…and this is a 
I get thrown the miracle of the shroud of Turin on a regular basis — just last week someone confronted me with it, basically saying "A-ha! Jesus existed because there's an old scrap of cloth with a face on it!" It doesn't matter that I point out that it's been dated to the 13th century, and was nothing more than a profit-making 'relic' for churches that would also hawk Jesus's foreskin and John the Baptist's pinky bone. They'd usually retort that it was not humanly possible to make the shroud, so it had to be a religious miracle.
Now I've got more ammo. The Shroud of Turin has been recreated, using simple medieval technologies. No magic, just acidic pigments.
I know, it won't stop the kooks, but it's still useful to know. Next up, we need more evidence against the patently goofy Miracle of Luciano, which is the other 'proof' of god that gets flung around a lot.
Comments
Posted by: Rey Fox
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October 6, 2009 10:03 AM
"Analysis has proved that the bread and wine contain characteristics of real human flesh and blood. Both belonged to the same blood type, AB. "
Jesus wasn't a universal donor? Pfft.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 6, 2009 10:19 AM
These was reported on the Discovery Channel News web site last night. I had a great chuckle. And yet people will still believe in the fake just because they feel they must. Not very rational behavior.
Posted by: SciencePundit
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October 6, 2009 10:20 AM
I read somewhere that when the shroud first appeared, the bishops didn't want to have anything to do with it because they thought it was such an obvious fake (and so the scammers had to make do with less money by selling it to a smaller church). I wish I could remember where I heard that; perhaps I'll need to do some research.
Posted by: AJ Milne
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October 6, 2009 10:26 AM
Yeah... but... umm... See... the artist who did this had to add magical 'design stuff' to do it...
So... ummm... Godddit!
(/'Kay... I feel stupider just having typed that.)
Posted by: Drosera
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October 6, 2009 10:32 AM
Apparently the other miracle was real:
Scientifically proven to be of supernatural origin, so it must be true.
Er, wait a minute...
Posted by: Corey S
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October 6, 2009 10:35 AM
Actually, the dating of the shroud was improperly done. They used the mixture of interwoven fabric with the original, which contaminated the results. The dating was not wrong, but the sample was.
Posted by: aratina cage
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October 6, 2009 10:38 AM
This comes as a great relief to me since I've always wanted to know how it was done. Now we have a very simple method for making such a shroud. Luigi, the Shroud recreator, appears to have a long history with James Randi.
Posted by: eddie
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October 6, 2009 10:41 AM
I supposr #6 has a better excuse than simply lying about the dating being unreliable.
But what the fuck is god doing dressing in mixed cloth?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 6, 2009 10:45 AM
CoreyS, the shroud dating results stand as fact until evidence demonstrates a different date. This would be done by the church dating the main piece of cloth. Until this is done, the results stand, and the shroud is a fraud. Inane arguments like yours are meaningless to science.
Posted by: Victor
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October 6, 2009 10:48 AM
Though, they do charge admission to see it.
Perhaps their fingers are crossed as they take the money.
Posted by: Richard Eis
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October 6, 2009 10:49 AM
If the dating had matched the hoped for date. No complaints would have been made.
Posted by: mas528
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October 6, 2009 10:49 AM
I think all of those miracles are pretty wonky
the 'Eucharistic Miracle of Santarém, Portugal'
I mean, really...
Who was the team? What was their report?
I spent a whole 2-3 minutes on google (because I care about this so much) and I was not able to find anything about it (except regurgitations of the press release on the miracles page).
Does anyone know, off the top of their head?
Thank you SEF. Your login still works, even though I thought that SB had broken it when I got a permission denied on CODE. But I got in and it is only because of you.
Posted by: Abdul Alhazred
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October 6, 2009 10:54 AM
Calling all entrepreneurs!
If the Shroud of Turin can be reproduced, it can be mass-produced. :)
Posted by: Knockgoats
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October 6, 2009 10:59 AM
Actually, the dating of the shroud was improperly done. They used the mixture of interwoven fabric with the original, which contaminated the results. The dating was not wrong, but the sample was. - CoreyS
There is no evidence whatsoever that this is the case. The sample was taken by a highly-qualified team including a representative from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The claim that the sample was contaminated come from Raymond Rogers, who claims to have tested fibres taken from the sample, but has provided no evidence that they did in fact come from it, and indeed had no legitimate way of obtaining such fibres.
Posted by: raven
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October 6, 2009 11:02 AM
Source??? Sounds like an excuse (lie) that some xian made up after the fact.
They do that a lot. In fact they do that all the time.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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October 6, 2009 11:03 AM
Good work, of course. But seriously, there are a lot of questions to be answered, like, well, how some of the anatomical and accidental details on the shroud are quite good, perhaps better than medieval artists would be likely to reproduce.
The radiocarbon dates are still the best evidence that it's not what it's purported to be. The only at all credible way around those seem to be outright fraud, always a possibility, but not especially believable.
Indeed, it's presumably a forgery of some kind or other, yet the mere fact that someone could do it using medieval methods doesn't exactly show that it was done in the way that the modern person claims that it was.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: SEF
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October 6, 2009 11:05 AM
Rather like Fermat's last theorem - it's very unlikely his method of proof (assuming he was correct in his margin assertion!) would have been the same as the recent modern version.
Posted by: daveau
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October 6, 2009 11:07 AM
mas528 @12
Stop being so cynical. They said it was all scientifical and everything...
Posted by: Richard Eis
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October 6, 2009 11:08 AM
-If the Shroud of Turin can be reproduced, it can be mass-produced. :)-
I want the "Curtains of Turin". Only with puppies. Blood soaked statue representations of mythical demigods doesn't do it for me.
Posted by: Corey S
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October 6, 2009 11:08 AM
Nerd of Redhead, OM
The error has been recognized by the team that did the sampling in 1988. They tested a piece that was left over from the original sampling. And it was confirmed that the samples were not part of the original, but interwoven during the middle ages. Also, there was a variety of dating differences between each sample tested by different labs.
The pdf of the results:
http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/Shroud-of-Turin-Carbon-14-Dating-Mistake.pdf
I believe that the shroud is not authentic, but it needs to be properly tested to confirm it.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
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October 6, 2009 11:10 AM
First off... many curses to you, moveable type!
Secondly, I've long been personally confused as to why people would be so moved and awed by supposed "miracles". Frankly more often then not, even if they were true "miracles", they do more to show that god is capricious and unstable at best, and evil, malicious and malevolent at worst... either way, I fins myself unimpressed by even the claims of these "miracles", much like the recent example of the woman with ALS who was "cured" by the water at Lourdes... I wrote about that recently.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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October 6, 2009 11:12 AM
Wow, the Santarém link is a must-read!
A "Jewish Sorceress"? Seriously?
The magical Host "freeing itself" from a beeswax ball and conjuring for itself a crystal ampoule with a silver stopper??
The freaking (and "pulsating") Host was important enough back in 1247 to be "freed from the Knot and elevated by angels who sang Divine Praises," but by 1970 (thanks to rough handling by those rude and sacriligious pilgrims from North America), "half the glass of the ampoule had been broken off and the silver stopper removed...today only particles of blood and solidified flesh are found clinging to the inside what remains of the glass ampoule." [sic] WTF? Hey, angels!!
