Miracle of the Shroud / Blood on the shroud

[Dinwar]

Just as a point of interest - the above is not actually correct anyway.

You are assuming that the visual identification of your samples as “brachiopods” is always correct. However, it’s clearly quite possible that some of the samples may turn out not to have been brachiopods after all.

I should have been more clear: I was thinking of the Silica Shale (Caeser Creek, if anyone's interested). In the case I'm thinking of (20k brachiopods at BGSU--I know, because I counded the bloody things!!!) it wasn't MY call--the collecter had classified them, and I was simply recording them. That said, one reason I chose Brachiopoda is that, assuming we're talking Inarticulata, the difference is pretty distinct. Even Inarticulata is fairly obvious, but Inarticulata is as subtle as a war hammer to the skull. We're talking on the level of "If you can't identify this, we're going to take your rock hammer away". In Ohio (Silurian limestone, of various types) the only thing you can possibly confuse a brachiopod with is a bivalve (Phylum Molluska), and if you do that you don't diserve to call yourself a paleontologist. Plus, I can offer my personal assurance (with the assumption that anyone obsessed with the issue can check it out for themselves) that Ohio brachiopods are VERY distinct from bivalves.

Yeah, it's a judgement call. But I've never been drunk enough to make that call wrong, and can train a non-expert (specifically, an accountant, an artist, and an EMT) to differentiate between the two in less time than it takes to drink a beer.

The issue is the plane of symetry (I may have butchered the spelling, but after two Johnny Walkers I'm not going to correct it). The easiest way to explain it is with your hands. Put them together. now, separate the left from the right hand. That's the plane of symetry in Bivalvia. Now, put them together again and lift the index finger and thumb away from the middle finger. That's the plane of symetry in Brachiopoda. Again, if you can't differentiate between those two, you don't deserve to call yourself a paleontologist. There's some degree of subjectivity to it, but it's about as minimal as you can get in taxonomy.

That is subjective. And does as you put it “ require a judgement call”. They saw what they wanted to see.

rUnderstood. And that's why I picked Brachiopoda--again, Inarticulata is about as far from a subjective judgement as you can get. Individual species, yeah, they can be open to all KINDS of debate (recently I learned that Equidae is being revised, based on post-craneal anatomy--a major issue if you're a Quaternary vertebrate paleontologist!), but phyla, and Inarticulata in particular, are pretty clear-cut.

...for those that know their Paleozoic invertebrates, I've just given a lot of information about myself.....

I consider myself a sceptic simply because I try my hardest to eliminate my own biases and attempt to base my opinions on evidence as much as possible. I certainly don't achieve that all the time, but that's what I aim for. That's all scepticism is, and I find it hard to believe that you don't do either of those things.

That is what skepticism preports to be. However, in practice I've found that they are every bit as biased as others. I invite anyone who doubts me to examine the threads on Objectivism or the Anthropocene to see ample evidence of this. Those people may or may not represent skepticism as you know it, but they are the people carrying your banner.

I am an Objectivist. There are specific aspects of epistemology that I disagree with regarding the skeptic movement (which does, in my opinion, exist--there are a number of people who agree with certain conclusions and advocate for the consequent social policies, so in every meaningful sense it is a social movement in my opinion [see Dianah Hsieh's essays on the New Atheists to see someone put it better than I currently can]). But regardless, my point still stands: wardenclyffe made a statement that iimplied that all scientsits are sketpics, which I took to mean "are members of the skeptic movement". I'm not a part of that movement, and my views are very different from those that wardenclyffe stated.

 

[Craig B]

Shrouded in mystery again.

The TS is to have an Easter outing, as reported in http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/28/turin-shroud-tv-pope-francis and on the BBC website. New claims of antiquity are being made by the usual combination of a populariser and a journalist. Anyone know about this 200 BC to 200 AD approximate dating? Or the evidence for it?

The new pope describes it as an "icon".

 

[IanS]

I should have been more clear: I was thinking of the Silica Shale (Caeser Creek, if anyone's interested). In the case I'm thinking of (20k brachiopods at BGSU--I know, because I counded the bloody things!!!) it wasn't MY call--the collecter had classified them, and I was simply recording them. That said, one reason I chose Brachiopoda is that, assuming we're talking Inarticulata, the difference is pretty distinct. Even Inarticulata is fairly obvious, but Inarticulata is as subtle as a war hammer to the skull. We're talking on the level of "If you can't identify this, we're going to take your rock hammer away". In Ohio (Silurian limestone, of various types) the only thing you can possibly confuse a brachiopod with is a bivalve (Phylum Molluska), and if you do that you don't diserve to call yourself a paleontologist. Plus, I can offer my personal assurance (with the assumption that anyone obsessed with the issue can check it out for themselves) that Ohio brachiopods are VERY distinct from bivalves.

