Miracle of the Shroud IV - The Phantom Image

[hugh farey]

Jabba, I detect a rising panic in the medievalist camp, don't you?

Sadly, I can think of lots of reasons not to accept Spicer's hypothesis, and, as I have demonstrated, reasons not to accept the accuracy of your Bayesian equation, and can calmly and rationally refute almost every authenticist argument, which I do. In contrast, some of my fellow so-called skeptics only make jokes, belittle and hurl insults. It is clear that given any reasons to accept authenticity, however inadequate, rather than the straw-men they raise and shoot down themselves, they do nothing but flounder.

Jabba! You're winning! You're wearing them down.
You will almost certainly not reconvert me, but the seeds of horrible doubt are creeping up in the minds of many of the commenters above. Like you, they know they must be right, but they really can't sensibly explain why. The cool, remorseless, analytical deconstruction of fantasy one used to associate with the true skeptic has withered on the vine.

...snip...

Edited by jsfisher: 

Edited for compliance with Rule 0 of the Membership Agreement.

The Emeritus Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre is undoubtedly pro-authenticity, just as most people here do not believe the Shroud is authentic. Having a point of view before you start is not necessarily a bad thing, and may be inevitable. However, his attempt to explain how an image could appear on the shroud of a dead person does not depend either on that person being Jesus, nor on any particular time and place, except insofar as quite an unusual combination of circumstances must combine to produce the effect. This is reasonable. Some extraordinary things have been witnessed in history, thanks to a singular combination of circumstances.

His hypothesis is that, in a vertical electric field, any body lying amid any folded sheet will generate charges upon its horizontal planes, preferentially rather than its vertical planes. Nobody here has denied this, let alone refuted it.

His hypothesis is that mobile chemicals on that body, such as those produced by a traumatic death, will gather preferentially on the horizontal planes before leaving it as gases. Nobody here has denied this, let alone refuted it.

His hypothesis is that any chemical reaction engendered by these chemicals on an appropriately prepared shroud would occur directly above the emission point. Nobody here has denied this, let alone refuted it.

Spicer's contention is that the image on the Shroud could have been produced in that way. Everybody here has denied this - but not thereby refuted it.

Come on scientists, let's have some science!

 

[JayUtah]

Jabba, I detect a rising panic in the medievalist camp, don't you?
...
Jabba! You're winning! You're wearing them down.
...

Edited by jsfisher: 

Moderated content redacted.

...
Come on scientists, let's have some science!

And you so desperately don't want to be seen as Jabba's friend and ally here.

You will almost certainly not reconvert me, but the seeds of horrible doubt are creeping up in the minds of many of the commenters above. Like you, they know they must be right, but they really can't sensibly explain why. The cool, remorseless, analytical deconstruction of fantasy one used to associate with the true skeptic has withered on the vine.

Presumptive, rhetorical nonsense. The only "seeds of doubt" I have regard what you actually propose to accomplish by your participation here. It certainly isn't to enforce a sense of fair play. It certainly isn't to champion a fact-based analysis of the available evidence.

I urged you to find a point and make it. I renew that urgency.

 

[zooterkin]

Jabba, I detect a rising panic in the medievalist camp, don't you?

I really have no idea what you're referring to. Certainly nothing happening in this thread.

 

[zooterkin]

Jabba! You're winning! You're wearing them down.
You will almost certainly not reconvert me, but the seeds of horrible doubt are creeping up in the minds of many of the commenters above. Like you, they know they must be right, but they really can't sensibly explain why.

You mean apart from the carbon dating, the anatomical impossibility of the figure, its resemblance to art of the period, the contemporary documentation of the cloth as a fake, and a few other things?

However, his attempt to explain how an image could appear on the shroud of a dead person does not depend either on that person being Jesus, nor on any particular time and place,

Indeed, hence my question earlier. Even if the frankly unbelievable chain of events not only happened, but cause the image to appear, that still doesn't get us any closer to a 2000 year old cloth.

except insofar as quite an unusual combination of circumstances must combine to produce the effect.

Begging the question. That we don't know how the image was created doesn't mean that it required anything unusual to create it. You seem to be using Jabba logic again; something unlikely must have happened, the resurrection was unlikely so that must have been it...

His hypothesis is that, in a vertical electric field, any body lying amid any folded sheet will generate charges upon its horizontal planes, preferentially rather than its vertical planes. Nobody here has denied this, let alone refuted it.