These people have to be the most gullible rubes in history.
Posted by: Victor
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October 6, 2009 11:12 AM
That miracles page doesn't even contain one piece of information about the Jesus Grilled Cheese Sandwich. What, do things have to be old to be a miracle? I call foul!
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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October 6, 2009 11:16 AM
Glen, it wasn't painted by an artist. More like stone-rubbing, on a real person.
Posted by: SciencePundit
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October 6, 2009 11:21 AM
As a follow-up to my last comment (#3) where I had read somewhere that the bishops at the time the shroud first appeared knew it was fake, I found the reference. It was Joe Nickell:
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 6, 2009 11:22 AM
Corey S, the dating by the different teams varied, as would be expected, but overlapped on the crucial date of when the relic first appeared. Until there is scientific dating evidence to the contrary, which requires more than pure speculation, the dating results stand.
Posted by: black-wolf72
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October 6, 2009 11:22 AM
[Now after trying to sign in a number of times and failing for the last half hour or so, being denied server access or some other mysterious load of horseshit, I finally got logged in. Here's the comment I wrote and wisely left open in my notepad:]
Funny how the Church continues to make a lot of money off the Shroud directly and indirectly, by exhibition and marketing, all the while declining to make a clear and unambiguous statement. Nothing but greed. Whoever believes the Church has any interest in 'spiritual wellbeing' is a fool. To think that a forgery created for monetary gain could be a "powerful reminder of Christ's passion" (Reuters article), you really must be borderline retarded. That the Church expects believers to swallow that does more to demonstrate how they regard their believers's mental capacity than anything else.
I'm amazed how many believers claim to be Roman Catholic and equally openly assert that neither the word of the Pope or things like miracles, Saints, pilgrimages count for much in their worldview. I wonder how it feels to go through life in such a confused state of mind, all the things held important drifting in and out of a haze of muddled pseudo-thinking.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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October 6, 2009 11:26 AM
Yes, but the details often brought up (which I really can't evaluate) relate to crucifixion, death, blood stains, etc., and these ended up being added later:
Of course I was never quite so sure that medieval folk didn't know more about crucifixion than many of the miraculists believe, as much cruelty occurred then. Da Vinci knew that the nails would almost certainly be in the wrists, not the hands. And if this was probably due in part to then-recent anatomical investigations, well, they never really ceased.
Nevertheless, many of the details seem quite good indeed. I wouldn't discount the possibility that the shroud was made using a crucified person, certainly, but that does add complexity to the whole operation and seemingly reduce the chance of it happening.
One thing I've always thought about the shroud is--would anybody really cover a body as the shroud shows? It just doesn't look right to me, but perhaps it was done. Then again, maybe it didn't happen like that, but it made for a good artistic display of the entire body.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: sqlrob
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October 6, 2009 11:29 AM
It would be nice to know exactly how it was made, but that's not entirely the point.
We're forcing them into another God of the Gaps situation. "It wasn't possible then, so goddidit" has been eliminated as an argument.
Posted by: Flea
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October 6, 2009 11:31 AM
My favorite miracle (your link) is the "Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano", I quote:
"... Eventually, the liquefied blood turned into five pellets of various sizes and shapes. When the local archbishop later weighed the pellets, it was discovered that one nugget weighed the same as all five together, two as much as any three, and the smallest as much as the largest...".
Posted by: aratina cage
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October 6, 2009 11:31 AM
Skeptic Joe Nickell's response (Claims of Invalid “Shroud” Radiocarbon Date Cut from Whole Cloth) to Ray Rodgers' paper claiming erroneous dating of the Shroud (Studies on the radiocarbon sample from the shroud of turin) is very informative:
I think I read that Luigi used one of his students as the subject for the new shroud. It's possible the original Shroud used a cadaver, possibly one tortured by crucifixion.Posted by: Forbidden Snowflake
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October 6, 2009 11:45 AM
Dr. Luigi Garlaschelli (the Italian scientist from the first link) has previously documented a method for creating weeping/bleeding statues of Maria/Jesus.
http://library.thinkquest.org/C007461/bleeding_statues.htm
Posted by: black-wolf72
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October 6, 2009 11:48 AM
Sven #22
Umm, no. These are the people who profit from continuing the scam.
An aside: the Church has 'investigated' and confirmed the 'miracle' in the middle ages. As apparently there is no information on the alleged investigation of 1997 apart from the people who sell the miracle to the public, I guess it wouldn't even pass a Church-led investigation of today, let alone an independent scientific one. But of course that doesn't stop them from sending their pilgrims there and making more money off them. The same people also sell a number of other miracles at their place, about a crucifix on which Jesus came alive. Surely, once they realized they could get away with one scam, they invented a few more, attracting Fatima pilgrims.
Posted by: Sir Eccles
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October 6, 2009 11:51 AM
I'm no expert in carbon dating but if it was interwoven with cloth of two different eras (1300 CE and 0CE ish) would you not get two peaks in your analysis?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 6, 2009 11:58 AM
No, you would get a date between the two cloths. If the dating came to 800+/-200 CE, they might have an argument. Since it didn't, they don't.Posted by: artconserv
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October 6, 2009 11:59 AM
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Walter McCrone's aptly named book on the subject, Judgment Day For The Turin Shroud, published in 1996. ISBN 0-904962-15-6
Dr. McCrone, founder of the McCrone Institute in Chicago, was a world renowned expert in pigment analysis and microscopy. He examined samples of the shroud over a 20 year period and determined it was a medieval artifact. He identified the pigments and the media used. No blood was found, only pigments. Three carbon-dating laboratories agreed closely on the date of 1325 plus/minus 65 years. (page 246)
It was his opinion that the "Shroud" artist used a technique popular in the 14th century--grisaille painting-- to create this object. (page 143) Once Dr. McCrone's observations were made known, the church forbade him to continue his research. He published his findings in this book and it's quite an interesting read.
Posted by: amphiox
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October 6, 2009 12:05 PM
"I believe that the shroud is not authentic, but it needs to be properly tested to confirm it."
I believe you have the methodology reversed. The claim of authenticity is what requires confirmation. Non-authenticity is the appropriate baseline assumption, or null hypothesis.
If the carbon dating evidence is disregarded then the historical record is the remaining evidence we should rely on. The proper starting hypothesis should be that the shroud was created close to the time of its first documented appearance, which is the middle ages (whether you choose to think of it as fraud or artwork is immaterial). And we do not postulate any other ranges of dates until positive evidence arises to suggest otherwise.
Posted by: Happy Tentacles
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October 6, 2009 12:10 PM
Reminds me of a story I read somewhere about the great William Buckland visiting a Catholic Church somewhere in Europe. There was a local miracle, by which the dried blood of a saint regularly returned to its liquid state. WB asked for a closer look at this miracle-blood, dipped his finger in, and licked his finger.
"Ah yes," he said. "Bat's urine!"
He was, of course, one of the few people likely to be able to identify bat's urine by its taste alone.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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October 6, 2009 12:15 PM
Of course, you're right.
