… I think that would be important to convey in the next documentary, and to not show only one single conclusion, as though it has been decided what the VMs is… because we still don’t know.
Rich: actually, I think we already have a substantial body of evidence that allows us say what the VMs isn’t, which essentially eliminates the first 90% of the ORF documentary. In a way, it’s handy that they left the radiocarbon dating presentation till the end, as it opens up the door to the next chapter… 🙂
Well whatever comes down the pike… including a documentary, if you put one together… I’ll look forward to it. All the best… Rich.
The National Geographic documentary has given me a raging thirst for another. Please make one, Nick. And please devote at least 1/3 of the time to cryptoanalysis of the text. This was sorely lacking in the NG programme. It would be great to seed more interest in the challenge of deciphering the manuscript. One of the nicest touches (for me) in the NG programme was the footage of a scribe writing the symbols and colouring the diagrams – somehow it was profoundly compelling.
To sex it up a bit, I like Rene’s suggestion – nymphs splashing around in green slime would appeal to at least 50% of the viewers, possibly more. Chaps in ruffs and pantaloons could also be given some screen time, to appeal to the remainder.
I really don’t get this excitement about the naked figures. Classical, late classical and renaissance art is full of them, the majority being not ‘naked ladies’ but embodiments f abstractions (such as the virtues) or personifications of places or things. If we suppose that the Vms imagery belongs in the western, Roman tradition (which I don’t accept, actually), then we have an explanation simpler than a supposed gynecological text. Not that the Sicilian medical tradition wasn’t noted for it.
There is a good deal in the imagery consistent with the late Roman/early Christian era, and it is my view that the Vms represents a sincere effort to copy faithfully an anthology, or passages from one or more works, originally created before the 5thC ce.
I think this fits far better with the ethos of the early 15thC, too, when ancient learning was being so admired, sought and replicated.
*a sincere effort to copy the imagery and layout. no opinion on the language and little on the script
Nick – if you do make a documentary, I should like to see you note (a) the proportions of the female figures – which are NOT those of the western artistic tradition but may usefully be compared with late classical Egypt or, if you prefer, contemporary works of some Indian and east-Asian folk-art.
Also worth noting is the total absence of the most reflexive motifs found in Christian and/or Muslim artistic tradition.
Such fun!
Diane: I feel the woman’s proportions are very much of the “western artistic tradition”. Think, “Rubenesque”. Large, rounded bottoms, noticeable bellies, smaller “tops”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubens
I agree, as many do, that there is a scarcity of religious symbolism. I think there are other European-based explanations for this… basically, any non-Catholic art or literature is less pre-occupied with such. I don’t think there is much to compare this to anything Egyptian and so on… it looks very much like a European work to me (and many others). Certainly some other influences, just as much that is European always has been, since the crusades.
It is not at all unusual for medieval herbals not to have any religious elements in the illustrations at all, though examples with such elements do exist. It is more common to have some dedication in the text, but if this is the case in the Voynich MS we have been overlooking it so far…
Largely the same can be said for astronomical works.
For me, the Voynich MS is not unusual in that sense. It is just one of its characteristics to be noted and taken into account.
Rene: the question is why people continue to press for a heretical / alt-religious meta-explanation for the VMs, in spite of the fact that there really is basically zero visual evidence for it. Similarly for alchemy etc!
Couldn’t agree more.
Nick – the weird thing about the manuscript is what is evidently (save maybe f.116v) TOTAL lack of any marks characteristic of Christianity or the Muslim faith.
This doesn’t have to be a cross or crescent. We’re talking about no horsemen, no swords, no crowned king, no halo, no church-like building, no devils, or angels, and in addition, though less first-rank in significance, no signs of the habitual preparation of parchment.
Then we have the positively non-monotheistic imagery, and the habits which never appear in western Christian imagery.
As for alchemy.. well, I’ve been discussing parts of the imagery which I think might refer to small-a alchemy as it were. Interest in those posts has been quite high and I expect that there’ll be renewed interest shown in the alchemists’ plants books quite soon.