His hypothesis is that mobile chemicals on that body, such as those produced by a traumatic death, will gather preferentially on the horizontal planes before leaving it as gases. Nobody here has denied this, let alone refuted it.

His hypothesis is that any chemical reaction engendered by these chemicals on an appropriately prepared shroud would occur directly above the emission point. Nobody here has denied this, let alone refuted it.

Spicer's contention is that the image on the Shroud could have been produced in that way. Everybody here has denied this - but not thereby refuted it.

Come on scientists, let's have some science!

The onus is on Spicer to first show that his conjectures have any basis in reality. Even then, that still only gives a mechanism for producing an image, it doesn't change the age of the cloth.

 

[Nonpareil]

Jabba, I detect a rising panic in the medievalist camp, don't you?

No. Just exasperation.

 

[JayUtah]

Come on scientists, let's have some science!

Okay, here's what science has to say. The claim is...

His hypothesis is...
His hypothesis is...
His hypothesis is...

I assume you note the pattern. You add:

Everybody here has denied this - but not thereby refuted it.

...which is a bizarre twist on science in which people expecting a scientist first to test his hypothesis using sound methods and principles are instead being told they have to refute it!

Some time ago I wrote about what makes science. You seem to think whatever comes from the pen of an emeritus scientist at NASA/Goddard must be science. Whereas I say what follows from a proper application of the scientific method must be science. I know many scientists at NASA/Goddard and have worked with them. They are an august bunch, quite capable in their training and rigor. So I have to wonder why one of their number would so suddenly depart from the accepted and hallowed principles of his art and demand that an audience accept unproven hypotheses as science, and indeed compel his followers to demand that those who refuse somehow bear a burden of proof.

The scientist is not compelled to give reasons for presuming the null until empirical fact is appropriately produced to falsify it.

 

[zooterkin]

I contend that the limestone on the shroud ultimately supports authenticity, and detracts from inauthenticity. More relevant here, I claim that the stains on the shroud being real blood would support authenticity and detract from inauthenticity.

You can contend what you like, as long as you keep ignoring what everyone else is telling you.

Limestone doesn't make a difference either way, especially since it would be found if the cloth was sized with gesso for painting on. If the parts of the image which appear to be bloodstains are found to contain no blood, that would tend to support it being a fake; however, the converse isn't true, regardless of how much you wish it so.

 

[JayUtah]

No. Just exasperation.

The "wearing them down" comment is quite telling. Some fringe proponents wage a war of attrition. By stubbornly refusing to debate in any sensible way, and deflecting constantly into minutia, they compel their critics simply to give up and leave the proponent wallowing in the sty of intransigence they created. As we've seen, Jabba interprets that as victory. The goal of fringe argumentation is not to test ideas, but to create the illusion of that test having been performed, and of winning it. One's opponents having given up out of frustration at one's obdurance is victory enough. I think Hugh is genuinely anti-authenticist, but after watching him argue for a few weeks now, I'd say he's also anti-skeptic. He's here to show the superiority of his efforts over those of "skeptics."

 

[Craig4]

Slowvehicle,
- It means that while an event may be consistent with both sides of complementary hypotheses, it can ultimately support one over the other. I contend that the limestone on the shroud ultimately supports authenticity, and detracts from inauthenticity. More relevant here, I claim that the stains on the shroud being real blood would support authenticity and detract from inauthenticity.

Doesn't matter unless you date the cloth. All else is futility until that's done.

 

[Jabba]

Blood/What difference does it make?/Bayesian Statistics

I think you did already in your previous post. Neither the vaporograph, nor the radiation theories really account for the lack of any wrap-around image, even if the shroud were only draped over the body.

I know I'm doing what you asked us not to do, which it try to poke holes in the theories. If a deeper reading of these two theories actually explains the lack of wrap-around, please let us know.

Ward

Ward,
- Do you see the logic in my use of Bayesian statistics?

 

[zooterkin]

Ward,
- Do you see the logic in my use of Bayesian statistics?

 

[Nonpareil]

The "wearing them down" comment is quite telling. Some fringe proponents wage a war of attrition. By stubbornly refusing to debate in any sensible way, and deflecting constantly into minutia, they compel their critics simply to give up and leave the proponent wallowing in the sty of intransigence they created. As we've seen, Jabba interprets that as victory. The goal of fringe argumentation is not to test ideas, but to create the illusion of that test having been performed, and of winning it. One's opponents having given up out of frustration at one's obdurance is victory enough. I think Hugh is genuinely anti-authenticist, but after watching him argue for a few weeks now, I'd say he's also anti-skeptic. He's here to show the superiority of his efforts over those of "skeptics."

