The Turin Shroud: The Image of Edessa created in c. 300-400 AD?

[meccanoman]

There are squillions of such filters in Photoshop. They can make pretty much anything look like anything you want. I wouldn't take the blindest bit of notice of the artifacts produced by a cheap (free) image manipulation programme. If you think you can justify this, send me an image of the shroud and tell me what you want it to show, and I'll send it back showing just exactly that. You want it to look like an impressionist painting, perhaps, or a black and white pencil sketch? Maybe you want it to look like it was done with charcoal. All do-able in seconds.

That was my first thought, MikeG, namely that huge liberties had been taken with the image so as to make the result a joke. But that's not the case, as one can check out for oneself. First, look closely at the unedited image. Look for all the obvious particles, and you will see the same, greatly improved in the Zeke- edited version. Then look for particles that are at the limits of visibility in the unedited version, and they are clearly visible on the other. Then, the critical test, look for fainter particles in the edited version, and you will OFTEN find they are JUST visible on the unedited version. In other words, Zeke is not generating artefacts - it is accentuating what is already there. It's basically a means of adding contrast that fortuitously works selectively on the particles in the unedited image.

So how does it pull off that trick? Answer: I haven't a clue, except to say it adds a little grey as can be seen by applying Zeke to an additive colour-mixing chart.

Top: unedited. Bottom: after applying Microsoft Window 10's Zeke filter'

Very, very subtle, would you not agree? Is there a colour specialist in the house, one who can explain why the addition of faint grey can produce so dramatic results, showing up the particle-riddled nature of the Shroud image. And not just for flaking-off blood imprints (expected) but for body image too (UNEXPECTED, at least for those who entertain notions of ' miraculous flashes of radiation' as distinct from homely medieval prone-to-flaking-off imprints with oven-roasted kitchen ingredients ?).

 

[MikeG]

Never mind a colour specialist......I am an architect. I use Photoshop all the time. Filters all produce their own artifacts, and they can make an image look like anything you want them to look like. If you are having to rely on an image filter, you've got nothing.

 

[meccanoman]

Here you go:

[qimg]http://i.imgur.com/I2uIbzz.jpg[/qimg]

The Doric columns on the flanks are now vertical, as they should be, and the heraldic shields are no longer lying on their sides. The cross in the middle now makes sense as well.

OK. My presentation may have been less-than-ideal (though it's still an image of the same badge that can be viewed horizontally or vertically!). I did consider rotating through 90 degrees, but last time I tried transplanting images that had already appeared on my own site, using WordPress's software to alter size or orientation, they failed to appear here as images, appearing instead as 'self-publicizing' URL links instead, inviting the sky to fall on this hapless or perceived-as-devious self-serving commentator. So forgive me if I display images "as is", being somewhat averse to undeserved internet brickbats. Having said that, please continue to lob the deserved ones...

 

[MikeG]

........So forgive me if I display images "as is", being somewhat averse to undeserved internet brickbats. Having said that, please continue to lob the deserved ones...

Not at all. I draw no inference from the way it is displayed, as I said. I just pointed out that you were hanging the Mona Lisa sideways, so to speak.

 

[fagin]

Sometimes you can't tell

https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/moma-hangs-matisse-upside-down-683900

"New York’s Museum of Modern Art opened the doors to a new exhibition, “The Last Works of Matisse: Large Cut Gouaches,” unaware that one of the works, Henri Matisse’s Le Bateau, was hanging upside down."

Sometimes it seems, nobody knows:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3411910/Rothko-art-hung-wrong-way-round-in-exhibition.html

"Despite the artist's signature, the correct way to display the works have never been agreed because there are no photographs available to indicate for certain how Rothko wished the works to be hung. Further complicating the issue is which of the two possible horizontal displays is the correct one, creating a risk of hanging the paintings upside-down."

 

[meccanoman]

Never mind a colour specialist......I am an architect. I use Photoshop all the time. Filters all produce their own artifacts, and they can make an image look like anything you want them to look like. If you are having to rely on an image filter, you've got nothing.

But I did not accept the Zeke filter uncritically. I submitted it to some simple tests that I've summarised, showing it does not generate artefacts. It accentuates selectively what's already present, and via an exceedingly subtle means, namely addition of a pale grey filter, shown by the white border and central zone on the input image slightly off-white.

