Miracle of the Shroud / Blood on the shroud

[davefoc]

Back on page 59, Davefoc posted the following with a quote from the 1980 report by Schwalbe and Ray Rogers - ...

Your post provided a good overview of the situation Ian. Thank you.

When I couldn't find any documentation beyond the Rogers/Schwalbe claim that the testing was done on the Raes threads and any information about what the quantitative results were I felt that there wasn't much to be made of this argument. Your post made me rethink that view. Rogers/Schwalbe are very clear that the testing was done and what the nature of the results were. They made a serious mistake or they lied in the first paper or the testing was actually done and whatever the case is Rogers made a serious oversight (intentionally or not) when he didn't mention this result in his later paper. Whatever the case, Rogers' credibility is shown to be suspect by this issue alone.

To his credit, Jabba has conceded that what Rogers/Schwalbe reported in the earlier paper is evidence against the invisible patch theory.

ETA: The issue for Jabba, which I think is reasonable, is that no one participating in this thread has found information about what the quantitative results were for the Raes thread tests. If the invisible patch theory hung on what the Raes thread X-ray fluorescence test results I would agree with Jabba that there is some wiggle room as to the possibility that there was truth to the invisible patch theory. This is certainly not the situation. The invisible patch theory has been shown to be false many times in this thread for many different reasons.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

To his credit, Jabba has conceded that what Rogers/Schwalbe reported in the earlier paper is evidence against the invisible patch theory.

He concedes lots of things are strong evidence against his argument. The problem is that he doesn't change his conclusion in order to fit the facts. He could have a signed affidavit from God himself saying that there was no invisible patch, and Jabba would still be insisting that there might be.

 

[Dinwar]

He concedes lots of things are strong evidence against his argument. The problem is that he doesn't change his conclusion in order to fit the facts. He could have a signed affidavit from God himself saying that there was no invisible patch, and Jabba would still be insisting that there might be.

This.

Jabba has attempted to turn a scientific question into a legal one, and the only reason I can come to for such an attempt is that Jabba knows that there's no evidence that the shroud is from the 1st century. So his tactic from the beginning has been to attempt to create doubt about the scientific findings. Jabba's logic is that if there's doubt, then the science could be wrong--and therefore the shroud is from the 1st century and is the burial cloth of the Son of God made flesh. He's equating "it's the burial shroud of the Son of God" with a not-guilty vote: you don't need to prove that the guy's innocent, you just need to be unconvinced that he did it.

The issue Jabba is having is that not all doubt is reasonable. The C14 results have removed all reasonable doubt from the shroud's age. What's left is the UNreasonable doubt that Jabba is presenting us with.

 

[Akhenaten]

What I find particularly unsettling about the whole thing is the likelihood of those "reasonable doubts" being described as having arisen as a result of a prolonged and detailed examination of the available information with various experts at the JREF Forum.

 

[IanS]

ETA: The issue for Jabba, which I think is reasonable, is that no one participating in this thread has found information about what the quantitative results were for the Raes thread tests.

From memory, I think what Schwalbe and Rogers said about the X-ray fluorescence of the 13 Raes threads, is that those few threads alone did not provide enough material to reliably obtain quantitative results. That is - they must presumably have obtained such quantitative results, but the numbers would be open to significant errors. What they could however say about their results was that the relative concentration of the each element was similar to that previously found in the original 1978 X-ray measurements.

If I had anything to say in support of arguments which Jabba proposes against any tests done by Ray Rogers, STURP, or any other groups of shroud believers, then perversely, it's that none of their results should be taken as reliable at all!

IOW - we are discussing data which is reported by STURP, as if what STURP claim is actually reliable information. But of course it is not reliable. That's precisely why they could never get it published.

So in that sense of STURP data being completely unreliable, I would agree that whatever they say about any of their X-ray tests (or any of their other tests), should be taken with a pinch of salt and not regarded as reliable evidence in any case.

However, the people who actually did examine the shroud in 2002 (unlike Ray Rogers who afaik never saw it at all after the C14 sample was cut), not only disagreed with the patch claim, but even went into print to say they were amazed that Rogers had ever made such erroneous claims. And those people were senior Vatican employees (Lemberg and Ghibirti) who might be expected to be strongly in favour of believing the shroud was genuine (they may well still believe that ... but they clearly do not believe any patch claims).

All of which leaves us with the fact there is still actually no genuine evidence of any invisible patch. Which is of course exactly what all the various observers and the C14 labs said at the time when the sample was cut.

 

[Aepervius]

Fancily, I am predicting that will not deviate Jabba from its present course. I also predict he will drudge up some (paraphrased) "I doubt the 14C I think there is enough evidence for that" (but no mention of evidence) and "I think the invisble patch still could be done" (by wand waving).