Quite. I've been following the thread for quite a while, now, but I have long since given up on posting regularly due to Jabba's apparent inability to respond to requests for actual evidence. He just carries on with the slowest, least effective attempt at a Gish gallop of all time and functionally ignores everyone but those posters new enough to not realize what he's doing.

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited breach of rule 0 and rule 12

The plain fact is that the thread thus far has been entirely fair and balanced. It just happens that Jabba's arguments are so completely, transparently worthless that treating them as anything other than the utter and obvious claptrap they are would be entirely unfair.

I admire your dedication to educating the lurkers, but I think we have long since passed the point where anything can be learned from this thread, other than how much the authenticist crowd is willing to embarrass itself over it.

 

[JayUtah]

Do you see the logic in my use of Bayesian statistics?

You mean your misuse of it. And yes, your rationale for employing it is quite apparent: you wish to disguise your begged questions behind something that conveys the illusion of rigor without actually achieving it.

People use Bayes' methods because they believe it more closely approximates the way people actually think. This is why probability is formulated differently under Bayes -- not as an abstraction of the behavior of a measured variable, but as the distribution of possibilities given certain assumptions and beliefs. And in your case it has properly captured the way you think -- if one already believes the cloth is the authentic burial shroud of Jesus, then finding limestone on it will simply reinforce that belief rather than detract from it. The numbers you chose to plug into the model reflect nothing more than your personal beliefs.

The danger that this sort of behavior may arise in Bayesian inferential models is precisely why teachers of Bayes' methods admonish their students about the importance of rigorously establishing the priors. As I have said numerous times, the cardinal rule in Bayesian inference is that the results are only as strong as the validity of the priors. You have simply plucked those, and your parametric likelihoods, out of thin air.

You obviously don't want to talk about that exercise, which leads me to believe your misuse of Bayes here was intentional. The weakness of Bayes is its reliance on assumptions and initial conditions. And you don't want your assumptions and initial conditions questioned, because otherwise you'd have to face the reality that all you've done here is irrelevant arithmetical manipulation that has no bearing on the facts.

 

[Nonpareil]

You mean your misuse of it. And yes, your rationale for employing it is quite apparent: you wish to disguise your begged questions behind something that conveys the illusion of rigor without actually achieving it.

It really is funny how many various pseudosciences eventually resort to Bayesian probabilities in an order to prop up their delusions as rational. I've seen it done for the Shroud, alien visitation, psychic powers, homeopathy, and Bigfoot now.

One more and I get a free sub.

 

[JayUtah]

The plain fact is that the thread thus far has been entirely fair and balanced.

Indeed, the whole point of rational analysis is that some ideas simply don't make the cut, and those are the ones that should be forgotten. Skeptic books and other sources quote me as saying "Skeptics are the consumer advocates in the marketplace of ideas." If we continue the marketplace analogy, some people seem to think that just because a product appears on the market, it should be given deference and respect. I don't believe that.

This thread shows that despite a lengthy and circuitous examination, there is nothing to the idea that the cloth at Turin is Jesus' burial shroud. It shows that all the proponents of authenticity can muster is the same FUD, speculation, and illogic we find in other genres of fringe thinking and argumentation. From the UFO crowd they borrow appeals to the miraculous. From the Apollo crowd they borrow lurid tales of the all-powerful hegemony. From the JFK and 9/11 crowds they borrow accusations of improper or tainted investigations.

I admire your dedication to educating the lurkers, but I think we have long since passed the point where anything can be learned from this thread, other than how much the authenticist crowd is willing to embarrass itself over it.

As I told Hugh, as long as there are proposals there will be critical analysis even if it seems repetitive. And as long a there are deceptive and insincere proponents, there will be people to call them on it. This thread provides two examples of deceptive argumentation (variously) in favor of a factually untenable idea. They are just different approaches, but learning how they work is still important.

 

[sackett]

Jay, you've repeatedly said that Jabba plucks his ideas out of "thin air."

It's fitting and proper that you should use that phrase. But:

We all know what it REALLY means.

 

[JayUtah]

It really is funny how many various pseudosciences eventually resort to Bayesian probabilities in an order to prop up their delusions as rational.

