Miracle of the Shroud / Blood on the shroud

[Olowkow]

That is a good starting place for the reality of the shroud
Ah the d'Arcis memorandum. Which shroudies, like JP, tray to ignore or deny.

I thought the pot needed stirring, getting kind of boring.
I know it's been said many times many ways, but:

Nickell:

Clearly beginning with the desired answer, shroud enthusiasts work backward to the evidence, picking and choosing and rationalizing to fit their belief--a process I call "shroud science."

 

[IanS]

Ian (& Slowvehicle),

- My meeting got postponed, and I'm back.

- At the time of my original comment, I assumed that there must be at least one somewhat subjective decision to be made by the researchers after the protocols. (There is lots of room for subjectivity in determining the protocols, but I don't think that blinding can be applied when selecting protocols.)
- I assumed this (above the parentheses) because, 1) The scientists selecting the protocols had included Blinding; 2) Subjectivity has a way of sneaking into apparently objective procedures (for instance, the care given to the surrounding statistics can reflect bias); 3) I did expect the scientists involved to lean significantly towards the skeptical side; 4) Human drives and consequent behaviors tend to be significantly subconscious (there's no need for conspiracy in such things -- we humans naturally lean towards one side or another, and our lean has a big effect upon our subsequent behavior); and, 5) Gove apparently got STURP excluded from the research because he believed them to be biased.

--- Jabba

From the above it sounds to me as if you had assumed that blind testing would have been necessary in C14 dating, just as it is some other fields such as drug trials with patients.

But I think several people here have explained by why blind testing of that sort is not necessary in the case of instrumental techniques like C14 dating. Because there is really no room in the C14 method for any subjective opinions (conscious or otherwise).

On the wider issues you raise above - note that the “protocols” were not set by any of the C14 labs. They were imposed by the religious participants at the meetings prior to the day of C14 testing.

I don’t think there is actually any reason to believe the C14 labs were leaning towards being sceptical of the shrouds actual date. Eg, Gove says in his book that he and others were rather disappointed that the date turned out to be so far from the time Christ. Because it would have been far more interesting & worthy of more scientific study if it had turned out to be 1st century.

Nor do I think Gove got STURP excluded from any C14 dating. For one thing Gove had no power in those meetings and was actually excluded from the picture by Gonella. But more importantly, none of the STURP people were remotely qualified to be making any C14 measurements.



Anyway - personally I don’t mind if you think there was some bias - if you think that’s true then that’s up to you. But it would be very hard to see how the same bias occurred independently in all three labs, and that it also lead to effectively the same date being found by all three labs. That obviously could not happen by coincidence. So that only leaves either a conspiratorial fraud between all three labs, or else the very much simpler and more obvious answer that all three labs simply found the date to be 1260-1390 as reported in the 1989 paper in Nature.

 

[IanS]

- And also, I need to understand some things first in order to accept that I am technically wrong about it. For instance, how are control samples used in calibration?
--- Jabba

In all instrumental scientific testing, eg all of spectroscopy, the instruments are calibrated either for every sample run, or else almost as frequently. What that means is (typically) - a sample of known characteristics is first run thought the equipment, and the equipment then checked to see if it is returning those same known characteristics. Eg, you have a "Standard" calibration material which has energy absorption signals at specific known frequencies ...

... those frequencies are known from a host of other measurement techniques, as well as from the fundamental quantum mechanical descriptions of energy levels in the sample.

When you run the spectrum of that standard, it must show all those signals at their correct frequencies, otherwise the machine needs re-setting or re-tuning so that it is perfectly in-tune.

When you are sure that the standard is returning exactly the right signals, only then do you run your unknown samples (such as the shroud cloth). And just to be really pedantic, you can re-run the standard again immediately after running your unknown sample.

That procedure would have been done literally thousands of times in each of those C14 labs ...the technicians using that instrument day-in-day-out, know exactly when it's tuning is off by even a hairs breadth. And of course, they have already spent decades testing thousands of other similar samples and confirming dates which were in any case known by a host of other methods and techniques.

 

[pakeha]

I'm kind of wondering if argumentum ad hominem and poisoning the well are still logical fallacies when you do them to yourself.

Pharaoh's discernment made me laugh aloud.