Yeah, it's a judgement call. But I've never been drunk enough to make that call wrong, and can train a non-expert (specifically, an accountant, an artist, and an EMT) to differentiate between the two in less time than it takes to drink a beer.

The issue is the plane of symetry (I may have butchered the spelling, but after two Johnny Walkers I'm not going to correct it). The easiest way to explain it is with your hands. Put them together. now, separate the left from the right hand. That's the plane of symetry in Bivalvia. Now, put them together again and lift the index finger and thumb away from the middle finger. That's the plane of symetry in Brachiopoda. Again, if you can't differentiate between those two, you don't deserve to call yourself a paleontologist. There's some degree of subjectivity to it, but it's about as minimal as you can get in taxonomy.

rUnderstood. And that's why I picked Brachiopoda--again, Inarticulata is about as far from a subjective judgement as you can get. Individual species, yeah, they can be open to all KINDS of debate (recently I learned that Equidae is being revised, based on post-craneal anatomy--a major issue if you're a Quaternary vertebrate paleontologist!), but phyla, and Inarticulata in particular, are pretty clear-cut.

...for those that know their Paleozoic invertebrates, I've just given a lot of information about myself.....

I refer the honourable gentleman to the reply I gave some moments ago . And also … posting after several glasses of Scotch is not a great idea lol (as I once found out myself many years ago on a guitar forum when telling a lifelong WHO fan that Pete Townsend was not really regarded as a serious guitarist!)

However, as I'm not intending to get into side issues taking us away from the shroud and the C14, the point here really is this - what wardencyffe was alluding to in that Horizon film is not actually comparable with C14 dating.

Why is that? Why is it not comparable? Because in the Horizon film the "scientists" were trying to make a Yes or No judgement (two choices only) based on what they could see. And it appears that they were making that visual Yes or No choice whilst also knowing which of their samples was supposed to give the Yes result.

That's not what happens in instrumental tests in physics or chemistry. In the case of the published C14 dating, although the scientists knew that the sample was from the shroud, they were not being asked to visually decide a Yes or No question. They were not being asked if they could see signs of a +ve result for one specific date (eg AD36 for Christ’s death) vs. seeing one specific alternative date (such as AD1388).

As I pointed out before in a question to Jabba (for which his reply was that he would need to think of a suitable answer!?) - if Jabba claims the C14 scientists were biased when reporting the date as 1260-1390AD, then it would appear that Jabba is claiming a fraudulent conspiracy in which all three labs decided beforehand which specific date range they were going to report. And that is just not credible (for numerous reasons).

Anyway, in summary - whilst that Horizon program is interesting and revealing of human subjective shortcomings with visual Yes or No decisions in biological sciences, it’s actually an irrelevant blind alley in the context of the very different mathematical sciences and instrumental techniques in physics & chemistry, such as the C14 dating.

 

[Pixel42]

in the Horizon film the "scientists" were trying to make a Yes or No judgement (two choices only) based on what they could see. And it appears that they were making that visual Yes or No choice whilst also knowing which of their samples was supposed to give the Yes result.

Just to clarify: in the original, much vaunted by homeopaths, experiment the scientists had known which sample was which. Their paper reporting positive results had passed peer review and been published despite this obvious shortcoming in their experimental procedure. What the BBC's Horizon team did was repeat the experiment, but correct this defect. Randi agreed to hand over the million if the result was positive (he waived the usual preliminary test) - he actually had a cheque in his pocket for an initial payment. Needless to say, he took it back home with him.

 

[IanS]

Just to clarify: in the original, much vaunted by homeopaths, experiment the scientists had known which sample was which. Their paper reporting positive results had passed peer review and been published despite this obvious shortcoming in their experimental procedure. What the BBC's Horizon team did was repeat the experiment, but correct this defect. Randi agreed to hand over the million if the result was positive (he waived the usual preliminary test) - he actually had a cheque in his pocket for an initial payment. Needless to say, he took it back home with him.

Just to pick up on the issue of publication in specific journals - although in that Horizon program iirc they said something like "Nature is the most prestigious of all science journals", that is emphatically not true.

As I remember it (and it's a while since I've been in active science research) - Nature is a very general and non-specialised journal which tends to publish papers of a wider & more general interest. And, don't quote me on this but iirc I think it has in the past occasionally made the mistake of admitting papers which later turned out to be seriously flawed.