Sorry, Rene, I know you said you’d considered them over years and there’s nothing very like the Vms there. But I do think they’ll be back to the forefront soon.
D.
Diane: certainly, the Voynich Manuscript’s lack of any kind of religious imagery would seem to offer a sharp contrast with the Rohonc Codex, for example. Yet medieval herbals (even alchemical herbals) used little religious imagery: neither did books of secrets, or architect-engineer’s notebooks / zibaldoni. So I’m yet to be persuaded that the absence of religious references is particularly noteworthy.
What I find much more telling & persuasive is the observation that the Voynich lacks external referentiality. As with the Taman Shud cipher mystery, it’s as if “all the labels were removed”.
Of course, it remains a big step from “as if” to “was” (in both cases). All the same, the question remains: why should is there such a pervasive lack of explicit referentiality?
For the same reason that a textbook of mathematics may fail to reference geography, though the reciprocal is unlikely to be true.
Sorry – being facile is an avoidance technique to which I’m prone.
I was trying to avoid saying that the premise is mistaken – the manuscript’s imagery doesn’t lack reference to the external world or other systems. It lacks reference to European conventions because the imagery didn’t originate in Europe.
I’ve been explaining its external referentiality now for five years. I no longer mind whether people understand the manuscript or not; the blue screen is more fun for some, and better serve the purpose of others.
Sorry to sound indifferent.
Diane: it seems to me that the Voynich Manuscript’s drawings fail to refer to *anything* unambiguously enough to hang a [PROVED] sign on. Its pervasive referential slipperiness helps it to continue to evade all of our enquiries, not just mine.
Dear all, I suggest the word “theory” be avoided when discussing the VM. A theory (there are damned few) is an accepted body of FACT based upon reproducible experiments. Thus the “theory of evolution”, the “atomic theory”, “the gravitational theory” are examples. Mostly we are all dealing with hypotheses. The only theory I can see connected with the VM at present is that of carbon dating. I am a real skunk at this garden party I know. Tom
ps. scientists and the police are among the worst offenders in misuse of the word “theory”!
Thomas: to me, the difference between a Voynich hypothesis and a Voynich theory is this – that someone who holds the latter considers that other evidence must give way or be somehow changed or warped to accommodate their strongly-held viewpoint.
Sadly, the Voynich research world seems to have accumulated far more theories than hypotheses. 🙁
If you can suggest a better way of expressing this idea that doesn’t use the words “hypothesis” and “theory”, please let me know.
All the same, I suspect that what you’re reaching towards is “law” rather than “theory”, of which there are indeed precious few genuine examples (gravity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, etc).
Dear all, It surprises me that the inescapable fact that the VM is written left to right and top down hasn’t received more discussion or maybe that is so far in the past that any such discussion has been hard to locate East of Suez, writing from right to left is most often the rule. Armenian is an exception in this regard. Early Greek was right to left, then changed and some was written in a boustrophedon pattern. Otherwise L->R seems generally European. Diane has consistenly opted for a non-European origin of the VMimagery and perhaps we can benefit from her observations on the likely language source?
Nick, Theories are in fact based on sets of laws as you infer. So there is no disagreement as to the use of “law” and “theory”. One relies on the other, in fact it has to. Newton’s Theory of gravitation is based on his laws of motion as well as one of Kepler’s and observations of Brahe.
To advance beyond “hypothesis” to something more compelling (there I worked that word in), I suggest “solution”. I don’t think we are there yet, maybe not even close.
Tom: what I’m saying is that the common use of the word “theory” (as in “I have a theory about dinosaurs, that is mine and mine alone” 🙂 ) does have value, in that the person holding such a “theory” is doing something rather more political than merely hypothesizing.
Such a “theory” goes far further than a mere hypothesis, to the point that it’s a claim that requires other stuff to change – to me, if it kind of kicks back against (or simply denies) other evidence, then it’s a theory rather than a hypothesis (a solution can surely be either).
