Miracle of the Shroud IV - The Phantom Image

[John Jones]

I do UV/Visible spectroscopy every day (the detection basis of Ray Rogers' pro-authenticity paper) and mass spectrometry several times a month (the detection basis of the ¹⁴C dating of the shroud).

The state of the art precision and sensitivity for mass spectrometry exceed those of UV/Vis spectroscopy by many, many orders of magnitudes. That alone makes mass spectrometry the preferred detection method where applicable.

 

[aleCcowaN]

But vanillin degradation might be a legitimate technique using the proper detection method, mightn't it?

 

[John Jones]

But vanillin degradation might be a legitimate technique using the proper detection method, mightn't it?

It might be, but to my knowledge, no one has made a case for it being a legitimate technique for dating 2000 year-old fabric.

 

[aleCcowaN]

It might be, but to my knowledge, no one has made a case for it being a legitimate technique for dating 2000 year-old fabric.

Thank you for the info. So, it remains similar to those experiments from 1900 that nobody could repeat and assorted crapvocates of wacky causes like to parrot, like Tesla's more obscure work.

 

[zooterkin]

On the few occasions where he has actually put forward a specific piece of evidence in support of a specific claim, the evidence has been shown to be lacking and he has acknowledged that.

And then come back later to present the same piece of 'evidence' as if nothing had happened?

 

[John Jones]

Thank you for the info. So, it remains similar to those experiments from 1900 that nobody could repeat and assorted crapvocates of wacky causes like to parrot, like Tesla's more obscure work.

I wouldn't say that. I'd say that Ray Rogers was a respected chemist who lost all objectivity over the CIQ -- much like Linus Pauling was great chemist who went off the deep end about Vitamin C.

I would opine that peers who reviewed Ray Rogers' work with STURP, and his work on vanillin degradation shake their head in regret at his abandonment of the discipline of science.

The same seems to be true of almost all original members of STURP and the 2005 editorial staff of Thermochemica Acta.

 

[aleCcowaN]

The same seems to be true of almost all original members of STURP and the 2005 editorial staff of Thermochemica Acta.

Most of this is new to me. I was reading this document

http://llanoestacado.org/freeinquiry/skeptic/shroud/articles/rogers-ta-response.htm

and it looks Rogers had an ability to write documents on demand when the shroud was involved. So far the authentic shroud advocacy seems another pseudoscientific sucker punching cause for initiated.

I can't find any shred of evidence that may bring upon even the speculation of the shroud being from gospel times. Can an advocacy be so hollow, for Jebus' sake?

 

[John Jones]

And then come back later to present the same piece of 'evidence' as if nothing had happened?

Yes. Exactly this. Again and again for 3+ years.

 

[ferd burfle]

I do UV/Visible spectroscopy every day (the detection basis of Ray Rogers' pro-authenticity paper) and mass spectrometry several times a month (the detection basis of the ¹⁴C dating of the shroud).

Pardon my laziness to search but didn't someone post recently that the test was just a qualiitative color test and didn't use a spectrophotometer or calibration? If so, that and the assumption that the degradation rate would follow roughly Ahrrenius kinetics at unknown temperatures would seem to make meaningful conclusions all but impossible.

 

[John Jones]

Pardon my laziness to search but didn't someone post recently that the test was just a qualiitative color test and didn't use a spectrophotometer or calibration? If so, that and the assumption that the degradation rate would follow roughly Ahrrenius kinetics at unknown temperatures would seem to make meaningful conclusions all but impossible.

I generously assumed that Ray Rogers was using some kind of quantification like the use of a spectrophotometer to read the intensity of the color produced. Even the most primitive of analytical chemistry laboratories have a spectrophotometer.

If I assumed wrongly, then perhaps I was too kind in my estimate of Rogers' kitchen chemistry.

 

[John Jones]

Most of this is new to me. I was reading this document

http://llanoestacado.org/freeinquiry/skeptic/shroud/articles/rogers-ta-response.htm

and it looks Rogers had an ability to write documents on demand when the shroud was involved. So far the authentic shroud advocacy seems another pseudoscientific sucker punching cause for initiated.

I can't find any shred of evidence that may bring upon even the speculation of the shroud being from gospel times. Can an advocacy be so hollow, for Jebus' sake?

Clearly they can. They even have a name for what STURP did: Advocacy research.