It's the only science where you get to quantify belief and then have subsequent conclusions legitimately mean something. It has value, but it predicts reality only insofar as the belief is accurate.

The real issue is that it equivocates between two competing paradigms of statistical reasoning. Most of us are familiar with classical statistical probability that considers abstractions of measured variables. We consider innumerable examples from gambling that illustrate the difference between what we believe and what reality is. Statistical probability was invented precisely to model reality despite what we might believe about it. Thus I can believe that a product I produce is safe and reliable, but statistical probability shows its reliability as a probability density function over time. No amount of belief contradicts the measured value, just as no amount of belief in luck alters the odds of drawing a royal flush.

While Las Vegas is an example of how to profit from people's misunderstanding of and disbelief in statistics, a Bayesian search method is the most effective way to help me find my friend Joe at the casino. It allows me to consider such "soft" concepts as Joe's predilection for blackjack and his dislike of male dealers -- albeit only as estimates of quantified belief -- and derive a particular probability density function over all the applicable parameters that optimizes my search. How optimal it is depends on how accurate my assumptions are, but it is mechanically robust enough in its arithmetic to guide my actions in the real world -- given the parameters I laid down at the outset.

That's where the equivocation comes back into play. In classical statistics, the derived probability is a due abstraction of measurements and trends. It is absolutely bereft of any "soft" concepts such as belief. As such it commands a certain rigor as a predictor of likely outcomes of those same sorts of measurable variables in future, regardless of irrational optimism. But Bayesian predictions are conditional. They have predictive value only insofar as the assumptions that created them hold under the auspices of the same domain as the prediction. If you fudge those initial likelihood functions, as fringe theorists do by plugging in guesses that reflect their preconceptions, then what you get is accurate in the Bayesian sense by properly applying the preconception to new data (or vice versa). But because the answer is phrased as a "probability" they can convince readers that it is rigorous in the same sense as classical statistics.

It isn't. A Bayesian probability is conceptually a completely different animal than a classical probability. Classical probability tells you what is most probably going to be the case. Bayesian probability tells you what is most prudent to believe and do given the "soft" assumptions.

As usual, the utility of any model is knowing in what situations it applies, and then providing it with suitable inputs. Hugh wants to quibble over Jabba's arithmetic mistake. To me that's saying he did the swish-and-flick wrong, while I'm standing here telling him a magic wand isn't going to make him levitate. A magic wand still useful for stirring the soup, but it's not going to make him fly no matter how loudly he screams "Wingardium leviosa!"

 

[MRC_Hans]

I think it is important to a skeptical website not to fall into exactly the same errors of reasoning as the arguments it seeks to refute, don't you? The epithet "straw man" is often bandied about, I think to represent an argument that is easily refuted, but is not, in fact proposed by the holders of the argument you wish to refute. I do not think any autheniticist thinks that Shroud was 'wrapped' around a body in order to produce the image, so assuming that they do, and denouncing it as impossible, is a classic "straw man". Jabba's arguments have many weaknesses, and I hope he will recognise that 0.9 * 0.5 does not equal 0.0475, but responding like for like is unlikely to persuade him, or any other authenticist reading this thread to change his mind.

My highligt...

A bit late to react to this, still: That is not a straw man. It is holding the opposition responsible for necessary implications of their claim. Although most authenticists wisely avoid mentioning "wrapped", this is an inescapable consequence of calling the object "the burial shroud of JC": A burial shroud is necessarily wrapped around or at the very least draped over a dead body. Otherwise it is not a burial shroud.

And the patterns visible on the object are NOT compatible with its use as a burial shroud.

This is a valid and pertinent argument, not a straw man.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

Jabba, I detect a rising panic in the medievalist camp, don't you?

Sadly, I can think of lots of reasons not to accept Spicer's hypothesis, and, as I have demonstrated, reasons not to accept the accuracy of your Bayesian equation, and can calmly and rationally refute almost every authenticist argument, which I do. In contrast, some of my fellow so-called skeptics only make jokes, belittle and hurl insults. It is clear that given any reasons to accept authenticity, however inadequate, rather than the straw-men they raise and shoot down themselves, they do nothing but flounder.

Thank you for showing your true colors at last. I shall treat you accordingly.

Hans

 

[John Jones]

Ward,
- Do you see the logic in my use of Bayesian statistics?

Hahahahahaha!