Dare I say that when one's dealing with a unique one-off image like the Shroud, with no back-story as to where or how it came into existence, one cannot go instantly dismissing new research tools that provide some insight, or which merely help to generate new hypotheses. Provided the latter are testable, then one's one's entitled in my opinion to be open and frank, especially on real-time internet reporting, as to the basis of those hypotheses, even at the risk of laying oneself open to criticism that they allegedly generate 'artefacts'.

What is the Shroud itself if not an artefact? What's to stop one using one modern artefact to winkle open the medieval technology deployed for another? Everything else has failed, so why not take "liberties"?

 

[MikeG]

Seriously, a manipulated photo is not going to win a case in front of a metaphorical jury.

 

[meccanoman]

Seriously, a manipulated photo is not going to win a case in front of a metaphorical jury.

Ah, but you reveal a common misconception there, namely that the building of a scientific case is the same as that for a court of law. It's not, if only that there are no time-constraints in science, nor gullible juries that can be easily swayed one way or another. (Judges have to be quick to spot and rule out "inadmissible evidence").

Please remember that I personally have no direct access to the Shroud, and have to rely on such photographic evidence as has been released into the public domain (there's allegedly much that hasn't!). Were I to have access, I would waste no time in searching for the surviving 'particulate' evidence that preceded the allegedly oh-so-subtle Shroud image that has so far has escaped the notice of STURP and other Shroud investigators.

Maybe Walter McCrone was right after all, when claiming the body image was particulate, even if unaware of the distinction between particulate and stain-like post--particulate. Maybe he missed the faint yellow stain that remains after a particulate precursor has partly or completely worn away, seeing only the parts of fibres where it hasn't flaked away.

Faint yellow background stains do arguably show up on those ZEKE-edited pictures of body image areas!

 

[Belz...]

I can't speak for all scientists, working or retired, but this one at any rate refuses to have his style cramped by being forced permanently to wear a 'falsify-first' straitjacket imposed by metaphysicists.

Straightjacket my ass. If it can't be falsified, then it's not a statement of fact but one of faith.

 

[carlitos]

Mecca,

I think that I completely agree with you, but I have to say that I don't completely understand what you are saying. Would you say that the number of potential microcakes is infinite?

-I'll be back

 

[meccanoman]

Straightjacket my ass. If it can't be falsified, then it's not a statement of fact but one of faith.

Read, or re-read Watson's "The Double Helix".There were existing facts that were generally known and accepted, like base-pair equivalence (A=T, and G=C) simply crying out for a simple explanation. Facts alone tell you little or nothing. It required an article of faith on Crick and Watson's part to rationalize that simple bit of chemical arithmetic, recognizing that most if not all existing biological polymers (protein, starch, cellulose etc) existed as hydrogen-bonded helices. All it took was another 'act of faith' to recognize that DNA was a DOUBLE helix with complementary nucleotide base pairs (thus A=T, C=G). The rest as they say is history.

Never knock 'acts of faith' in science. They are better known as hypotheses. The knack is to filter out those that are testable, preferably in practice, like first thing on Tuesday morning when the technician has sobered up from the weekend, but testability in principle will do for starters if completely stumped for alternative ideas.

Watson and Crick were helped by the fact that there was not one and only one sample of authentic DNA kept in a glass case in a Turin cathedral.

 

[fagin]

Which one are you? Watson or Crick?

 

[meccanoman]

Mecca,

I think that I completely agree with you, but I have to say that I don't completely understand what you are saying. Would you say that the number of potential microcakes is infinite?

-I'll be back

Nope. Each particle of white flour, settling on the oil-smeared subject, is a potential 'micro-cake', provided it transfers to the wet linen when the latter is pressed down onto the oil/flour-coated subject.

Since the amount and number of sprinkled flour particles is finite (albeit large - many thousands) then the number of micro-cakes will likewise be finite.

Thank you for your interest - and qualified support.

 

[meccanoman]

Which one are you? Watson or Crick?

Neither. I'm Smith. (It's not generally known that Smith was the fellow-frequenter of the Eagle pub in 1950s Cambridge who supplied Watson and Crick with all their best ideas... ).

 

[Porpoise of Life]

Mecca,

I think that I completely agree with you, but I have to say that I don't completely understand what you are saying. Would you say that the number of potential microcakes is infinite?

