Miracle of the Shroud II: The Second Coming

[Vixen]

Who said this?

Mrs. Flury Lemberg, who was in charge of the restauration of the shroud in 2002 and who is an expert in textiles, has clearly explained that there is no patch in the part where the sample has been taken away from the shroud.

I hope you will not come back with the "invisible mending" theory...

Um...De...Wesselow. I'm going now.

 

[Dinwar]

Broadly speaking, if you want to ensure your sampling is truly random, two hundred is a good figure to aim for.

I will ask again: Do you accept ANY C14 dating? Because NONE OF IT lives up to your irrationally unreasonable standards.

....and most importantly you can check whether your results are statistically significant, rather than by random chance.

Ah. I get it now. You are dismissing the results as random chance. Despite the fact that they all agree, within the limits of the testing.

You remind me of a new project manager that's never been in the field: you have all these lofty ideas about how things should be done, but precisely zero understanding of what's involved, the logistical issues, or the cost.

 

[John Jones]

Almost everything I have read here is "opinion" not "evidence".

A lot of it is informed opinion, but you wouldn't know that since you refuse to read what came before.

 

[catsmate]

So, Hans, let's establish facts once and for all. Three labs running three tests on AMS which was known to be unreliable in 1986 is not good enough.

I see you're back repeating the same lie again. AMS was not, and is not, an "unreliable" technique. The radiocarbon dating stands. The shroud is a medieval fake.

 

[Vixen]

You mean, like three results from three different labs ?



....So what ? It isn't thanks to faith.

The human brain comes off an automated conveyor belt in a robot controlled factory?

 

[catsmate]

Um...De...Wesselow. I'm going now.

Your preference for the opinion of an art historian who has never examined the cloth over a textile expert who's studied it extensively says much about your agenda.

 

[Belz...]

The human brain comes off an automated conveyor belt in a robot controlled factory?

What in the blue hell does this have to do with what I said ?

 

[zooterkin]

The human brain comes off an automated conveyor belt in a robot controlled factory?

 

[Giordano]

Just one more summary as I see it:
1. The image has very wrong proportions for a person.
2. The image is very wrong for any 3D object projected in 2D.
3. The image is of a European and in the style of the Middle Ages.
4. The weave is wrong for 30 AD.
5. The blood spots are not the way real blood would move.
6. The Shroud was found to be a forgery in the Middle Ages by Church officials, apparently due to the forger confessing.
7. The radioisotopic date, obtained in an extraordinarily carefully controlled manner using controls, blinding, analyzed by three different labs independently, on carefully selected samples chosen to be representative by a committee including textile experts and supervised by the Church curators, states that is is Middle Ages.
8. The Church who owns the Shroud has refused to have any further isotopic dating done, at least publicly, for over 25 years.
9. The cloth does not match the description in the New Testament.

But nonetheless, we should destroy of the remaining image and have isotopic dating done by 1000 labs (!?!) under many of the same conditions used in the prior dating, and their data analyzed by 200 selected (how?) people to "prove" that it is not authentic.

For what reason? This sounds like a proposal concocted in the absence of any recognition of the many real life aspects that make it impossible, such as getting the Church to agree (I would say impossible based on their actions to date), the damage to the cloth, finding 1000 labs with the correct expertise, finding 200 "unbiased" agreed on people with the skill and knowledge to interpret the data, and the expense. I must have left out some additional issues.

It is clearly a forgery. But even if somehow this proposed immense effort indicates that the cloth may be 2000 years old- so what? Does that leave us any better than before? As Vixen herself pointed out, even if 2000 years old there is no way to prove it was the burial cloth of Christ. If on the other hand (as is very likely) this huge effort simply proves that the date is Middle Ages, will that really convince Jabba? Believe or not, don't propose an enormous waste of time and effort that is meaningless.

 

[Loss Leader]

It's all to do with reach.

It's nothing you should be proud of. Ali was boxing just to box. He wasn't trying to persuade anyone of anything.

In debate, however, the goal is to be persuasive. You're simply throwing out ideas, retreating from some facts when confronted, shifting to a vaguely different idea, pushing some facts when opposition seems to have died down, feigning ignorance, and (when all else fails) feigning indignation. You're not persuading anyone of anything.

 

[Vixen]

No, that is an impossible requirement and you know it.

You already admitted that faith is all you have, here. Stop pretending that evidence has anything to do with it.

You have misquoted me and out of context.

Two hundred is accepted as the statistically random number of samples, or subjects, to aim for. This irons out results that are outwith ± 2.15 standard deviations. Unless you have enough samples, you will have difficulty calculating the 98% siginificance level.

For example, I might set out to discover average height in London, and the first 20 people I pick out at random could all be over 6' tall. Do you understand the need to sample a few more than that?

 

[Garrette]

You have misquoted me and out of context.

Two hundred is accepted as the statistically random number of samples, or subjects, to aim for. This irons out results that are outwith ± 2.15 standard deviations. Unless you have enough samples, you will have difficulty calculating the 98% siginificance level.