Posted by: Alyson Miers
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October 6, 2009 12:17 PM
I find it rather convenient that the samples taken from the Shroud for carbon-dating just happen to be the corners supposedly grafted onto the fabric in the Middle Ages. Wouldn't it be in the Church's interest to make damn well sure the scientists were given the oldest possible samples? I'd feel really damn foolish if I were a Church official who snipped off a part of the Shroud that wasn't even grown as flax until centuries after Christ died and handed it to some scientists for examination, when the rest of the fabric was 2000 years old.
Posted by: Strangest brew
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October 6, 2009 12:18 PM
I think it is a done and dusted tale...
"The Catholic Church does not claim the Shroud is authentic nor that it is a matter of faith"
One can be fully assured that if the RCC disown the premise..or at least distance themselves like so then one can be damned to hell sure that they know full well that that tacky little rag is a complete and utter fraud...if there was but one single niggling doubt the story projected would be entirely different...oh yes indeed so!
The RCC are pragmatic in the hysterical knicker wetting by the faithful over it, besides tis good revenue, and has been for quite a while.
That is one reason why they are not busting a ecclesiastical gut to nail the debate once and for all, the furore created in '88' was rather a fortunate 'godsend' for the religious, typically the only time it really mattered to get a unequivocal result on a date was scuppered by the choice of sample used, one wonders, cos one does in this case, why the sample extractor was retricted to that corner.
"Giovanni Riggi, the person who actually cut the carbon 14 sample from the Shroud stated, "I was authorized to cut approximately 8 square centimetres of cloth from the Shroud…This was then reduced to about 7 cm because fibres of other origins had become mixed up with the original fabric "
There were other clues that the sample chosen was dodgy...sources available on net for that statement...
example...http://www.innoval.com/C14/
That the Vatican closely monitored the process can not be overlooked...they indeed directed the protocol and the exact area of sample removal...no surprise then that it turns out to be questionable...or is that just cynicism?
Maybe...maybe not!
Posted by: glenister_m
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October 6, 2009 12:31 PM
In the 1990's I visited the British Museum in London, which had an exhibit of fakes. The exhibit included the fake (Renoir?)paintings that had both fooled the art critics and were sold to the Nazi's by the artist (he was arrested after the war, but proved he had actually fooled everyone).
As I was exploring, I came across a light table, and was trying to figure out what the exhibit was, when it dawned on me - The Shroud of Turin. So even the church believes it is fake.
I found it amusing that I saw it in an exhibit of fakes, and a couple of years later it was being displayed in Turin for the faithful.
Of course TLC did a special on it a few years back. Which included 3 "experts" saying why it had to be real, followed by the one scientist saying "no, it's medieval", followed by 3 "experts" saying why it had to be real. The only interesting counter-evidence they had was that the type of weaving pattern used matched a sample from Masada 1st Century, and not medieval weaves.
Posted by: sasqwatch
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October 6, 2009 12:43 PM
Looks to me like Dr. Luigi Garlaschelli nailed it. heh... heh... heh...
Posted by: Brownian, OM
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October 6, 2009 12:46 PM
Well, of course it's a hoax. Duh!
But what do your fancy scientists have to say about the 1995 milk miracle? Praise Ganesh!
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler
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October 6, 2009 1:20 PM
Flea @ # 30: "... Eventually, the liquefied blood turned into five pellets of various sizes and shapes. When the local archbishop later weighed the pellets, it was discovered that one nugget weighed the same as all five together, two as much as any three, and the smallest as much as the largest...".
To my innumerate mind, that signifies that each of the pellets must have had a weight of zero - or possibly of infinity. Determining which could provide the ultimate answer to the does-god-exist debate - and the fact that the pellets did not immediately form the nucleus of a supermassive black hole offers a clue...
Posted by: The Other Ian
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October 6, 2009 1:27 PM
I agree with this. My only objection is when people make statements such as "it's been dated to the 13th century" as PZ did in his post. The evidence that the sample was contaminated is strong enough that to go on claiming the Shroud has been reliably dated is intellectually dishonest.
Nerd,
As I understand it, the point that was made was not just that the different labs got varying results, but that the different results were correlated with the distance of the sub-sample from the edge of the Shroud, as might be expected if the sample was contaminated. This is not strong evidence in any case, since with 4 sub-samples the odds of getting that particular order of dates is 1/24.
Alyson,
The Church also had an interest in not damaging the Shroud. The sample was taken from the corner as a compromise to minimize the damage.
Posted by: MikeyM
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October 6, 2009 1:31 PM
About two decades ago, the Skeptical Inquirer ran an article by Joe Nickel that showed him recreating the Shroud image by molding wet cloth around a bust of Bing Crosby (!) and rubbing it with pigment.
BTW, isn't it odd that the folks who insist that the Shroud is genuine are never bothered by the fact that the description of Jesus's burial in the Gospels eliminate the possibility that he was covered in a way that would make the image on the Shroud possible?
Posted by: Matt Penfold
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October 6, 2009 1:33 PM
And then only if you think Europe was isolated from the rest of the world.
Posted by: Abdul Alhazred
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October 6, 2009 1:36 PM
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 6, 2009 1:39 PM
Other Ian, citations to the scientific literature please. I noticed you forgot to do so.
Posted by: Jason A.
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October 6, 2009 1:41 PM
Note wording. The author of the article:
Words of the actual scientist, two paragraphs below:
Posted by: hje
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October 6, 2009 1:43 PM
Will this prevent Dan Brown from writing yet another novel?
Posted by: The Other Ian
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October 6, 2009 1:44 PM
aratina,
Thanks for posting that link. I was under the impression that Rodgers was a skeptic regarding the Shroud. That no longer appears to be the case.
Posted by: CJO
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October 6, 2009 1:47 PM
isn't it odd that the folks who insist that the Shroud is genuine are never bothered by the fact that the description of Jesus's burial in the Gospels eliminate the possibility that he was covered in a way that would make the image on the Shroud possible?
Well, in one gospel. The synoptics describe Joseph of Arimathea simply wrapping the body in a linen cloth, with slight variations in wording (they all specifically say "linen" or "linen cloth"). John 19:40 says "wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen", and goes on to gloss this for the gentile audience, saying that this was in accordance with Jewish burial practices.
Posted by: Matt Penfold
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October 6, 2009 1:51 PM
Now that might be something that could truly be classed as miraculous.
Posted by: The Other Ian
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October 6, 2009 1:53 PM
Nerd, the evidence I was referring to is from the same 2005 article by Rodgers that has already been linked to in this thread.
The bit about the correlation between age and distance is from a Discovery show. I don't know that it's ever been published, nor would I care, since as I previously noted it's not particularly strong evidence.
Posted by: Porco Dio
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October 6, 2009 1:55 PM
The article states that "his arms crossed on his chest."
This is not true - the arms are extended so that the hands cover his family jewels... something I have always considered to be a blatant proof of forgery.
It seems obvious to me that a corpse wrapped in a shroud would have it's arms straight by its side and not covering its medieval sensibilities...
For one, and I'm no physician, I don't think that flaccid limbs would stay in that position or that a mortician would care to place them that way...
