Re: VMs: NSU review of Rugg (2003)...

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Gordon,

At 13:46 18/12/2003 +0000, Gordon Rugg wrote:
> As for detecting the "signature" of a particular table, it's statistically
> non-trivial. One issue is that you'd need to assume a particular breakdown of
> each word into characters, pairs of characters, syllables, or whatever,before
> you could begin any statistical test. If the manuscript is a meaningless hoax
> containing gibberish, then there may well be wildcards in there, and 
> deliberate
> filling-in of pages using more than one table, plus deliberate creation of
> unique meaningless labels - I used all these techniques, and more, when trying
> to recreate a hoax. It wouldn't be a case of making some assumptions, 
> running a
> test, and calculating a p value - I think that there would be few, if any,
> tests which could work with those assumptions which were valid.

If the number of tables is large enough (yet the output statistical 
properties remain constant), the black art of table construction becomes 
indistinguishable from cryptography anyway. But if the tables are (as you 
assert) probably few in number, then the re-use of fragments should be 
statistically detectable, surely?

Really, we're all bright enough here to devise scientific-sounding theories 
that are untestable - but what kind of scientist would assert that such a 
claim helps moves us toward a solution?

As for "deliberate filling-in of pages using more than one table" - this 
sounds an awful lot like a cop-out on your part. Why would a hoaxer bother, 
if it looked good enough without going to that much trouble?

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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