I think we’d agree that words are getting in the way here. 🙁
Nick, I see your point. “Theory” in this case is not being used in the strict sense of the word, as in a scientific “theory”. It may be simply that more hand-waving is going on to beat down a garden variety “hypothesis”. Maybe we can accept the use of the word “theory” in the context of a sort of fleshed out collection of hypotheses? Still the whole is no stronger than the weakest link. But maybe in fact perfectly respectable accepted scientific theories have weaknesses at the start, like Darwin had problems with social organisms (e.g. ants, bees, termites) in trying to explain altruism. So solving the VM riddle might become a method of successive approximations until every “i” is dotted. I doubt it will have a single “eureka” moment but more like a slow unwrapping of the onion..
properly
– a speculation (1) is a notion that may have a greater or lesser relationship to physical reality. (e.g. I could have left the front door unlocked; the Voynich could be a fake).
– an hypothesis formalises and limits to specifics a desire to find *valid explanation/s for specific, verified phenomena*.
Thus: I think that the same set of pigments used in the Voynich manuscript might have been available and used for manuscripts of this size in… (say)… Kiev in the fifteenth century. Hypotheses must be amenable to objective tests, and the researcher must be ready to accept a negative result. If it’s not testable, then what you have is not an hypothesis (2) but speculation (1).
– if a mass of verifiable data is available, but that quantified evidence has not yet been adequately explained in its totality (down to small, specifics), then you may try to do so, and if others find your explanation works, it may come to be regarded as a ‘theory’ – a theory explains ALL examples – e.g. continents move over time; this is due to continental drift. It seemed an explanation that worked, and became ‘the theory’ – but a better theory was offered later. It too covered ‘ALL’ observed phenomena, but accounted for more numerous details and predicted new discoveries with greater precision. A theory enables consistent prediction of comparable phenomena – ii.e. quantifiable data obtained and tested independently.
(in the tangible world, anyway).
To have a Voynich theory, it would have to offer explanation for every item composing the manuscript, and would have to predict accurately the results of tests and as-yet-undiscovered data independently discovered and independently quantified. (That doesn’t mean creating a story, parcelling it out among mates and having each pretend to ‘discover’ support contributing to the whole. That particular shonkiness was invented by a think-tank fighting the anti-tobacco lobby.
Nobody has ever had a theory for the Voynich. Ever. Forget the word.
Why not be honest and say ‘I have an idea about dinosaurs – maybe they were warm-blooded’ (as happened) – it was a speculation which was made an hypothesis, checked tested and then (when new examples were discovered and tested independently) raised to the level of a theory about certain sub-sets of dinosaurs.
It can happen.
It happens.
caveat: I’m only speaking about how the terms would have to be used in an exam paper to avoid the examiner using a red pencil. in other contexts and disciplines, different conventions apply I suppose.
D
Diane: sheesh, now I can’t even make a reference to Monty Python without being (virtually) marked. For more on “Elk theories”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Elk's_Theory_on_Brontosauruses
can’t stop to talk.
Hugh Crummond has just been lured into the villain’s lair.
Oh noes! He’s accepting brandy.
Diane: Bullshot!
For all who care about the Voynich ms or maybe care overmuch. I think the use of “theory” in a loose sense or even passing muster with the red pencil wielder, makes an assumption that has been accepted provisionally by most but should be verified and it is this: Is the VM in its entirety, a single entity, not pieced together from different sources? We know from careful analysis by Nick, that parts of the “recipe” section were clearly copied. We assume that the original and the final copy are the same or so close that quibbling is likely to be unproductive in the absense of the original. The fact that no original has ever been found is in itself unusual. We know for certain that two scribes are involved and the assumption is that they were working from the same plaintext but using in some cases different scribal abbreviations. It is, again one of Nick’s hypotheses that any decrypt of the VM is going to be dependent upon recognizing either obvious (Nick has spotted a few classical Tironian) or concealed (many more, I think) macrons, indicating deletions or contractions. Even if it can be demonstrated that the scribal abbreviations are constant throughout the VM, this is still no proof for a single original. A textual analysis of the completely decrypted VM will be necessary to derive that nail home.