When I was publishing stuff in the general area of solid state chemistry and physics, we would never have chosen Nature as our preferred journal. It was far more prestigious to publish the best work in either J.Am.Chem.Soc (for chemistry stuff) or Phys. Rev. (for the more physics based and theoretical stuff). Other Journals we used a lot were J.Chem.Soc, J.Phys.Chem., J.Chem.Phys., Phys. Rev Lett., and Chem Commun. But we would not have submitted, what we would have at the time regarded as really serious chemistry and physics, to Nature.

I suppose the reason that the C14 was published in Nature (rather than what might have seemed the more obvious choice of the journal "Radiocarbon") was precisely because Nature has that wider and more generalised readership, which is perhaps more suitable for a internationally famous artefact like the Shroud.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Those people may or may not represent skepticism as you know it, but they are the people carrying your banner.

Not my banner. I call myself a sceptic because I try to approach the world with a sceptical mindset. How other people who describe themselves as sceptic behave has nothing to do with me, and certainly doesn't change whether the label "sceptic" accurately applies to me.

I am an Objectivist.

I don't know a huge amount about it but, if you're using the term to mean that you believe in an objective reality which exists, no matter what you or anybody else believes, then so am I. I am also a sceptic.

 

[pakeha]

...The new pope describes it as an "icon".

Of course.
The new pope IS a Jesuit, after all.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

I don't know a huge amount about it but, if you're using the term to mean that you believe in an objective reality which exists, no matter what you or anybody else believes, then so am I. I am also a sceptic.

He means he's an Ayn Rand (or at least a similar philosophy) fan.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I've recently seen reference to DNA being found in the "blood" on the Shroud (an example in the second paragraph here), but the only references I can find is the same quote with similar, if not identical, surrounding statements. What I can't find is the actual test results/paper by Merriwether itself.

Has anyone seen it, or is this all the information there is?

 

[Craig B]

Of course.
The new pope IS a Jesuit, after all.

Well, as Cardinal Ratzinger his predecessor described the TS as

A truly mysterious image, which no human artistry was capable of producing.

He is not a Jesuit. But the word icon will keep both TS believers and sceptics happy.

 

[Craig B]

He means he's an Ayn Rand (or at least a similar philosophy) fan.

Wiki informs us that

The essence of Objectivist ethics is summarized by the oath [Ayn Rand's] Atlas Shrugged character John Galt adhered to: I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

So none of the self sacrifice for love of others allegedly depicted on the TS has any place in that philosophy.

 

[pakeha]

I've recently seen reference to DNA being found in the "blood" on the Shroud (an example in the second paragraph here), but the only references I can find is the same quote with similar, if not identical, surrounding statements. What I can't find is the actual test results/paper by Merriwether itself.

Has anyone seen it, or is this all the information there is?

Hmmm
"...The DNA from the blood has been tested and shows that it is from a human being but is too badly degraded to determine more than that. The blood is also AB Positive but most blood that is that old all tends to type AB+. All we can really say is that the blood is human blood. The Vatican has banned all future DNA testing for fear that some wacko from a renegade laboratory would try to clone Jesus. You probably won't hear much on the DNA front until the Vatican changes its position. Microbiologist, Leo Garza-Valdez, had access to some samples and was able to do some preliminary DNA tests showing that the blood is from a human male."
http://shroud2000.com/FAQs.html

hiliting by pakeha

"...A Team in Texas led by Leoncio A. Garza-Valdes have questioned these results, but the origin of their samples have been challenged. The Archbishop of Turin, Cardinal Giovanni Saldarini, has publicly challenged the sample's authenticity, and he says that he and the Vatican "declare that they cannot recognize the results of the claimed experiments." Walter McCrone, who has "examined thousands of fibers from 32 different areas of the 'Shroud,'" contends that the fibers shown in the team's photomicrographs "did not come from the 'Shroud' of Turin." (For more details see New "Shroud" Claims Challenged as Spurious.

Garza-Valdez has claimed to have found human DNA supposedly of Jesus. He wrote The DNA of God? (1999). The Vatican has refused to authenticate his samples. Anyone who has touched the shroud, cried over it, or a hair has fallen on it, can leave traces of human DNA on the shroud. ..."
http://www.bibleandscience.com/archaeology/shroudturin.htm

So this appears to be a rehash of Garza-Valdez' (he of the bioplastic polymers, IIRC) stuff from 1999.

Well, as Cardinal Ratzinger his predecessor described the TS as "A truly mysterious image, which no human artistry was capable of producing. "

He is not a Jesuit.

But the word icon will keep both TS believers and sceptics happy.

