Re: Kensington Runestone - Nielsen and Wolters.

Dear Eric:
Hokay, "Flame On!"
< ... ,just kidding ... >
You don't need to break oput the welding glasses
to read what I've written below, because I have no intention of
trying to imitate The Human Torch.
I.e., please don't take what i've written below as
an attempt to flame you.
It's just fairly-well-natured banter, okay, please?
No offense meant, I promise.
And I hope that your cats are still ageing gracefully, out of the
weather.
< ... okay, that was a stupid pun, i admit ... >

Eric Stevens wrote:
> "David B" <tronospamchos@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >Eric Stevens wrote:
> >> "David B" <tronospamchos@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<snip>

> >>>Eric Stevens wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>8. Wolters touches on the examination of the weathering of tombstones
> >>>> but other than stating the broad results he goes into no great
> >>>> detail.
> >>>
> >>>That alone makes the book not worth buying for me.
> >>>Until I see convincing evidence that the aging of the runes
> >>>could not be partly artificial, I'd have to say that all the rest of
> >>>the, no doubt fascinating, arguments are
> >>>only as relevant to real medieval history as The Da Vinci Code.

I must second those opinions.
The lack of convincing arguments buttressed by reference to
observations
of weathering is very disappointing; all else is mere opinion.

> >>I'm not quite sure where, but Wolters somewhere states in his book
> >>that artificial aging of the surface of the stone can be excluded. As
> >>you know, I made enquiries of geo-technical experts about this some
> >>years ago and reached the same conclusion. I know you (and others)
> >>like the idea of artificial aging but until you can come up with a
> >>mechanism which will withstand the close examination of an expert
> >>armed with all the tools of modern science, I don't think the idea
> >>will fly.

But your requirement for proof just gets back to the old
"Show that what you say is true" / "No, you show that what I say
is _not_ true, and if you can't then that means that what I say is
true"
altercation that can just as easily be applied to psychopathic ranting
as to
the speculations of materials engineers.
To that I must respond that if you want ask me to show that the KRS
was artificially weathered, I must in return ask you to show that the
KRS
was _not_ artificially weathered.

"Automatic gain-saying of what the other person says is not an
argument."
- Col. Graham Chapman (deceased)

> >But that's exactly why your point (8) makes the book such a letdown for me.
> >If Wolter had presented a convincing explanation of _how_ his examination
> >of the KRS ruled out artificial weathering to disguise freshly-exposed
> >mica, I'd have been interested. This also brings me back to the dating of
> >the "newly-discovered aspects of the runes" (by which I meant the
> >additional marks which changed the interpretation of some runes). If those
> >marks cannot _physically_ be proved to be of the same era as the previously
> >known carving, then they must be treated with great suspicion.

Indeed, if the only evidence of their age is that they are older than
a
photograph dated to 1899, then that does not mean that they were
created at the same time as was the inscription.
That sort of dating control does not rule out the possibility that
they were
created at the same time as the runes were cleaned out, after the
discovery.
And if they are visible in an 1899 photo, why would Wolters, et al.
say that
they were previously undiscovered?

"It is a puzzlement."
- Gilbert O'Sullivan (extent of animality unknown)

> He does explain enough of the process of weathering of the mica which
> he was examining to give you an idea of the complexity of faking the
> weathering. It's not just the question of loss of mica: the mica
> exfoliates in the process of natural weathering and any accelerated
> weathering process would have to produce similar exfoliation.

Fine. So, how long does it take natural weathering processes to
create the sort of exfoliation that has been observed?
Three hundred years? Three years? Three weeks? Three days?
If that timeline can't be determined, then weathering cannot be used

to determine the age of the KRS.
And yet, the matter is not as simple as that, even.
Riddle me this:
Once the surface has been aritificially mechanically weathered,
how much time is required to produce the observed weathering effects
using only "natural" forces?
Three hundred years? Three years? Three weeks? Three days?
After the surface has been artificially chemically weathered,
how much time is required to produce the observed weathering effects
using only "natural" forces?
Three hundred years? Three years? Three weeks? Three days?
Both these artificial weathering processes have been known to have
occurred. It has not been shown the observed weathering occurred
prior to the application of the known artificial weathering processes,
so
it has not been shown that the observed weathering is the result of
purely natural forces, so the problem for Wolter, et al. is to show
that
the observed weathering was not "faked".
The onus is upon them to show that
processes that are known to have occurred are
less likely agents of creation of
the observed physical character of the KRS than
processes that have not been demonstrated to have occurred.

As an analogy, if I am told that the lines in my face are
the result of many centuries of exposure to cosmic radiation,
I must retort that my tobacco habit is a much-more-likely
explanation, and that the onus is on the cosmic-ray enthusiast to
prove me wrong, _not the other way 'round_.

> There is more. For example mica also leaves iron stains when it first weathers
> and these iron stains also weather away. Your fake weathering would
> have to not only weather the mica in a way indistinguishable from
> natural weathering but it would have to weather away the iron stains
> in a way indistinguishable from natural weathering.

No, the requirement would be to not have any iron-staining remaining
after the artificial weathering process.
To satisfy that requirement, one need only weather the mica
in such as way as to not leave any iron-staining at all.
There is no need to remove iron-staining if it never existed.
The above requirement does not stand as being a necessary proof,
unless it is shown that suchiron-staining is the necessary outcome of
any and all possible artificial weathering processes.
Rather, it is more in the nature of a false analogy.


Another analogy is an argument that because
cosmic rays produce unstable nuclei that
naturally become stable again over centuries, then in order to
reproduce the wrinkling effects of cosmic rays by smoking tobacco,
I must somehow render those atomic nuclei stable again within
the half-century iclaim as my lifespan. My retort is that
my atomic nuclei have never been unstable, so there was
never any need to restabilise them in order to create wrinkling effects

by smoking tobacco that are indistinguishable from the effects of
centuries of exposure to cosmic rays.

> It would be extraordinary if any would-be forger of the past knew
> (in the past) enough about the weathering of the particular greywacke
> to be able to fool a determined expert armed with the knowledge and
> technology of the present. Without intending to be rude, you certainly
> couldn't get away with it even now.

And I must retort that you have not proven that
I could not get away with it now.
A major requirement of your gedanken-experiment is the existence of
an expert on artificial weathering of metagreywacke
found in the Minnesota area.
You have not demonstrated the existence of such a creature, or
how such a creature might come into existence today, though
there are some indications that onesuch may have existed
late in the penultimate century.
I would retort that the most likely explanation of the existence of
such anexpert is that it has displayed unprecedented longevity
sufficient to allow it to survive from the presumed time of artificial
weathering of the KRS by such an expert up to the present day.
No other qualified candidate has yet appeared, so
the onus is upon you to demonstrate that an as-unyet-unheard-of
more-recently-nascent expert is more likely.

i'm not trying to be obstreperous, as i hope you realise,
but i hope that i have shown you that some of the
"prove that I's wrong" arguments are not sufficient responses to
those asking for proof of as-yet-unfounded claims.

Thank you for reviewing Wolter's book for me.
I am now secure in the reasonable supposition that
Wolter has no convincing arguments to present
regarding using weathering to securely date
the inscription on the KRS.

If he had such, he would present them,
Shirley.

.