This thread taught me something : I am a terrible and horrible person which enjoy a stutborn train wreck in slow mo (very slow mo).

 

[Blue Mountain]

Jabba has attempted to turn a scientific question into a legal one, and the only reason I can come to for such an attempt is that Jabba knows that there's no evidence that the shroud is from the 1st century. So his tactic from the beginning has been to attempt to create doubt about the scientific findings <snip>

"When the facts are against you, argue the law. When the law is against you, argue the facts. When both the law and the facts are against you, pound on the table and yell."

 

[pakeha]

...However, the people who actually did examine the shroud in 2002 (unlike Ray Rogers who afaik never saw it at all after the C14 sample was cut), not only disagreed with the patch claim, but even went into print to say they were amazed that Rogers had ever made such erroneous claims. And those people were senior Vatican employees (Lemberg and Ghibirti) who might be expected to be strongly in favour of believing the shroud was genuine (they may well still believe that ... but they clearly do not believe any patch claims).

All of which leaves us with the fact there is still actually no genuine evidence of any invisible patch. Which is of course exactly what all the various observers and the C14 labs said at the time when the sample was cut.

And these people were hired by the same organisation which footed the bills from the three labs for the C14 dating.

 

[tsig]

He concedes lots of things are strong evidence against his argument. The problem is that he doesn't change his conclusion in order to fit the facts. He could have a signed affidavit from God himself saying that there was no invisible patch, and Jabba would still be insisting that there might be.

Well according to John there was no shroud.

40 Then they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in strips of linen


Sounds more like a winding sheet than a shroud.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

"When the facts are against you, argue the law. When the law is against you, argue the facts. When both the law and the facts are against you, pound on the table and yell."

Or claim to be consulting with associates for a number of days and then avoiding the subject when returning to the conversation.

 

[Dinwar]

Well according to John there was no shroud.

40 Then they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in strips of linen


Sounds more like a winding sheet than a shroud.

I've yet to get any answer as to how the head-cloth can be lying apart from the rest of the shroud, yet be part of the shroud itself. But I guess when your arguments stand on "I don't know what I'm talking about" and "Blood didn't exist in the 14th century", a little thing like literary consistency isn't really going to slow you down now, is it?

 

[Jabba]

My Current Plan

Your post provided a good overview of the situation Ian. Thank you.

When I couldn't find any documentation beyond the Rogers/Schwalbe claim that the testing was done on the Raes threads and any information about what the quantitative results were I felt that there wasn't much to be made of this argument. Your post made me rethink that view. Rogers/Schwalbe are very clear that the testing was done and what the nature of the results were. They made a serious mistake or they lied in the first paper or the testing was actually done and whatever the case is Rogers made a serious oversight (intentionally or not) when he didn't mention this result in his later paper. Whatever the case, Rogers' credibility is shown to be suspect by this issue alone.

To his credit, Jabba has conceded that what Rogers/Schwalbe reported in the earlier paper is evidence against the invisible patch theory.

ETA: The issue for Jabba, which I think is reasonable, is that no one participating in this thread has found information about what the quantitative results were for the Raes thread tests. If the invisible patch theory hung on what the Raes thread X-ray fluorescence test results I would agree with Jabba that there is some wiggle room as to the possibility that there was truth to the invisible patch theory. This is certainly not the situation. The invisible patch theory has been shown to be false many times in this thread for many different reasons.

Dave,

- I accept your point about Rogers' credibility -- just wish he was still around.
- I do take issue with your last sentence -- I accept that it has been reasonably argued that the patch theory is false, but I don't accept (yet) that it has been "shown" to be false.

- A ways back, Pakeha asked me to provide citations for my claims about the blood -- that's what I'm working on for the moment. My opponents don't understand why these things take me so long -- but they do.
- I should probably repeat my excuses:
1) I haven't kept a very good bibliography.
2) My memory isn't so good these days in general.
3) I seem to remember generalities much better than I do specifics (maybe, everyone does?).
4) I was supposed to have a team helping me with such things
5) It's hard to stay on track when so many serious tangential questions are being raised along the way...

- Here, more specifically, is how I see what's been going on:
1) I've been trying to focus on one "small" issue at a time
2) I had been working on the the trace element issue, but recently set it aside -- having nothing more to say for the time-being.
2) I then started on the issue of how a patch could get past the experts.
3) But then, various contributors started asking me about my evidence contradicting the carbon dating results.
4) In my plan for effective debate, the two sides need equal chances to pursue the sub-issues they prefer (the ISSUE being the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin), and this contradictory evidence sub-issue would be my choice for now (more specifically, re the blood), so I decided to try to multi-task. Probably, not a good idea, but I think I'll stick with it for the moment.
5) I've had a stomach virus the last couple of days.

--- Jabba

 

[Dinwar]

My opponents don't understand why these things take me so long -- but they do.