Anyone care to poke my logic with a pointy stick?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 6, 2009 2:02 PM
But the Rodgers paper has been debunked. I've subscribed to Skeptical Inquirer for 20+ years, so I am familiar with the story. Until I see the revised dating, the present dating stands as far as I am concerned, and the shroud is a hoax.Posted by: aratina cage
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October 6, 2009 2:12 PM
The Other Ian,
No problem. I spelled his name wrong above. It's "Rogers". I'm a little puzzled as to why Rogers joined with people he had previously called the "lunatic fringe" in claiming the Shroud sample was contaminated and in ignoring McCrone's findings because I can't find evidence that Rogers had a religious bias. Shroud of Turin fanatic Barrie Schwortz has more information about Rogers: http://www.shroud.com/late05.htm#rogers
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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October 6, 2009 2:15 PM
So if the
ex-crackerHost has type AB blood, then now we know two things about the Holy Spirit:1.) at least one Y chromosome.
2.) at least one blood-type allele for either the A or the B antigen.
Science marches on.
Posted by: eddie
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October 6, 2009 2:27 PM
Re hje @52 - We can but hope.
Posted by: eddie
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October 6, 2009 2:36 PM
I tried this comment earlier but it was "held in moderation":
I tried to read the linked article about Luciani but was disgusted by the anti-semitism, misogyny and racism; Slights against 'greek witches', 'jewish sorceress'. From what I could read while un-spinning their lies, the church tortured and murdered a woman for objecting to her husband's adultery. It seems their racism, anti-semitism ad misogyny means more to them that their so-called laws of god
Posted by: Strangest brew
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October 6, 2009 2:52 PM
#46
". My only objection is when people make statements such as "it's been dated to the 13th century"
well certainly a sample from the Turin shroud has been dated to that era...and it is extremely unlikely the radiometric dating procedures were erroneous?
Let us assume that they are not...then that implies a date has been gained...whether that covers the age of the whole shroud in general is another matter of course.
"The evidence that the sample was contaminated is strong enough that to go on claiming the Shroud has been reliably dated is intellectually dishonest."
But certainly not the sample tested!
If the sample were indeed... as has been suggested by investigators since the radiocarbon dating research...contaminated by repair work using a technique colloquially known as French weaving, it does not prove that that date is false!
It is true that a question remains about the un-repaired portion of the shroud.
"As I understand it, the point that was made was not just that the different labs got varying results"
Nope not really, all samples from seven labs (I think the research group consisted of) returned results within statistical appropriateness of the tests.
"The results of radiocarbon measurements at Arizona, Oxford and Zurich yield a calibrated calendar age range with at least 95% confidence for the linen of the Shroud of Turin of AD 1260 - 1390 (rounded down/up to nearest 10 yr)."
That quote was from the British Museum...they were commenting on the published results...only later was doubt raised about the sample being representative of the shroud as a whole!
"The Church also had an interest in not damaging the Shroud. The sample was taken from the corner as a compromise to minimize the damage."
Possibly, but it is passing strange that there seems to be a deliberate attitude somewhere in this sorry tale to deliberately discredit the findings...
The failure to recognize one of the first rules of analytical chemistry in that any sample taken for characterization of an area or population must necessarily be representative of the whole as reported by Robert Villarreal, Los Alamos National Laboratory,
Was indeed a massive oversight by extremely experienced scientists.
Unless of course they were not allowed to insure a representative sample was gathered...which seems to be the gist of the matter.
It seems it is well within the bounds to postulate that a sample that registered a middle ages origin and then challenged as being...different...from the rest of the shroud somehow...maintains the 'mystery' of the shroud.
The Church must be delighted...income is secured for a relatively longer period and the bunnies that hop to the 'Turin beat' get to bounce another day.
Bit convenient is that...It is not expected that the Church would allow another test any time soon, that is a fact methinks, they gambled once(or was it I wonder)it seems to have paid off whatever, and they are on their toes with the winnings!
Posted by: Peter G.
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October 6, 2009 3:32 PM
Hmm. I have a cotton cloth I use to dry my junk after playing racquetball. It has an interesting image too which, I might add, is "untainted" if you know what I mean. What should I charge for viewings?
Posted by: sasqwatch
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October 6, 2009 3:50 PM
That's gross. You really need to dry your taint, too.
Posted by: sasqwatch
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October 6, 2009 4:02 PM
Also... what you charge for viewings many times depends on the size of your junk.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself
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October 6, 2009 4:36 PM
Um, looks like a penis, only smaller.
Posted by: Rowan
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October 6, 2009 4:49 PM
Something that has me confused in the discussion about the dating of the fibre samples. There are indications that the shroud was repaired after the fire which scorched it in 1532.
If the sample used for the C14 dating was taken from an area which was patched, where did the two hundred year old fabric used as a patches come from? Were the nuns storing hundreds of year old linen rags?
Posted by: aratina cage
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October 6, 2009 4:58 PM
Rowan, Nerd of Redhead OM addressed that in #35, I think. If the fire was in 1500 and the Shroud was created in 1100, the date would show up as 1300 if it had original and new material in it.
Posted by: Kagehi
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October 6, 2009 5:01 PM
Not sure where I read it, but I got the impression that using *that much* cloth on any body, especially someone buried, one assumes, by Rome, not his followers (or even if he was, by people he had already talked into giving up most of their money), just didn't happen. The only "shrouds" commonly used at the time where small cloths that covered *only* the face itself, and no other part of the body. And, that was only among the Jewish tradition, not the Roman. I also tend to suspect that if the Roman's had really been involve, the likely result wouldn't have been a tomb in the first place, least not with guards wandering around the tomb area, never mind finding it empty. The whole thing is just absurd, like some Monty Python skit: Guard one, "Heh, why are we guarding these tomb anyway?" Guard two, "Zombies." Guard one, "Zombies?!" Guard two, "Yeah. Captain said we should look for zombies." Guard one, "Ah, OK... What are zombies?"
Posted by: woodsong
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October 6, 2009 5:05 PM
I was fortunate enough to attend a seminar on microscopic analysis given by Dr. McCrone at Cornell in which he described his work with the shroud. I remember him describing how he compared actual blood drips (his own) on paper with the spatters on the shroud, and showing a series of spots, scaled from one drop in a place to 10 drops, and how they differed from the marks on the shroud.
The drops on the shroud are solid circles of bright red.
His blood dripped on paper produced (nearly) empty circles of dull red, which with time would have faded to dark brown. Multiple drops gave a slightly darker ring, but did not significantly broaden the colored area.
Combine that with the presence of paint pigments and the lack of any actual bodily fluids, and he was certain that he had proven the shroud a forgery. Of course, the Church didn't want him to publish that...
I found that talk very interesting!
Posted by: CJO
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October 6, 2009 5:08 PM
Anyone read Baudolino by Umberto Ecco? The first few chapters are a frankly hilarious take on the Medieval relic trade. It's a strange book, but worth a read.
Posted by: Kel
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October 6, 2009 5:11 PM
And in other breaking news this computer uses a QWERTY keyboard *gasp*Posted by: aratina cage
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October 6, 2009 5:13 PM
Oh, and I pulled those numbers out of my ass in #69 just for illustrative purposes only. Wikipedia gives the date of origin as 1260–1390 for the Shroud and that matches accordingly with the timing of first recorded sightings.
Posted by: RagingBullwinkle
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October 6, 2009 5:13 PM
I have my ShamWow of Turin on order. If it's not the miracle soaker-upper it's claimed to be, I'm going to be pissed.