-I'll be back

Naughty carlitos, stop Jabba-ing that poor man.

 

[Peregrinus]

Just whatinthehell is "authentic DNA"?

 

[Belz...]

Read, or re-read Watson's "The Double Helix".There were existing facts that were generally known and accepted, like base-pair equivalence (A=T, and G=C) simply crying out for a simple explanation. Facts alone tell you little or nothing. It required an article of faith on Crick and Watson's part to rationalize that simple bit of chemical arithmetic, recognizing that most if not all existing biological polymers (protein, starch, cellulose etc) existed as hydrogen-bonded helices. All it took was another 'act of faith' to recognize that DNA was a DOUBLE helix with complementary nucleotide base pairs (thus A=T, C=G). The rest as they say is history.

What in the blazes does this have to do with falsifiability?

Never knock 'acts of faith' in science.

Oh, I think I will.

 

[Steve]

Just whatinthehell is "authentic DNA"?

It seems self explanatory in that post. It is the stuff that was "kept in a glass case in a Turin cathedral." all other DNA is fake!

 

[abaddon]

That was my first thought, MikeG, namely that huge liberties had been taken with the image so as to make the result a joke. But that's not the case, as one can check out for oneself. First, look closely at the unedited image. Look for all the obvious particles, and you will see the same, greatly improved in the Zeke- edited version. Then look for particles that are at the limits of visibility in the unedited version, and they are clearly visible on the other. Then, the critical test, look for fainter particles in the edited version, and you will OFTEN find they are JUST visible on the unedited version. In other words, Zeke is not generating artefacts - it is accentuating what is already there. It's basically a means of adding contrast that fortuitously works selectively on the particles in the unedited image.

So how does it pull off that trick? Answer: I haven't a clue, except to say it adds a little grey as can be seen by applying Zeke to an additive colour-mixing chart.

[qimg]https://shroudofturinwithoutallthehype.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/additive-colour-mixing-or-zeke.png[/qimg]

Top: unedited. Bottom: after applying Microsoft Window 10's Zeke filter'

Very, very subtle, would you not agree? Is there a colour specialist in the house, one who can explain why the addition of faint grey can produce so dramatic results, showing up the particle-riddled nature of the Shroud image. And not just for flaking-off blood imprints (expected) but for body image too (UNEXPECTED, at least for those who entertain notions of ' miraculous flashes of radiation' as distinct from homely medieval prone-to-flaking-off imprints with oven-roasted kitchen ingredients ?).

Depends on the nature of the grey that has been added, but I see nothing remarkable in the samples provided.

You might be simply perceiving the colours differently. To assess that try this test. http://xritephoto.com/online-color-test-challenge

Please post your score.

 

[meccanoman]

What in the blazes does this have to do with falsifiability?



Oh, I think I will.

There was an extensive discussion earlier on this thread on the role of falsification in science. It ended with me saying I'd gone to some trouble to address it, but felt it wasn't the be-all-and-end-all, as some logicians and metaphysicists would have us believe, and indeed could be a needless distraction, certainly in the early stages of a new project, where the priority is to make and test hypotheses. So I wasn't dodging your question, far from it, but noticed your deployment of the term "faith" as if it were total anathema to science. Not so. The DNA double helix story was adduced as evidence that faith can in fact play an important role in narrowing down the options for hypothesizing and new research. Watson and Crick had faith that DNA would have a helical structure, long before they had tangible evidence, and that led them to speculate usefully on what features the X-ray diffraction photograph would display, supporting their 'hunch' i.e. act of faith. All it took was a brief glimpse of Rosalind Franklin's X-ray pictures of a particular variant of DNA to send them into overdrive, rushing back to Cambridge to construct models with balls and sticks, showing that the secret was the base-pairing between a purine and a pyrimidine base to make each rung of the ladder.

Did either of them lose sleep over whether the idea of inheritance being controlled by a particular polynucleotide with a genetic code, dependent on the sequence of just two base-pairs, AT and GC, was falsifiable? I doubt it somehow. They were focused on the positive aspects of their model, not dreaming up possible fatal flaws that risked consigning it to the dustbin of history, maybe prematurely for lack of sufficient background data.

There's a time and a place for everything. The time for falsification is later rather than sooner, when the parameters of a new hypothesis or theory are reasonably well appreciated.