For example, I might set out to discover average height in London, and the first 20 people I pick out at random could all be over 6' tall. Do you understand the need to sample a few more than that?

Oh, my. Even I, as another admitted layman, can see the silliness of this.

1. Sample size to guarantee randomness is dependent upon the population; it is not a flat number. Suppose the population is only 100. How does one get 200 out of that?

2. The cloth is not a population; it is an artifact. You are implying that it comprises a population of discrete pieces. Pray tell how many there are, and of what size are they?

3. You are further implying that the age of the cloth varies across the shroud. Please demonstrate why you think this.

 

[abaddon]

You have misquoted me and out of context.

Two hundred is accepted as the statistically random number of samples, or subjects, to aim for. This irons out results that are outwith ± 2.15 standard deviations. Unless you have enough samples, you will have difficulty calculating the 98% siginificance level.

For example, I might set out to discover average height in London, and the first 20 people I pick out at random could all be over 6' tall. Do you understand the need to sample a few more than that?

Nope. You are conflating two distinct areas of endeavour. Please don't do that.

 

[Vixen]

Your preference for the opinion of an art historian who has never examined the cloth over a textile expert who's studied it extensively says much about your agenda.

Agenda? Is this a cunning form of logical fallacy? Appeal to hidden agenda.

What would that agenda be, catsmate?

 

[Craig4]

And it is thanks to the human brain we are able to do it.

That's fine. If you want to have faith in the thing knock yourself out. Just know that you're opting out of the scientific discussion. The scientific exploration will proceed without regard to your beliefs.

 

[Dinwar]

Two hundred is accepted as the statistically random number of samples, or subjects, to aim for.

In biology, perhaps. In sampling? NOT ON YOUR LIFE. This is COMPLETELY unrealistic, is NEVER done, and offers NO additional value.

This is an area I'm particularly knowledgeable in, as sampling is about half of what I do in my company. I'm in charge of sampling on one of our larger sites (the field side, anyway). I'm giving you the professional opinion of someone knowledgeable about both C14 and field procedures. For free, by the way--normally this would cost you between $150 and $300.

Unless you have enough samples, you will have difficulty calculating the 98% siginificancce level.

Why do we need to the 98% significance level? In paleontology anything above 75% is considered exceptionally good.

You do not understand the system in question, as is obvious by everything you say about sampling procedures, and you are refusing to accept this self-evident fact.

For example, I might set out to discover average height in London, and the first 20 people I pick out at random could all be over 6' tall. Do you understand the need to sample a few more than that?

Radiometric dating is not biology. Do you understand the significance of that?

 

[Craig4]

Agenda? Is this a cunning form of logical fallacy? Appeal to hidden agenda.

What would that agenda be, catsmate?

If you were trying to hide your agenda, well, I've got some bad news.

 

[Vixen]

What in the blue hell does this have to do with what I said ?

You said all our fantastic advanced technology is due to science.

I said the high-tech is thanks to the human brain.

Not created by scientists.

 

[Dinwar]

What would that agenda be, catsmate?

To perpetuate your irrational dismissal of the radiocarbon dating by establishing an unrealistic threshold for accepting data and declaring that anything that doesn't achieve that threshold is irrelevant.

3. You are further implying that the age of the cloth varies across the shroud. Please demonstrate why you think this.

By roughly 1300 years....

 

[Vixen]

Just one more summary as I see it:
1. The image has very wrong proportions for a person.
2. The image is very wrong for any 3D object projected in 2D.
3. The image is of a European and in the style of the Middle Ages.
4. The weave is wrong for 30 AD.
5. The blood spots are not the way real blood would move.
6. The Shroud was found to be a forgery in the Middle Ages by Church officials, apparently due to the forger confessing.
7. The radioisotopic date, obtained in an extraordinarily carefully controlled manner using controls, blinding, analyzed by three different labs independently, on carefully selected samples chosen to be representative by a committee including textile experts and supervised by the Church curators, states that is is Middle Ages.
8. The Church who owns the Shroud has refused to have any further isotopic dating done, at least publicly, for over 25 years.
9. The cloth does not match the description in the New Testament.

But nonetheless, we should destroy of the remaining image and have isotopic dating done by 1000 labs (!?!) under many of the same conditions used in the prior dating, and their data analyzed by 200 selected (how?) people to "prove" that it is not authentic.

For what reason? This sounds like a proposal concocted in the absence of any recognition of the many real life aspects that make it impossible, such as getting the Church to agree (I would say impossible based on their actions to date), the damage to the cloth, finding 1000 labs with the correct expertise, finding 200 "unbiased" agreed on people with the skill and knowledge to interpret the data, and the expense. I must have left out some additional issues.

It is clearly a forgery. But even if somehow this proposed immense effort indicates that the cloth may be 2000 years old- so what? Does that leave us any better than before? As Vixen herself pointed out, even if 2000 years old there is no way to prove it was the burial cloth of Christ. If on the other hand (as is very likely) this huge effort simply proves that the date is Middle Ages, will that really convince Jabba? Believe or not, don't propose an enormous waste of time and effort that is meaningless.

No, only 200 randomly selected ISO standard labs.