Posted by: Brownian, OM
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October 6, 2009 5:23 PM
And RagingBullwinkle wins teh internets.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself
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October 6, 2009 5:28 PM
At one time there were four Sacred Spears (used to stab Jesus while on the cross) and three foreskins from Jesus's circumcision at various places in medieval Europe and Byzantium. It's been estimated that if all the splinters of the Holy Cross were assembled into one piece, the cross would have been five meters long, a meter thick, and with a three meter crosspiece also a meter thick.
Posted by: Carlie
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October 6, 2009 5:41 PM
I was positive someone must have made Shroud of Turin washcloths by now, but the internet can't seem to find any. How could such a niche go unfilled?
This is not true - the arms are extended so that the hands cover his family jewels... something I have always considered to be a blatant proof of forgery.
Also see the Cardiff Giant (in Cooperstown, NY!). Interesting how the frauds were such prudes.
Posted by: No More Mr. Nice Guy!
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October 6, 2009 5:42 PM
@#64: gotta love this Reuters headline:
A new taint on the Shroud of Turin?
That's funny, I thought it was supposed to be Jesus' face...
Posted by: MadScientist
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October 6, 2009 6:49 PM
Not only was it carbon dated (that was about 20 years ago already!), but there are historical letters between a bishop and the pope of the era in which the bishop condemns the shroud as a forgery. However, it had such a cult following that decades later it became a miracle cloth.
After the carbon dating of course people started to manufacture stories about why it only dated to the 13th century; one of my favorites is that the miracle of the resurrection converted a load of the 13C in the fibers to 14C. The only mechanisms I can think of that could do that would either not leave the cloth in terribly good shape or they would leave other evidence - but I guess the missing evidence in favor of the shroud's authenticity is just part of the jeebus miracle.
Posted by: Knockgoats
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October 6, 2009 6:51 PM
The error has been recognized by the team that did the sampling in 1988. - Corey S.
[citation needed] The link you gave shows no such thing, and I don't believe it to be the case. Sorry Corey S., but you've simply fallen for shroud-believers' apologetics. AFAIK, the only peer-reviewed study to question the dating is the 2005 Thermochemica Acta article by Rogers - who, as I said before, offers no evidence apart from his bare word that the fibres he worked on came from the sample - and had no legitimate way of getting hold of such fibres. Most tellingly, the Church has not suggested a retest - they know damn well the result would be the same.
Posted by: Gregory Greenwood
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October 6, 2009 7:33 PM
Now for the creo-bot 'counter argument';
"Damned evil carbon dating! 'Tis science, therefore 'tis the work of satan! Reality is the enemy of god."
Also;
"Truth? Facts? Evidence? These things only matter if you don't have faith! Wonderful faith! Panacea (and cause) of the world's ills. Opiate of the people (that's 'opiate' in a good way, you understand. In a 'high on god' kinda way. Not in a bad drug-addict-turning-tricks-for-their-next-fix kinda way).
Sheild and comfort to the oppressed (unless the church is doing the oppressing. Or the oppressed have done something to deserve being oppressed. Like being homosexual. Or atheist. Or a woman. Or observing the wrong religion. Or being a member of the wrong subsect of the right religion. You get the idea).
Sword of the righteous (especially if some holy oppression of the ungodly needs doing [see above]).
Guarantor of freedom (but only if you are a white, middle or upper class male of the correct faith, you understand. God never intended freedom to be enjoyed by lesser [or penis-free] mortals).
All you have to do is suspend your critical faculties and abandon reason. Let's start with something easy, like ascribing mystical properties to a stain on an old rag. We'll move onto the advanced denial of the manifest fact of evolution later . . ."
That seems about right. Does anyone think I missed anything?
Posted by: bastion of sass
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October 6, 2009 8:30 PM
woodsong wrote:
Yeah, but I assume that Dr. McCrone has human blood. You can't compare that to divine blood! Who knows what God's/God son's blood looks like.
Posted by: Strangest brew
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October 7, 2009 3:36 AM
As Adam Savage or Jamie Hyneman might opine at the end of the show...
THIS MYTH IS BUSTED!
Posted by: Alistair Coleman
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October 7, 2009 7:30 AM
Wake up, sheeple, it's OBVIOUS!
This J. Christ chap clearly found himself bored one day working for the family furniture-making business. And what better way to relieve workplace boredom than to photocopy yourself and sent the pics to your mates? One of whom OBVIOUSLY lived in Turin.
Q E D !
Posted by: AJ Milne
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October 7, 2009 4:27 PM
Indeed. Cackled loudly at the bit about now having enough relics of the One True Cross kicking around to build a decent ark or somesuch... but such a pile of remains of saints and apostles that it would still be crowded...
(/Text probably far from as paraphrased... Been a few years... But yes, the book's a riot.)
Posted by: Marcm2k
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October 7, 2009 6:04 PM
This one kills me. Imagine all the people who absolutely swore that this was a relic of Christ, people who were 'healed', people who saw the light and were blessed. All those who vouchsafed it's existence only to have it proven to be full of crap.
If people can be fooled one way, then why not the next?
Posted by: MollyT
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October 7, 2009 6:15 PM
Shroud of Turin shower curtains. Shroud of Turin tablecloths.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM
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October 7, 2009 6:18 PM
Shroud of Turin shower curtains.
It's not the Shroud, but I have one of these in my bathroom, just because I love tacky religious kitsch.
Posted by: Takis Konstantopoulos
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October 7, 2009 7:47 PM
Luigi Garlaschelli is the same guy who debunked, some time ago, the miracle of blood liquefaction of Saint Gennaro. I just posted on this, together with references to his papers.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 7, 2009 7:59 PM
*covers eyes to prevent blindness while fumbling with mouse to backtrack*Posted by: BrianX
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October 7, 2009 8:49 PM
Best tipper: Tossup between the bartender and the rabbi
Worst tipper: "Generic Christian", who likes to leave tracts and "God loves you" notes.
Muslim's tipping habits are unknown and Baptist's are schizoid. Sometimes he's nice; sometimes he's a stingy little prick.
Posted by: paul fauvet
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October 8, 2009 1:30 AM
Mikey is quite right. The Gospel of St John, which has the most detailed description of Christ's burial, makes it quite clear that the Shroud is a fake.
Joseph of Arimathea supposedly had the body cleaned up. It was washed in expensive aromatics (myrhh and aloes). So any shroud should have 1. No blood, and 2. Aloe and myrhh DNA.
In other words, you can believe in the Bible or in the Shroud of Turin, but not both.
As already mentioned, the local Bishop knew it was a fraud and said so, even warning the Pope.
Just as telling is the question of provenance. Anybody in the art world knows that if a masterpiece supposedly painted by a 16th century master suddenly turns up in the 21st century, the first thing to ask is - where has it been for the past 500 years?
And if there is no satisfactory answer, it will be written off as a fake, a beautiful, clever fake, perhaps, but still a fake.
The Shroud of Turin has no known history prior to the 14th century. There is no mention of such a relic in the later Roman empire, in the Byzantine empire, in the early Middle Ages. Nothing - just a gap of 1,300 years.
The carbon 14 dating clinches the case - but the other arguments were conclusive anyway.