Why cannot we allow “working theory” as a concept in discussing the VM? Diane has alluded to this in the fine tuning of the theory of plate techtonics and Nick in his theory example of warm blooded dinosaurs which could be expanded further into concluding that they were ancestors of our current birds . I think getting off into the weeds on THEORY “senso stricto” is not going to do more than continue to generate more heat than light.
Tom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTOH8QK-6HA says it all, really. 🙂
Nick, right on! Cheers, Tom
Thomas
I do think it is important, even if only for persons offering random speculations about the manuscript, that they don’t get into the habit of thinking they have a defensible theory.
A theory is a pretty serious thing, built from a great mass o relevant data rightly understood and subjected to rigorous testing. Most of all, it has a power to predict that later discoveries will not fall outside it. (Ann Elk nearly has a theory; she just forgot to say why brontosaurs should be built so).
And I don’t think a theory can be owned, can it? Credited, of course.
Diane, A theory can certainly be “owned” or at least credited to some one (the discoverer) until hell freezeth over and the current “Theory of General Relativity” credited to Albert Einstein is one. I suppose an individual’s “possession” of a scientific theory is presumptuous in a way as it ultimately is just figuring out some aspect of creation. God knows but we just tumbled to the understanding ourselves. The General Theory is continually being tested and has not yet shown a case where it does not hold. There was for one brief period recently the observation that light had exceeded the accepted speed but on reanalysis, this was shown to be the result of a time keeping calibration error. Any theory (as you note) is always going to be tested continuously. If it breaks down as did the existence of “polywater” with its unusual properties, it gets dumped. Whether the word “theory” even has a place in an explanation or “solution” of the origin and purpose of the VM is debatable. I think what Nick has advanced with the VM creator being Antonio Averlino and the plants being disguised machines is a thoughtful “scenario” and up there as a “target”. This is the only way we are going to get anywhere in figuring this thing out. If “Averlino” were to meet every test for donkey’s years, then that solution should have a status higher than an hypothesis but maybe elevation to a “theory” is inappropriate.
Dear all, Any theory has to be based on an accumulation of provable, repeatable observations. The General Theory of Relativity is reliant upon one key experiment: the Michelson-Morley experiment where a beam of light was sent with and against the rotation of the earth where the “ether wind” would “resist” or “assist” it. Found over and over to make no difference. Physicists were puzzled but not Albert who took that as indicating the speed of light was a constant. This was his genius. Accepting the improbable. Nothing can exceed it (unless a subatomic particle within the nucleus of the atom) and this has held up to this day but some continue to chip away at it, particularly during the formation of the universe. Anne Elk’s bluster was really at the level of an observation, not a theory. A real theory would prove that the brontosaurus would HAVE to be thin-thick-thin and then lay out the reasons which could be examined by all.
I think Nick’s point in injecting that skit from Monty Python was in curbing runaway possessiveness and maybe injecting some needed humor into discussions.
Tom: …and that’s your theory, is it? 🙂
Nick, Yep. You can take it to the bank. Cheers, Tom
One of the rules should be establishing the language. How can that be done you ask. If you know where it was made the choices of languages is simpler. How can you tell where it was made? It would have been made soon after the skins were prepared. At the time the MS 408 was made parchment was in short supply. See the number of palimpsests made at the time. That brings you to DNA testing as the next step.
Xplor
DNA testing might be ideal, but isn’t so necessary with the right sort of microscopy and the large range of comparative images at our disposal now.
Even no, not all can be identified and it is difficult to tell one kind of wool-bearing sheep from another – but at least we can tell the difference between goat, deer, sheep and calves’ skin.
We can also swab for pollen and mold spores. The problem is how many researchers have contaminated the pages. I like DNA testing because it is cheap and easy. The sheep and goat database is large enough that adding something from the 15th century would lend insight.