It means looking for supporting evidence after you've drawn a conclusion. It's the antithesis of the scientific method.

 

[Slowvehicle]

I generously assumed that Ray Rogers was using some kind of quantification like the use of a spectrophotometer to read the intensity of the color produced. Even the most primitive of analytical chemistry laboratories have a spectrophotometer.

If I assumed wrongly, then perhaps I was too kind in my estimate of Rogers' kitchen chemistry.

Long, but fascinating reading...and I cannot find a single indication that Rogers used a spectrophotometer.

https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/debate.pdf

 

[aleCcowaN]

https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/debate.pdf

That was nastily self-referential on part of the usual suspects. Kind of "You have to acknowledge Roger's conclusions are true in order to criticize them".

 

[John Jones]

Long, but fascinating reading...and I cannot find a single indication that Rogers used a spectrophotometer.

https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/debate.pdf

I'm reading.

Like Jabba Schwarzenegger said: "I'll be back"

 

[ferd burfle]

I generously assumed that Ray Rogers was using some kind of quantification like the use of a spectrophotometer to read the intensity of the color produced. Even the most primitive of analytical chemistry laboratories have a spectrophotometer.

If I assumed wrongly, then perhaps I was too kind in my estimate of Rogers' kitchen chemistry.

From http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_shro7.htm :

There exists a method called pyrolysis mass spectrometry which Rogers had used recently for other testing of the Shroud of Turin. 2 It has been shown to generate extremely precise quantitative measurements of carbohydrates, such as vanillin. Unfortunately, he allegedly chose to use a qualitative analysis method: He stained a sample of the shroud in his home laboratory using phloroglucinol–hydrochloric-acid reagent. If a significant amount of vanillin is present, the reagent changes its color. In spite of the lack of accuracy of the measurement, he concluded that the shroud could date to the lifetime of Yeshua of Nazareth. He published a report in the journal Thermochimica Acta a chemistry peer reviewed journal on 2005-JAN-20.

Note it does say "allegedly" but I expect if he had spectrophotometric data, a professional chemist like Rogers would have reported it as such in his paper.

 

[Alderbank]

I generously assumed that Ray Rogers was using some kind of quantification like the use of a spectrophotometer to read the intensity of the color produced. Even the most primitive of analytical chemistry laboratories have a spectrophotometer.

If I assumed wrongly, then perhaps I was too kind in my estimate of Rogers' kitchen chemistry.

Has Stanley Kosiewicz ever spoken publicly about the vanillin clock or the dating experiments? According to Rogers it was Kosiewicz who carried out some of the design and calibration work

 

[John Jones]

That was nastily self-referential on part of the usual suspects. Kind of "You have to acknowledge Roger's conclusions are true in order to criticize them".

I didn't see it that way. It struck me as an attempt to simultaneously defend STURP, and distance STURP from Ray Rogers' 2005 ridiculous claims about vanillin dating.

 

[Craig4]

Has Stanley Kosiewicz ever spoken publicly about the vanillin clock or the dating experiments? According to Rogers it was Kosiewicz who carried out some of the design and calibration work

To be fair, I looked in Questia, and through the University of Leicester's library journals and I can find nothing to indicate anyone else uses this method of dating. No one has published anything on this dating method. To be accepted there would have to have been many tests using samples of a known date. There would have to be dozens of papers out there on this as a dating method if this was an accepted method.

I suppose it's possible it might be a way to date an artifact, but near as I can tell no one has done the work to establish its validity.

 

[John Jones]

From http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_shro7.htm :




Note it does say "allegedly" but I expect if he had spectrophotometric data, a professional chemist like Rogers would have reported it as such in his paper.

I agree. Why would he not report such a fundamental set of empirical and reproducible data?

 

[John Jones]

To be fair, I looked in Questia, and through the University of Leicester's library journals and I can find nothing to indicate anyone else uses this method of dating. No one has published anything on this dating method. To be accepted there would have to have been many tests using samples of a known date. There would have to be dozens of papers out there on this as a dating method if this was an accepted method.

I suppose it's possible it might be a way to date an artifact, but near as I can tell no one has done the work to establish its validity.

Good on ya.

This problem keeps coming up: The shroudies (and other woo-slingers) claim all these peer-review publications, but they're just not there.

Ray Rogers' publication in Thermochimica Acta was an aberration. All the other citations are from Woo-Woo Reviews.