I love this forum, where else do your find spectroscopy jokes.


As JP is look lazy/unwilling to fix his link here it is; Invisible Mending and the Turin Shroud: Historical and Scientific Evidence by Joseph Marino and M. Sue Benford.
It's the same crap that we covered last year from the pair of kooky pyramidiots, though it's missing that interesting picture where they mistook a JPEG artifact for a "missing corner".
They still unquestioningly parrot Rogers rubbish.


Well he's quite willing to criticise the radiocarbon dating without any support so why not.
Of course in addition to Mme. Flury-Lemburg he's also ignoring/decrying the work done by Professors Testore (professor of textile technology at Turin), Vial (Director of the Lyon Ancient Textiles Museum) and Tite (head of the British Museum research laboratory) who were (along with others) part of the month long examination of the cloth before the sampling for the radiocarbon dating was performed.
No doubt JP will be supplying reasons why his expertise trumps theirs soon.

Thanks, catesmate1.
I'll be buying the first round of Redbreast 15 years at the Brazen Head!

You live in a magical world that others cannot see where you talk to invisible beings and have a book that foretells the future.

ETA: Do you worry about someone ensorcelling you? You know the more personal details you give out the easier it is for those practicing the Black Art to gain control of your soul so if I was you i'd not let too many things out on the internet because evil is always looking for an opening.

 

[Jabba]

Ian,
- Thanks especially for your last two posts. They might help a lot.
- I'll get back to you.
--- Jabba

 

[Belz...]

Ian,
- Thanks especially for your last two posts. They might help a lot.
- I'll get back to you.
--- Jabba

You know, if you actually used the time you took to write the bajillion "I'll get back to you" in this thread alone to, you know, really getting back to us, we might have progressed a bit more.

 

[The Norseman]

I love this forum, where else do your find spectroscopy jokes.


As JP is look lazy/unwilling to fix his link here it is; Invisible Mending and the Turin Shroud: Historical and Scientific Evidence by Joseph Marino and M. Sue Benford.
It's the same crap that we covered last year from the pair of kooky pyramidiots, though it's missing that interesting picture where they mistook a JPEG artifact for a "missing corner".
They still unquestioningly parrot Rogers rubbish.


Well he's quite willing to criticise the radiocarbon dating without any support so why not.
Of course in addition to Mme. Flury-Lemburg he's also ignoring/decrying the work done by Professors Testore (professor of textile technology at Turin), Vial (Director of the Lyon Ancient Textiles Museum) and Tite (head of the British Museum research laboratory) who were (along with others) part of the month long examination of the cloth before the sampling for the radiocarbon dating was performed.
No doubt JP will be supplying reasons why his expertise trumps theirs soon.

Lots of girlfriends?

 

[The Norseman]

You know, if you actually used the time you took to write the bajillion "I'll get back to you" in this thread alone to, you know, really getting back to us, we might have progressed a bit more.

What are you talking about? We're making tremendous progress! After all, it's only taken one measly year for him to finally admit that he's hinged his entire belief structure on the Shroud being authentic or true or something.

 

[John Jones]

Ian,
- Thanks especially for your last two posts. They might help a lot.
- I'll get back to you.
--- Jabba

You say that all the time, but how often do you do it?

The function of controls has been explained to you at least 4 times by 4 scientists who understand the concept, and you haven't properly acknowledged their explanations yet.

The empirical fact is, you will never accept any explanation that doesn't support the fable of the shroud being the burial garments of Christ - at least not for more than a few days.

Why not admit it and stop wasting everyone's time?

To any lurkers still sitting on the fence on the this issue:
I hope you are paying attention to Jabba's repeated and pointed dissimulation, and his counterfeit search for truth.

Jabba, I intended that to be both blunt and civil. If it hurt your feelings, well, I didn't like being called more biased and dishonest than you in matters of science either.

 

[kerikiwi]

You know, if you actually used the time you took to write the bajillion "I'll get back to you" in this thread alone to, you know, really getting back to us, we might have progressed a bit more.

 

[John Jones]

Jabba, I think the reason people are objecting to what you said about the controls, is that your reply to Pixel42 in post #1538 was a reply to a question asking you about the authenticity of the dates reported by the three C14 labs. I asked you to clarify that in post #5485, and you replied “Yes” (post #5490).