Very true, about the Cardenal.
Still, he's left us this:"As what the Vatican described as his parting gift to the Roman Catholic church before he resigned, Benedict XVI signed off on a special 90-minute broadcast of the shroud that will take place from Turin Cathedral and be introduced in a brief preamble by his successor, Pope Francis."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/28/turin-shroud-tv-pope-francis

Anyway,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/rel...-cloth-is-shown-on-television-for-Easter.html

And now there's an app!!!

...To coincide with the television broadcast, a new Shroud 2.0 app was launched Friday. The app, released in several languages, allows users to scroll over a high-definition image of the shroud and find out more about its history and religious significance.

Giulio Fanti, a professor of mechanical engineering at Padua University in Italy and co-author of the book "The Mystery of the Shroud," said the app will be "very useful" to the scientific community.

Until now, researchers have not had access to a digitalized picture of the shroud, he told CNN. Studies looking into the formation of the image have been based on macroscopic data.

"I hope the app will give us the chance of having microscopic data that will be very useful to confront different scientific research on the shroud, which, until now, is still a mystery," he said."


To coincide with the television broadcast, a new Shroud 2.0 app was launched Friday. The app, released in several languages, allows users to scroll over a high-definition image of the shroud and find out more about its history and religious significance.

Giulio Fanti, a professor of mechanical engineering at Padua University in Italy and co-author of the book "The Mystery of the Shroud," said the app will be "very useful" to the scientific community.

Until now, researchers have not had access to a digitalized picture of the shroud, he told CNN. Studies looking into the formation of the image have been based on macroscopic data.

"I hope the app will give us the chance of having microscopic data that will be very useful to confront different scientific research on the shroud, which, until now, is still a mystery," he said.

 

[Craig B]

... The Vatican has banned all future DNA testing for fear that some wacko from a renegade laboratory would try to clone Jesus. You probably won't hear much on the DNA front until the Vatican changes its position.

That change of position can't come too soon! Lots and lots of cloned Jesuses (Jesi?) are exactly what the Church needs to replace its current stock of naughty parish Priests, Scottish cardinals and bankers. But the Pope's probably afraid that the Jesus clones would outrank him in the ecclesiastical pecking order.

 

[Orphia Nay]

Thanks for your summary, catsmate. That was very useful for someone like me who hasn't been following this thread.

 

[Belz...]

Deleted.

 

[Belz...]

I am not a part of the skeptical movement. I do not associate myself with the philosophy of skepticism, particularly as presented by the advocates of it that I've seen. It's trivially easy to demonstrate that skepticism, meaning the movement, has sacred cows--wardenclyffe even admitted it. As I disagree on a number of issues, I do not consider myself a skeptic.

My point wasn't to discuss my beliefs, nor am I going to go down that rabbit hole here (someone would have to give me a VERY good reason to bother doing so anywhere before I'd do it). My point was merely to indicate that wardenclyffe had made an assumption that simply does not hold true. Not all of Jabba's opponants consider themselves skeptics. Not all scientists do, either.

I'm sorry but I still don't understand. Do you exhibit a healthy doubt of ideas and claims until evidence is presented, and do you follow the evidence, whatever the conclusion it brings you to ? Well, that's skepticism.

That is what skepticism preports to be. However, in practice I've found that they are every bit as biased as others.

In other words, they're not entirely skeptical. It doesn't mean you're not a skeptic.

I am an Objectivist.

Different label, same product.

 

[pakeha]

That change of position can't come too soon! Lots and lots of cloned Jesuses (Jesi?) are exactly what the Church needs to replace its current stock of naughty parish Priests, Scottish cardinals and bankers. But the Pope's probably afraid that the Jesus clones would outrank him in the ecclesiastical pecking order.

Oh, myyy.
CB, your mention of Jesi gives me the perfect excuse to post up, not for the first time

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I've been trying to find Dr. Andrew Merriwether to contact him directly, but although I can find references to him being at the New York State University, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre, I can't find him on the staff or faculty directories of any of those institutions.

Certainly, it seems from what is quoted and what is said outside of quotes, that he said no conclusions could be drawn and people are interpreting that to mean what they want it to mean. It'd be good to ask him personally, but I can't find him.

Actually, I think I've found an alpaca farm that he runs with his wife: http://www.merriwether.org/nyala/index.html

The contact email listed there is a Binghampton University one, so I guess that's him. I suppose I ought to send him an email and find out.

 

[pakeha]

Thanks for going that extra mile, Squeegee Beckenheim.
It'll be fascinating to know what response dr Merriwether gives you!

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Email sent. Let's see what, if anything, the reply is.