Posted by: Shroudie
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October 13, 2009 9:06 AM
Italian Scientist Reproduces Humans Using Materials Available in the Middle Ages Thus Proving that the First Humans Were Manmade
garlaschelli ROME (Reuters) – An Italian scientist says he has reproduced a human being, a feat that he says proves definitively that humans, which Christians say are made in the image of God, are medieval fakes produced using materials and techniques that were available in the middle ages.
A scientifically-made mannequin, measuring 6 feet, 2 inches tall, looks eerily like Luigi Garlaschelli, the scientist himself.
"We have shown that is possible to reproduce something which has the same characteristics as a human being," Luigi Garlaschelli, who is due to illustrate the results at a conference on the para-normal this weekend in northern Italy, said on Monday.
A professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pavia, Garlaschelli made available to Reuters the paper he will deliver and the accompanying comparative photographs.
The mannequin resembles the back and front of a bearded man with long hair with his arms crossed on his chest. He has two hands, two feet and a single head with two eyes and two ears.
Since Darwin, evolutionary biologists have believed that humans evolved along with other animals and plants from a common ancestor. But scientists have thus far been at a loss to explain why some people smoke cherry flavored pipe tobacco since it offers no evolutionary advantage.
Garlaschelli, who received funding for his work by an Italian association of atheists and agnostics, expects people to contest his findings. “They didn’t believe me when I reproduced the Shroud of Turin, Quantum physics and the Egyptian pyramids, thus proving that they, too, were medieval creations. “
“It works for me,” said PZ Myers, pastor of the Morris, Minnesota Pharyngula Church of Fundamentalist Atheists. “I was getting tired of evolution, anyway. I believe everything I read in the newspapers so long as it doesn’t conflict with my beliefs. If humans are manmade, that’s fine. I still don’t need to believe in God.”
Garlaschelli said the funding for his work by his own organization of like-minded atheists had no effect on his results. "I always start with results," he said. “That way, I always arrive at the desired conclusion.”
Posted by: aratina cage
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October 13, 2009 9:18 AM
Shroudie, what in Shroud's name was that all about?
Posted by: Forbidden Snowflake
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October 13, 2009 9:19 AM
As my snarky friend would say:
Hilarious!!! 3 out of 10.
Posted by: Knockgoats
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October 13, 2009 9:59 AM
Shroudie,
You are a moron. One of the claims of your fellow-morons has been that the image on the fraud of Turin cannot be produced even by modern technology, let alone that of the 14th century. Garlaschelli has disproved this. No-one has ever claimed that human beings cannot be produced by means of sexual reproduction.
Posted by: Shroudie
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October 13, 2009 10:00 AM
The point is you don’t believe that the shroud is fake because a story appeared on the AP that said that an Italian scientist reproduced using techniques and materials that were available in the middle ages. It is not more ammo, as PZ suggests.
Between the time the story appeared and the time of Garlaschelli gave his presentation, he was already backing off from his claim. He admitted that he had failed to reproduce many characteristics of the shroud images. That doesn’t imply anything miraculous (though some fools think so). It merely means that he created something that looks something like the shroud. Big deal.
You don’t have to believe it is real. You don’t have to believe it is fake. But be scientific about it. As it stands now there is no proof either way.
I happen to be someone who thinks it is probably real but not in any way miraculous or relevant. The carbon 14 dating is severely challenged. It should be redone and redone properly. The image may very well be a natural amino/carbonyl reaction. That remains to be seen. The claim that there is no history before the 1350s is using the absence of evidence as evidence. In fact, there is some pretty solid evidence that it does have a history that pushes this same cloth back to about 544 CE.
Myers does great work when it comes to evolution and science in general. I agree with him broadly. He makes a mistake when he assumes that an AP or Reuters reporter is reporting anything meaningful. I would be unfazed by any conclusion about the shroud so long as it scientific. So far, that has not happened. Be informed or ask questions, even opine. But don’t just believe something because it is in a newspaper and you like the story. The posting above is doing a slow viral on the net. I just copied it.
Posted by: Knockgoats
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October 13, 2009 10:05 AM
You don’t have to believe it is real. You don’t have to believe it is fake. But be scientific about it. As it stands now there is no proof either way. - Shroudie
Liar. Carbon-14 dating has proved that it is a medieval fake.
Posted by: Stephen Wells
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October 13, 2009 10:11 AM
Shroudie, if I pull a medieval broadsword out of a museum cupboard, and tell you it is Excalibur, legendary sword of King Arthur, would you (a) believe me at once, (b) demand to know _why_ I think it's Excalibur and not believe me until I give you evidence, or (c) say "Well, it's an open question, let's be scientific, we can't say one way or another"?
The dating says it's a medieval forgery, the earliest historical attestation says it's a medieval forgery, the faking of relics was practically a medieval industry; it's a forgery.
Posted by: Janine, Vile Bitch, OM
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October 13, 2009 10:13 AM
Since Darwin, evolutionary biologists have believed that humans evolved along with other animals and plants from a common ancestor. But scientists have thus far been at a loss to explain why some people smoke cherry flavored pipe tobacco since it offers no evolutionary advantage.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Posted by: aratina cage
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October 13, 2009 10:21 AM
Shroudie, what does that even mean? Of course the Shroud is real, it's the way the image was produced and when it was produced that are in question. Claims that the Shroud existed around 30 C.E. had been proven false by STURP. Now Luigi has proven that it would have been quite possible to create a near-duplicate of the Shroud in the Middle Ages, which coincides with radiocarbon dating of the Shroud and the emergence of the Shroud in written historical records. So we now have a completely natural explanation of how the Shroud could have been created — no miracle necessary!
Copying and pasting gibberish does not falsify the evidence against those two claims.Posted by: Shroudie
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October 13, 2009 10:32 AM
So far I am a moron and a liar. Yeh, that wins arguments effectively.
In a peer-reviewed article the late Raymond Rogers (1927-2005), a retired chemist from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, with a long and distinguished scientific career. He had been honored as a Fellow of the prestigious Los Alamos lab, part of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). In his home state of New Mexico, Rogers had been a charter member of the Coalition for Excellence in Science Education where he fought hard to avoid any teaching of Creationism or ID in the schools. For several years, he served on the Department of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board as a civilian with the rank equivalency of Lieutenant General. He had published over fifty peer-reviewed scientific papers in science journals. He was also a member of the skeptical organization, New Mexicans for Science and Reason (NMSR). He subscribed to this partial description of the organization:
We are skeptical . . . of those groups who misuse and misrepresent science. We oppose the use of fabrication, flawed logic, distortion of facts, and pseudoscientific propaganda by any and all groups who twist science to suit their own ends, whether they are creationists, advocates of intelligent design, proponents of the idea that aliens crashed at Roswell, extreme academic cultural critics who deny objective reality, or promoters of unproved claims . . .
In 1978, Rogers, in part because he was not religious, had been selected as one of many scientists chosen to go to Turin and study the shroud up and close. From his work on the shroud, Rogers’ only substantive conclusion was that the shroud images were not painted. He did not then offer an opinion on its authenticity. Following the carbon dating, he accepted the conclusion that the shroud was medieval. He had complete respect for the technology and the quality of work done by the carbon dating labs. In 2005, Philip Ball, a former editor of Nature, wrote in Nature Online that Rogers “has a history of respectable work on the shroud dating back to 1978, when he became director of chemical research for the international Shroud of Turin Research Project.”