IOW, you appear to be saying that the three labs must have conspired to deliberately falsify their dates.


That's probably why people think your replies on this point are unsatisfactory.

There's that, plus the fact that Jabba seems to be fundamentally dishonest in his evaluation of evidence. I don't know how to sugar-coat it any better than that.

Jabba knows that I'm not the only one to reach this conclusion.

I have faith that Jabba will get back to us one day and answer all questions. He has assured us repeatedly that he will get back to us. Maybe it will happen before Jesus returns.

 

[Dinwar]

Jabba, I want you to answer this question as honestly as you can: WHY did you think, after a year of us patiently explaining the process to you, that there was any room for subjectivity after the testing? What fact about the testing lead you to that belief?

- And also, I need to understand some things first in order to accept that I am technically wrong about it. For instance, how are control samples used in calibration?

No. You've got that backwards. You should assume that when you fail to understand such foundational concepts that your understanding of the process is flawed. Assuming that you, in a pristine absence of any knowledge of the process, are smarter than all those who spend their lives learning it is beyond mere arogance.

As for controls, the concept is simple. You know when the sample was made. If the sample's result is the date it was made, you know the machine was working fine. If it's off, you can use the controls to figure out by how much it was off. There are some technical details (for example, you use controls with about the same date as you'd expect--in this case this would include both a 1st century and a 14th century artifact, along with others--because calibration is only ever accurate within a range and you need to make sure you're not outside that range). That said, until you understand the basics I don't think we should confuse you with the details. In general, controls are there so that we can see how accurate the machine is, by comparing the known date against the results.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Jabba, I want you to answer this question as honestly as you can: WHY did you think, after a year of us patiently explaining the process to you, that there was any room for subjectivity after the testing? What fact about the testing lead you to that belief?

No. You've got that backwards. You should assume that when you fail to understand such foundational concepts that your understanding of the process is flawed. Assuming that you, in a pristine absence of any knowledge of the process, are smarter than all those who spend their lives learning it is beyond mere arogance.

As for controls, the concept is simple. You know when the sample was made. If the sample's result is the date it was made, you know the machine was working fine. If it's off, you can use the controls to figure out by how much it was off. There are some technical details (for example, you use controls with about the same date as you'd expect--in this case this would include both a 1st century and a 14th century artifact, along with others--because calibration is only ever accurate within a range and you need to make sure you're not outside that range). That said, until you understand the basics I don't think we should confuse you with the details. In general, controls are there so that we can see how accurate the machine is, by comparing the known date against the results.

Dinwar:

I have been remiss--thank you for your patient, informative posts. You are the kind of poster I want to be.

 

[Dinwar]

Dinwar:

I have been remiss--thank you for your patient, informative posts. You are the kind of poster I want to be.

Thanks. And....Just continue to ignore my angrier rants.

 

[jhunter1163]

IMO, there's a far better case to be made for the Sudarium of Oviedo being an authentic relic of the Crucifixion than the Shroud of Turin. The Sudarium has been in the same place since the eighth century and can be traced back at least to seventh-century Palestine. It has not been accurately carbon-dated. The one attempt that was made gave a date around AD 600, but the professor performing the test admitted that due to the extremely high level of contamination, that date was not reliable. The Sudarium exhibits many of the same characteristics of the Shroud (blood and serum stains, traces of aloe and myrrh) but no image as such. An interesting relic.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

 

[pakeha]

...The history of the sudarium is well documented, and much more straightforward than that of the Shroud. Most of the information comes from the twelfth century bishop of Oviedo, Pelagius (or Pelayo), whose historical works are the Book of the Testaments of Oviedo, and the Chronicon Regum Legionensium.

