Randomity99 View Post said:
But I wonder if some of the self-proclaimed skeptics here are a bit frightened by the shroud, because they realize it’s a different kind of case.
It's not. You have precisely two options: show that the shroud was sufficiently contaminated to yield a 14th century date when it is in fact a cloth from the 1st century, or admit that the C14 dating is conclusive. I expect the same thing from you that I expected from Jabba: Please present the amount of contamination necessary to do this. The math is simple; just algebra.
If you're incapable of doing that, you simply don't know know enough about the systems in question to have an informed opinion on them. I'm sorry, but that's the truth of the matter. This is BASIC radiometric dating, the stuff that I at least learned in high school.
Science is seldom unanimous in agreement, so is there any amount of scientific documentation that will convince you there are unexplained properties to the shroud?
This demonstrates your lack of understanding of how science works. All it will take is a single publication, stating two facts: the amount of contamination necessary to cause a 1st century cloth to date from the 14th century, and evidence that that amount of contamination is present.
What evidence will it take to convince YOU that the shroud IS fake?
I have never seen so many skeptics ready to put their absolute faith in a 14th century bishop who knew nothing about modern science.
This demonstrates your first statement on this forum to be a lie. If you'd actually read the thread, you'd know that none of us is citing the 14th century bishop as proof that the shroud dates from the 14th century. What's being said is that that is the first time the shroud shows up in historical documents. That doesn't mean that the shroud can't be older, but it also doesn't mean it IS older. It merely gives a minimum age. The C14, until someone can demonstrate sufficient contamination to prove otherwise, is what gives a maximum age. The minimum and maximum age agree, which I have to tell you is kinda nice. That doesn't happen too often.
Interesting when anyone expresses doubt about the shroud, they are an instant authority here, but anyone who simply claims science has not explained the image yet is instantly dismissed as a crackpot.
I've actually studied radiometric dating, and used it professionally. I do a lot of work at the Pleistocene/Holocene transition. In fact, I've worked in some areas where the material dated using C14 was contaminated by older carbon--south of the Salton Sea in California there's mudpot volcanism, which has caused bulk C14 dates from the sediment to yield erroneously high dates (dating methods not subject to such contamination, such as biostratigraphy, show the error quite clearly).
In short, I actually AM an authority on this matter. I'm not even a self-appointed authority--this is part of what earns me my paycheck.
Now, what are YOUR qualifications for analyzing C14 dating methods and results?
Calling someone names or dismissing their facts is not a scientific argument.
Actually, this happens a lot in science. Mostly at the conferences, after the talk is finished. And either way, if you'd read the thread you'd see that we don't merely dismiss someone's facts. Jabba's facts have each been demonstrated to be false. He has demonstrated an inability to deal with the most basic aspects of C14 dating, yet we are expected to take his word for it that the dating is wrong. He has demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the methods involved in invisible patches, yet demands we accept that the samples taken from the shroud just happened to be from such a patch. And so on.
And it still is provoking many pages of controversy here!
There is no controversy. There are a small handful of people willfully ignoring the data, often lying in their attempts to not see it (Jabba has been caught in numerous lies, which are documented in this thread--it's not a personal attack, merely a statement of fact). The rest of us, the RCC, and all of the scientific community interested in these subjects, are all in agreement: the shroud is a Medieval fake. This is as much a controversy as the evolution/Creationism debate.
1) Straw man arguments: don’t waste time on claims of resurrection energy or cosmic forces etc., because the shroud sites don’t rely on those. If you want to win an argument you must engage your opponent’s BEST evidence.
May want to follow your own advice there, buddy. Explain how much contamination must be present on a 1st century cloth to make it yield a C14 date of the 14th century, or we're done here.
The goal line has remained rock-solid. Explain how much contamination must be present on a 1st century cloth to make it yield a C14 date of the 14th century, or we're done here.
3) Relying on discredited science yourself:
Not an issue, because no one has discredited the C14 dating. Explain how much contamination must be present on a 1st century cloth to make it yield a C14 date of the 14th century, or we're done here.
4) Selective credibility.
I at least have made my selection criteria crystal clear: Explain how much contamination must be present on a 1st century cloth to make it yield a C14 date of the 14th century, or we're done here.