Kim Johnson of NMSR wrote in an obituary for Rogers on the organization’s web site:
He was a Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and tried to be an excellent, open minded scientist in all things. In particular, he had no pony in the "Shroud of Turin" horserace, but was terribly interested in making sure that neither proponents nor skeptics let their scientific judgment be clouded by their preconceptions. He just wanted to date and analyze the thing. He died on March 8th from cancer. He was a good man, and tried his best to do honest science.
Though Rogers had stopped doing research on the shroud, he had maintained a passing interest, in part because no one had figured out how the images had been made. However, he was annoyed by claims from those who thought they could explain away the carbon dating with pseudoscientific or non-scientific explanations. They were, in his words, the “lunatic fringe” of shroud research.
One hypothetical suggestion, seemingly off the wall, was gaining traction, particularly on the Internet. Two researchers, Sue Benford and Joe Marino, were suggesting that the sample used in the carbon dating was significantly not part of the shroud but instead part of a medieval repair, a section of the cloth mended using a technique known as invisible reweaving. Rogers thought this was ludicrous, just so much more lunatic fringe thinking. He thought that he could prove they were wrong. He had in his possession some small thread samples taken from the shroud at a spot adjacent to where the carbon dating sample had been snipped away. It would be a simple matter to show that there was no evidence of mending.
As it turned out, Benford and Marino seemed to be onto something. In 2002, after considerable research, Rogers, along with Anna Arnoldi, a chemistry professor at the University of Milan, wrote a paper that strongly suggested that Benford and Marino were right. More work needed to be done, however, and Rogers continued to study the matter with material that had been saved from the actual cuttings from which the carbon dating samples were taken. In January, 2005, following a lengthy peer-review process, Thermochimica Acta, an international journal from Elsevier, published a paper by Rogers entitled, “Studies on the Radiocarbon Sample from the Shroud of Turin.” In it Rogers wrote:
The combined evidence from chemical kinetics, analytical chemistry, cotton content, and pyrolysis/ms proves that the material from the radiocarbon area of the shroud is significantly different from that of the main cloth. The radiocarbon sample was thus not part of the original cloth and is invalid for determining the age of the shroud.
This wasn’t religious opinion. In fact, it wasn’t that much of a scientific opinion of the sort that newspapers and television like. If Rogers could have proven that the shroud was the genuine article or at least that it came from the time of Christ, this would have been exciting news. As it was he was only saying that for all practical purposes the 1988 carbon dating was meaningless. Nonetheless, this was pure science. It was also a personal admission that he had been wrong in thinking that the carbon dating was the end of the story; that it was fake. In a letter to the editors of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, in response to criticisms leveled at him by Joe Nickell, one of the magazine’s non-scientist columnists who had raised questions about Rogers’ scientific competence, Rogers wrote:
I accepted the radiocarbon results, and I believed that the "invisible reweave" claim was highly improbable. I used my samples to test it. One of the greatest embarrassments a scientist can face is to have to agree with the lunatic fringe. . . . Joe [Nickell] did not understand the method or importance of the results of the pyrolysis/mass spectrometry analyses, and I doubt that he understands the fundamental science behind either visible/ultraviolet spectrometry or fluorescence. He certainly does not understand chemical kinetics. If he wants to argue my results, I suggest that we stick to observations, natural laws, and facts. I am a skeptic by nature, but I believe all skeptics should be held to the same ethical and scientific standards we require of others.
Since then, several scientists have confirmed his findings and Christopher Ramsey, the head of the Oxford Radiocarbon Dating lab agrees that there is reason to doubt the validity of the 1988 tests. For one thing, it is now known that the Oxford team saw evidence of mending, documented it, and failed to report it.
“Science,” wrote the biochemist, Émile Duclaux (1840-1904) over a century ago, “[is] a series of judgments, revised without ceasing.” The history of scientific endeavor bears that out.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 13, 2009 10:33 AM
No, an attempt to create doubt where none exists in the scientific community has been manufactured to raise the hopes of the deluded. It in no way refutes the dating of the shroud to the middle ages. This must be refuted with real science, and hasn't been.Nevermind that the report duplicated an experiment a skeptic ran back when the shroud was first dated to be a fake, which duplicated the image using almost the same technology. The shroud is a fake. Deal with it. Science has spoken. Now we await your scientific evidence otherwise. Write your paper with hard physical data for evidence (not speculation) or shut the fuck up. Welcome to real science.Posted by: Chiroptera
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October 13, 2009 10:38 AM
Shroudie, #103: So far I am a moron and a liar. Yeh, that wins arguments effectively.
To be more accurate, it means that argument was over before it began.
Posted by: $1.386sx ®
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October 13, 2009 10:40 AM
Shroudie, the purpose of the research was to show that it indeed is possible to reproduce the shroud, contrary to the claims of believers that it is impossible to reproduce it without the hand of divine miracle thingies/whatevers.
Of course anybody who wasn't a complete bleepin dingbat already knew it was possible to reproduce it without magic "poof" angels or whatnot. It's similar to the claims that the pyramids are too "perfect" to have been made by human technology. Anybody who wasn't a complete dingwit knew that the kookmeisters were smokin something, and it ain't tobacco.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 13, 2009 10:48 AM
Shroudie, the Rogers paper is worthless. He is a believer who was trying to leave room for the shroud to be real. So he started with a conclusion and tried to create doubt. That is not science. Hence is paper is not considered scientific, even though he tried to use scientific principals, and is has been refuted by other folks. And in science, you can't just rely on one source. Multiple sources say the shroud is a fake. It is.
Posted by: aratina cage
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October 13, 2009 10:49 AM
Well this is flat out wrong. Rogers believed a thread not of the original cloth had been run through the sample, not that the entire sample was not of the original cloth. He felt it was not the purest sample they could have taken. But he (and others) dismiss what bits of paint were found on the cloth. Even fanatics like Barrie Schwortz admit there was red ocher pigment (iron oxide) on the Shroud: So where did it come from? Why was that avenue left unexplored by the scientifically minded Rogers?Posted by: Shroudie
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October 13, 2009 11:23 AM
aratina cage:
I stand corrected. The radiocarbon sample was a mixture of old and new thread. The sample was not representative of the whole cloth. This was confirmed by John Brown at Georgia Tech and Bob Villarreal of Los Alamos, who had no religious convictions about the shroud. He didn't even know what it was, as he explains it.
The point is that the C14 tests need to be redone. I doubt the church will allow this to happen in the foreseeable future, which is too bad. As I stated earlier, I don't care what the results are, I just don't concur with overly easy interpretations. Given all the anomalies that exist in radiocarbon dating linen wrappings of Egyptian mummies, I doubt that results will be believed unless the work is performed with the best possible protocols: multiple samples, careful chemical characterization, comparative control samples, etc.; all things that were not done the first time around.
As for the red ochre. Fe(3+) or ferric and Fe(2+) ferrous ions are ubiquitous. Finding it on the Shroud is not surprising as it's carried by dust and dirt particles. The non-image and image portions of the shroud have a significant concentration of both types of iron in nearly equal amounts. As the iron concentration of the non-image portion equals the imaged portions, iron as pigment can be reasonably ruled out.
Posted by: Stephen Wells
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October 13, 2009 11:28 AM
"As I stated earlier, I don't care what the results are", claims Shroudie.