According to this history, the sudarium was in Palestine until shortly before the year 614, when Jerusalem was attacked and conquered by Chosroes II, who was king of Persia from 590 to 628. It was taken away to avoid destruction in the invasion, first to Alexandria by the presbyter Philip, then across the north of Africa when Chosroes conquered Alexandria in 616. The sudarium entered Spain at Cartagena, along with people who were fleeing from the Persians. The bishop of Ecija, Fulgentius, welcomed the refugees and the relics, and surrendered the chest, or ark, to Leandro, bishop of Seville. He took it to Seville, where it spent some years.
The entrance to the Cámara Santa in the cathedral
Photo © Luis Montoto and María Mosquera

Saint Isidore was later bishop of Seville, and teacher of Saint Ildefonso, who was in turn appointed bishop of Toledo. When he left Seville to take up his post there, he took the chest with him. It stayed in Toledo until the year 718. It was then taken further north to avoid destruction at the hands of the Muslims, who conquered the majority of the Iberian peninsula at the beginning of the eighth century. It was first kept in a cave that is now called Monsacro, ten kilometres from Oviedo. King Alfonso II had a special chapel built for the chest, called the "Cámara Santa", later incorporated into the cathedral.

The key date in the history of the sudarium is the 14th March 1075, when the chest was officially opened in the presence of King Alfonso VI, his sister Doña Urraca, and Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, better known as El Cid. A list was made of the relics that were in the chest, and which included the sudarium. In the year 1113, the chest was covered with silver plating, on which there is an inscription inviting all Christians to venerate this relic which contains the holy blood. The sudarium has been kept in the cathedral at Oviedo ever since.

http://www.shroud.com/guscin.htm

Finally, this thread has a connection with the divine Sofia Loren.

 

[Aepervius]

Ian,
- Thanks especially for your last two posts. They might help a lot.
- I'll get back to you.
--- Jabba

To make it easier with an analogy, it is like emasuring temperature with a thermometer.

Your control is : measuring temperature at standard pression of iced water, and set that as the 0°C, then do the same as standard pressure for boiling water and find it is 100°C, then dividing the scale between 0 and 100 by 100 smaller scale for all celsius, and then finally independentely on 3 differents persons with 3 different thermometer, ask them to emasure at standard pressure the temperature of a bath.

The control here are the setting the 0°celsius and the 100°C (boiling and iced water at standard pressure). You do not blind the control !

Normally just a measurement would be acceptable for one person, as dinwar and otehrs told you, there is no bias into measurement the thermometer scale ! But instead we got 3 measurement, 2 of which were blinded.

The measurement went BEYOND any other measurement. The quality as far as I can tell is irreprochable, and pretending there was not enough blinding is completely being ignorant of the situation.

So unless you want to go on a conspiracy theory that the 3 labs somhow decided in parallel to all outright do a fraud and lie, you have no valid point. And if you DO hold that the lab did a fraud, asserting that without evidence, then you might as well stop any pretense of discussion and just assert your faith and be gone.

 

[abaddon]

Rearranged to make more sense.

1. I WANT the Shroud to be authentic. I.E., I am not impartial.

6. I TEND TO BELIEVE that the Shroud is authentic

7. I DON’T HAVE A WHOLE LOT OF “FAITH” in either God, or Jesus – but, would like to...

8. The more I believe that the Shroud is authentic, THE MORE “FAITH” I HAVE IN GOD AND JESUS… (That's why I'd like the Shroud to be authentic.)

You want to believe in jebus, but you don't quite believe. The shroud would bolster that belief. Therefore it is important to you to insist that the shroud is genuine, in order to further shore up your shaky belief in jebus.
Do you not see that you are stating here that your belief in jebus is so fragile that you must have the shroud be genuine, or else your faith will fail? Do you not see that a faith like that, based on superstitious objects is not worth having? Do you not see that those of faith care not at all for such trivial objects? Are you, in fact, doing your best to suppress your inner atheist?

2. I TEND TO BELIEVE in “precognition” and other “supernatural” phenomena.

In spite of the fact that there is no evidence for it.

3. I TEND TO BELIEVE that the Bible is prophetic.

In spite of the fact that it has predicted nothing, contradicts itself and espouses genocide, rape, pillage, slaughter, injustice, bigotry and slavery, to mention a few.

4. I DO BELIEVE that there is much more to the Jesus concept/story than first meets the rational eye. (I try to begin spelling that out at http://messiahornot.com/.)

Of course there is, after all, it's all made up, and when you make it up, you can make anything up.

5. I DO BELIEVE that there is a “God” – or, a reasonable facsimile thereof…

Why? There's no evidence of one.

