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6:55am November 29, 2013

Someone mentioned the Voynich manuscript.  (Separating this out in case the subject matter of the post makes it get reblogged.)

And.

I went to look it up.

And.

Ugh.

So there’s this CSICOP webpage that discusses it.  They go into great detail on various theories and why they’re plausible and not plausible.  Then this:

“Another theory, which I consider plausible, posits that the Voynich author was a mentally ill person (for example, someone suffering from autism); it is quite common for mentally ill people to create art. As far as I know, this hypothetical origin of the Voynich manuscript has never been researched by an expert.”

“It is quite common for mentally ill people to create art.”

“It is quite common for mentally ill people to create art.”

“It is quite common for mentally ill people to create art.”

THAT IS ALL THE PERSON NEEDS FOR THE THEORY TO BE PLAUSIBLE?  Never been researched by an expert.  (What kind of expert could possibly research that anyway?) No information given other than these couple sentences even though huge amounts of information given on every other possible hypothesis even ridiculous ones. But it’s plausible because you know mentally ill people create art.  And they don’t make sense.  So any time you get art that doesn’t make sense, that’s the explanation?

Okaaay.

This is why I don’t take skeptics seriously on most stuff about the capabilities or lack thereof of autistic people, people with intellectual disabilities, or people with mental illness.  They don’t get any of it correct at all but they expect to be taken seriously because they know a few ridiculous generalizations and that’s all they need to know.

It’s like there’s some kind of skeptic playbook where all the hidden dogmatic crap is located and this stuff is among it.

This bit at the end too:

“The Voynich manuscript is and most likely will remain a riddle. We can hope that the manuscript will not merely become a playing field for mystics and pseudoscientists. After all, the subject is fascinating enough without adventurous speculation.”

I think maybe they don’t know what a mystic is either?  I don’t see why being a mystic would have anything to do with this thing.  (Unless whoever wrote it was a mystic who didn’t feel like having their ideas examined too closely by the Church?   But that’s not what they mean.  Even though it’s as plausible as any other half-formed theory based on ~crazy people make confusing art~.)