I think you're not telling the truth there, frankly. You want the result to be other than it is.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 13, 2009 11:41 AM
I suspect because the church knows it is a fraud. But there is just enough unscientific doubt for the religious to delude themselves that it is real. There is not enough inconsistancy in the carbon dating between the three groups for there to be any significant amount of 30 CE cloth present. It would have really screwed up the dating. Sorry, this apperars to be an utter lie. If you didn't care, you would have never chosen that moniker, or would have never brought anything up here. You want it to be real.Posted by: Shroudie
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October 13, 2009 12:04 PM
Stephen, skeptics find this hard to believe. But many Christians, particularly Anglicans, put faith on a different philosophical plane than science. Faith is trust in the absence of certainty. Certainty can be a faith killer. But so far, nothing in real science from evolution to quantum physics to the possibilities of multiple universes dampens my faith. I happen to think the shroud is genuine, the burial cloth of Jesus, but whether or not it is is immaterial. Would I be happy if the shroud could be proven to be real. Probably; but not for religious or theological reasons.
Frankly, Garlaschelli so missed the mark in his reproduction that it gives proponents an edge. He even admitted in front of 400 people at his presentation that he failed to reproduce 45 facts about the shroud's iamge. Of those, six or seven, prove that his image is chemically, physically, and optically unlike the shroud. Despite what the press reported, and Garlaschelli said initially, his image cannot be used as a height-field with which to plot a 3D representation of the image. His image is not superficial; it permeates the cloth. His image cannot be reduced with diimide. He had not figured out how to block image formation with blood (or in his case red paint). The list goes on and on.
I'm not saying that it cannot be reproduced. I'm saying that so far no one has figured it out.
Posted by: aratina cage
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October 13, 2009 12:04 PM
I found the link to Luigi's work, Shroud Reproduction. There is an English language PDF file that explains:
He apparently used red ocher pigment. There is a nice photo of the reproduction before it was washed and touched up with burn holes.Posted by: Stephen Wells
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October 13, 2009 12:08 PM
"I happen to think the shroud is genuine"
Why?
If it's a random brainfart than it's uninteresting to anyone else. If it's based on evidence, let's have it.
Posted by: aratina cage
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October 13, 2009 12:13 PM
What is the source for this? Is it hearsay from an attendee at his conference presentation or is it written down somewhere?Posted by: Ichthyic
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October 13, 2009 12:13 PM
Stephen, skeptics find this hard to believe. But many Christians, particularly Anglicans, put faith on a different philosophical plane than science.
LOL
as if.
look up "NOMA".
doesn't work.
you are the very reason it doesn't:
you want both your "faith" and to believe there is concrete evidence in support of it (shroud).
your very acronym screams of the conflict.
fail.
epic fail.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 13, 2009 12:15 PM
Finally you admit your delusion. It is not up to science to prove what you want, but rather up to you to do so with scientific rigor and skepticism. Science says it is a fraud. Where is your scientific evidence/papers demonstrating authenticity? Until those are available, it is a fraud. Welcome to science.Posted by: Janine, Vile Bitch, OM
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October 13, 2009 12:20 PM
I corrected your little mistake there.
Hey, I have a question. What makes the Anglican form of christianity different from the other forms, other than Henry IIIV's desire to keep marrying and divorcing different women?
And why do I have an image of a shroud of turin, laying back on a couch with a joint in the lips of the image of jesus?
Posted by: aratina cage
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October 13, 2009 12:27 PM
Shroudie, that is undoubtedly the least likely explanation given the radiocarbon dating and the existence of Jesus only as a character in historical works of fiction. An accidental work of art from a real body? Still unlikely, but less so. A work of art intentionally designed to make money off of the holy relics tourism industry? Most likely. Just the fact that the whole image (front+back) is on one sheet, as are most paintings, should raise the red flags.Posted by: Janine, Vile Bitch, OM
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October 13, 2009 12:27 PM
His image is not superficial; it permeates the cloth.
Are you saying that dye cannot permeate cloth?
So much for the textile industry.
Posted by: SEF
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October 13, 2009 12:38 PM
Re the following:
... and the replies to it:
Another interpretation of that would be that it's holographic Jesus, ie every scrap of the cloth contains the whole image (but from a restricted view).
Posted by: Knockgoats
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October 14, 2009 6:20 AM
In fact, there is some pretty solid evidence that it does have a history that pushes this same cloth back to about 544 CE. - Shroudie the liar
No there isn't. On the contrary, there is near-contemporary evidence that it is a fake: a letter from the Bishop of Troyes, Pierre D'Arcis, reporting that his predecessor, Henri de Poitiers, had investigated the matter and:"Eventually, after diligent inquiry and examination, he discovered how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed."
Rogers continued to study the matter with material that had been saved from the actual cuttings from which the carbon dating samples were taken. - Shroudie the liar
The threads which Rogers alleges to have come from the shroud have no adequate provenance: Rogers had no legitimate way of obtaining such threads, and we have only his word that this is their origin. The Thermochimica Acta paper is thus completely worthless from a scientific point of view - it would never have got published in a journal dealing with the dating of historical or archaeological materials: submitting pseudoscience to a journal of marginal relevance to avoid proper scrutiny is an old trick. The sample tested, on the other hand, was selected by a highly-qualified team including a representative of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and its provenance is fully documented.
The point is that the C14 tests need to be redone. I doubt the church will allow this to happen in the foreseeable future - Shroudie the liar
Because they know damn well the result would confirm that the shroud is a medieval fake, and it would become much less valuable.
Christopher Ramsey, the head of the Oxford Radiocarbon Dating lab agrees that there is reason to doubt the validity of the 1988 tests. - Shroudie the liar
This is a direct lie. See: The Shroud of Turin . Ramsey says there: "As yet there is no direct evidence for this [the latest desperate attempt to cast doubt on the date by alleging carbon monoxide contamination, which Ramsey has shown is not present] - or indeed any direct evidence to suggest the original radiocarbon dates are not accurate." Ramsey thinks that there is other evidence the shroud is older than the C14 date shows. There isn't.
For one thing, it is now known that the Oxford team saw evidence of mending, documented it, and failed to report it. - Shroudie the liar
[citation needed]
Given all the anomalies that exist in radiocarbon dating linen wrappings of Egyptian mummies - Shroudie the liar
[citation needed]
Despite what the press reported, and Garlaschelli said initially, his image cannot be used as a height-field with which to plot a 3D representation of the image. - Shroudie the liar
[citation needed]
Posted by: SEF
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October 14, 2009 7:43 AM
More damningly, their alleged alternative religious way of knowing has never been able to reveal to them (in any consistency!) whether or not the shroud was a fake. No amount of praying or supposed miracles worked and they, typically, didn't even believe it would themselves - hence trying to investigate in a completely natural way right from the start. Eg probably involving questioning witnessed in the chain of ownership for the provenance and consulting art experts of the period before eventually getting to the artist whom Henri de Poitiers was saying had admitted to making it.
Why require testimony from an artist when a god could tell you? Wouldn't he have been crowing if his god had revealed to him straight off, without natural methods of questioning, who the artist was? So it wasn't just that he thought other people wouldn't believe god had told him the fake/not-fake answer. It was simply that no god had told him anything useful at all.