5.1. I DO BELIEVE that we are sort of "temples" of God,

What on earth does that mean? But wait...

5.2. I DO BELIEVE that we are "expressions" of God.

What on earth does that even mean? But wait...

5.3. I DO BELIEVE that "God" is Aldous Huxley's "Great Mind at Large, and Quantum Mechanic's consciousness at large.

WTF?

9. I DO BELIEVE that we are all immortal.

Evidence? Oh, don't refer to your abandoned thread on that topic where you got spanked.

10. I ALSO BELIEVE that
10.1. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
10.2. You can’t get here from there using reductionistic thinking.

OK, I will agree to a point until...

10.3. Reality is alive, conscious, free and ultimately meaningful – it is “magical.”

No, it's just a bunch of stuff. Reality is not a conscious entity.

10.4. Holistic thinking finds the magic.

Uh-oh, appeal to magic.

10.5. Love is the bottom line.

And smoking weed makes everything better. Right.

10.6. We humans tend to look right through the implications all around us, and miss the magic.

And return to magic.

 

[catsmate]

As for controls, the concept is simple. You know when the sample was made. If the sample's result is the date it was made, you know the machine was working fine. If it's off, you can use the controls to figure out by how much it was off. There are some technical details (for example, you use controls with about the same date as you'd expect--in this case this would include both a 1st century and a 14th century artifact, along with others--because calibration is only ever accurate within a range and you need to make sure you're not outside that range). That said, until you understand the basics I don't think we should confuse you with the details. In general, controls are there so that we can see how accurate the machine is, by comparing the known date against the results.

Exactly. The controls used in the AMS shroud dating were:

Sample 2. Linen from a tomb excavated at Qasr Ibrîm, dated (on the basis of the Islamic embroidered pattern and Christian ink inscription) to the eleventh to twelfth centuries CE.
Sample 3. Linen from the early second century AD mummy of Cleopatra from Thebes. Dated using liquid scintillation counting to between 110 BCE and 75CE.
Sample 4. Threads from the cope of St Louis d'Anjou, dated (by means of stylistic details and the historical evidence) to 1290 - 1310CE, the reign of King Phillipe IV.​

IMO, there's a far better case to be made for the Sudarium of Oviedo being an authentic relic of the Crucifixion than the Shroud of Turin. The Sudarium has been in the same place since the eighth century and can be traced back at least to seventh-century Palestine. It has not been accurately carbon-dated. The one attempt that was made gave a date around AD 600, but the professor performing the test admitted that due to the extremely high level of contamination, that date was not reliable. The Sudarium exhibits many of the same characteristics of the Shroud (blood and serum stains, traces of aloe and myrrh) but no image as such. An interesting relic.

This also raises the question of why the Sudarium hasn't been examined more intensely by shroud believers. For example how does the cloth compare to that of the shroud?

And, for that matter, why haven't the believers arranged for more recent radiocarbon dating of both cloths?

 

[Dinwar]

Exactly. The controls used in the AMS shroud dating were:

Sample 2. Linen from a tomb excavated at Qasr Ibrîm, dated (on the basis of the Islamic embroidered pattern and Christian ink inscription) to the eleventh to twelfth centuries CE.
Sample 3. Linen from the early second century AD mummy of Cleopatra from Thebes. Dated using liquid scintillation counting to between 110 BCE and 75CE.
Sample 4. Threads from the cope of St Louis d'Anjou, dated (by means of stylistic details and the historical evidence) to 1290 - 1310CE, the reign of King Phillipe IV.

Seems to indicate that no one thought it'd be that high--they seem to have pinned down an upper and lower limit, with one in the middle (not an uncommon method). The shroud ended up on the upper end of the limit.

Note to Jabba and his ilk: the controls do not mark the limits of the accuracy of the test. If the shroud had dated to 1400, the fact that no 1400 control sample was analyzed wouldn't disprove anything, much less account for the 1200-1300 years the shroud is missing. I'm just saying that if it were me, and I had reason to suspect a Medieval age, I'd have included something a bit newer.

This also raises the question of why the Sudarium hasn't been examined more intensely by shroud believers.

And a potentially fun counter-argument: if the Sudarium is true, the shroud can't be true--Jesus couldn't have been burried in TWO burial cloths!