You say you've been looking into this for 20 years, but every time someone asks you a basic question it takes you weeks to months to even TRY to answer it. Then you post more posts like this, wasting your time and our's. That's why we don't understand why it's taking you so long--if you were even a semi-compitant researcher this information would be readily available to you after 20 years, and if you have time to complain about not having time you certainly have time to post a link or two.

4) In my plan for effective debate,

This is the other reason: most of us have run out of patience with your continued attempts to dictate to your opponents how we should act. That's all your "plan for effective debate" is--an attempt to railroad us into a conversation YOU control, with the not-so-subtle implication being that since you control it, you'll win.

Gee, thanks, but....no. I, for will, think I'll pass on letting you determine how I communicate.

And your model for debate IS WRONG. You want a courtroom debate. This is a scientific question. The two are incompatible. This has been explained to you numerous times, yet you continue to ignore the fundamental differences between the two systems. That is YOUR failure, and the rest of us have no obligation to accept an obviously inappropriate style of debate.

In short, if you have some evidence to provide, provide it. Otherwise, you've got nothing but excuses, which hurts your cause far more than you realize.

 

[Aepervius]

Dave,

- I accept your point about Rogers' credibility -- just wish he was still around.
- I do take issue with your last sentence -- I accept that it has been reasonably argued that the patch theory is false, but I don't accept (yet) that it has been "shown" to be false.

- A ways back, Pakeha asked me to provide citations for my claims about the blood -- that's what I'm working on for the moment. My opponents don't understand why these things take me so long -- but they do.
- I should probably repeat my excuses:
1) I haven't kept a very good bibliography.
2) My memory isn't so good these days in general.
3) I seem to remember generalities much better than I do specifics (maybe, everyone does?).
4) I was supposed to have a team helping me with such things
5) It's hard to stay on track when so many serious tangential questions are being raised along the way...

- Here, more specifically, is how I see what's been going on:
1) I've been trying to focus on one "small" issue at a time
2) I had been working on the the trace element issue, but recently set it aside -- having nothing more to say for the time-being.
2) I then started on the issue of how a patch could get past the experts.
3) But then, various contributors started asking me about my evidence contradicting the carbon dating results.
4) In my plan for effective debate, the two sides need equal chances to pursue the sub-issues they prefer (the ISSUE being the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin), and this contradictory evidence sub-issue would be my choice for now (more specifically, re the blood), so I decided to try to multi-task. Probably, not a good idea, but I think I'll stick with it for the moment.
5) I've had a stomach virus the last couple of days.

--- Jabba

"but I don't accept (yet) that it has been "shown" to be false."
Nothing is ever "proven" to be false, you watch too much CSI, or too much math. What happens is that the evidences/facts support an explanation , and remove support to another explanation, to such a degree of certitude that the second one can be seen as improbably and ignored (at least until further facts come in).

You are again using legal stuff or math stuff (prove) where it is neither warranted nor useful. You might as well say "I will never accept your explanation since you cannot show it to be 100% true" and abandon *ALL SCIENCE* except math and formal logic.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

It's funny that you ignore other questions and concentrate on one subject while you're prevaricating, but the moment it comes to you having to provide anything of substance you um and ah, and then allow yourself to get distracted by a completely different question.

You're not going to convince anyone of anything with the blood. If you cannot demonstrate that the C14 dating is wrong by means as equally valid as the testing itself, and cannot demonstrate that the material tested was not made of the same cloth as the rest of the Shroud, then you have no argument whatsoever. If I were you, I'd stick with trying to prove that there was an invisible patch, if you genuinely believe you can do so. If not, then you should seriously reconsider your conclusions.

 

[Akhenaten]

I should probably repeat my excuses:

<snip>

Let me save you some time. You only need one.

1. The Shroud of Turin is an artefact of the 14th century.

 

[Olowkow]

One sure way of determining that the shroud contains Jesus' blood. Sample the spots for DNA, and compare to the DNA from a communion wafer that "is" the body of Christ.

No match, the shroud is a fake. Then wash the thing and hang it up as an artistic curiosity, and get on with life.

 

[Akhenaten]

My opponents don't understand why these things take me so long -- but they do.

It's because there's an ocean of red herrings to be caught, an Olympic arena full of handwaving to be co-ordinated and an infinity of pettifogging explanations of the way in which you'll be rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic to be compiled.

I don't think anyone is really all that mystified about why it's taking a so long.

 

[Akhenaten]

One sure way of determining that the shroud contains Jesus' blood. Sample the spots for DNA, and compare to the DNA from a communion wafer that "is" the body of Christ.

No match, the shroud is a fake. Then wash the thing and hang it up as an artistic curiosity, and get on with life.

Now that is cutting to the chase.

 

[Dinwar]

No, see, to be consistent you have to use the Eucharistic wine. You know--a blood sample.