20th November 2008, 7:23 PM
Anyway, to make it clear, I know you can't expect absolute proof, but rather evidence. If you have established that a book actually is from a specific era and written by a specific author using a good chunk of it, then the remaining pages need not be assumed to be fake, it's a good bet the entirety of it is also from that era, until something about the handwriting or the paper suggests otherwise. However, if you haven't established any of that, and all you can say is this long lost Shakespear play sure sounds a lot like his normal style, then that's hardly convincing evidence at all.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)