Miracle of the Shroud IV - The Phantom Image

[JayUtah]

I'm asserting that the authentic burial cloth of Jesus would be more likely to contain limestone (specifically, CaCO₃) than a medieval forgery.

You have not provided any evidence or valid argument to establish this. It is exactly this preconception that turns your Bayesian model into the circular argument Slowvehicle has correctly identified.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Slowvehicle,
- That is not what I'm asserting. I'm asserting that the authentic burial cloth of Jesus would be more likely to contain limestone (specifically, CaCO₃) than a medieval forgery.

...a cloth from the 1st Century C.E. would be more likely to contain limestone (specifically, CaCO3) than a medieval cloth...

My Dear Mr. Savage:

In what way is this (your claim) different from this (my statement of your claim)?

If the CIQ is taken to be a cloth that was "wrapped" around the MJ after hiis crucifiction and resurrexion, it would, in deed, be a cloth from the 1st Century, C.E. How does being used in a hypothetical event for which there is no evidence make it "more likely" to contain CaCO₃? Why are you ignoring the ubiquity of limestone throughout human history?

I remain,

yours, &ct.

ETA: are you, in fact, stooping to so transparently simple an argument as, "if the CIQ were, in fact, authentic, it would be much more likely that it were authentic"?

JF SV H

 

[John Jones]

Slowvehicle,
- That is not what I'm asserting. I'm asserting that the authentic burial cloth of Jesus would be more likely to contain limestone (specifically, CaCO₃) than a medieval forgery.[/HILITE].

No it would not . Calcium Carbonate is found just about every place you care to look on the surface of Earth, and has been for eons.

 

[Mojo]

Slowvehicle,
- That is not what I'm asserting. I'm asserting that the authentic burial cloth of Jesus would be more likely to contain limestone (specifically, CaCO₃) than a medieval forgery.[/HILITE].

My Dear Mr. Savage:

In what way is this (your claim) different from this (my statement of your claim)?

If the CIQ is taken to be a cloth that was "wrapped" around the MJ after hiis crucifiction and resurrexion, it would, in deed, be a cloth from the 1st Century, C.E. How does being used in a hypothetical event for which there is no evidence make it "more likely" to contain CaCO₃? Why are you ignoring the ubiquity of limestone throughout human history?

He's trying to sneak a false dilemma (that the cloth is either the authentic burial cloth of Jesus or a medieval forgery) past us.

 

[JayUtah]

He's trying to sneak a false dilemma (that the cloth is either the authentic burial cloth of Jesus or a medieval forgery) past us.

Yes, and worse. It's the same equivocation that's all over his arguments. The false dilemma is required when he needs to cast doubt on the medieval dating. Cast enough of that doubt, so he seems to say, and you have to preponderously give more credence to the belief it was Jesus' burial shroud. Conversely, the dilemma is inappropriate when trying to formulate the Bayesian model. Jabba requires the "not authentic hypothesis" (which isn't really a hypothesis itself, but just the complement of his hypothesis) to be vague enough that he can claim it's not possible to know or deduce anything reliably about it. In fact, Bayes most effectively reasons among several affirmative and non-complementary hypotheses, which is why it often has to invoke likelihood rather than probability.

 

[Slowvehicle]

He's trying to sneak a false dilemma (that the cloth is either the authentic burial cloth of Jesus or a medieval forgery) past us.

Which is one reason I, personally, do not like the term, "forgery". Is a painting of the Grand Canyon a "forgery"? The CIQ is not a cloth used to "wrap" anybody (whether after a putative crucifiction/resurrexion event or whatever), but that does not make it (in my opinion) a "forgery".

 

[pgwenthold]

Which is one reason I, personally, do not like the term, "forgery". Is a painting of the Grand Canyon a "forgery"? The CIQ is not a cloth used to "wrap" anybody (whether after a putative crucifiction/resurrexion event or whatever), but that does not make it (in my opinion) a "forgery".

I agree. I try to ask whether it is the burial shroud of Jesus or not. For short, I might refer to "authentic" as "authentic burial shroud of Jesus". If you want to refer to it as newer, it's "from the middle ages" or "700 years old."

I don't care about the whys of it being created (in this discussion; Charles Freeman tries to turn it into that, though).

 

[JayUtah]

Indeed. "It is the 2,000-year-old burial shroud of Jesus," and "It is a 700-year-old painting created to fool people" are not a valid dichotomy out of which you can talk about "tipping the scales one way or the other," or any other language that alludes to a preponderance of evidence.

Conversely, "It is the 2,000-year-old burial shroud of Jesus," and "It is not the 2,000-year-old burial shroud of Jesus" is not a set of hypotheses you can feed meaningfully to Bayes and hope to have a Bayesian posterior come out of it, for some datum, that is anything other than a slightly attenuated version of whatever preconceived (i.e., ostensibly parametric, but in this case simply guessed) probabilities you attached to that datum.

In the former case, incomplete. In the latter case, ill-formed.

 

[Jabba]

Blood/What difference does it make?/Bayesian Statistics

Jay,

- Could be that my efforts to explain my quantifications have not been very substantive - but, I have tried...

No, you haven't. You keep quoting the post where you pull the numbers out of your orifice, but you seem blissfully unaware that at no point have you given any rationale for them besides the non sequitur, "There's no way to know what they could be, so I'm going to choose a small number."...

Jay,
- You keep claiming that (or, something similar) -- but,
1) Wouldn't the shroud probably have a lot of limestone on were it authentic?

 

[JayUtah]

Wouldn't the shroud probably have a lot of limestone on were it authentic?

Straw man. You have asserted that if the shroud were authentic, it would have more limestone on it that if it were not authentic.

You have failed to provide a single shred of evidence to support this belief.

You have simply begged the same question repeatedly. In remarkable contrast to your burden of proof, you have audaciously argued that since, according to you, there is no basis by which to determine the expectancy of limestone were the cloth not authentic, you are free to assign it a low probability. It would be difficult to imagine a less logical approach to that. Your position is patently self-contradictory.

 

[pgwenthold]

Jay,
- You keep claiming that (or, something similar) -- but,
1) Wouldn't the shroud probably have a lot of limestone on were it authentic?

But it would also PROBABLY have limestone on it if it were from the middle ages. Heck, as described, it would almost certainly have limestone (gesseo) on it if it were a painting from the middle ages.

Did you take that into account?

 

[The Sparrow]

Wouldn't the shroud probably have a lot of limestone on were it a forgery?

 

[wollery]

Jay,
- You keep claiming that (or, something similar) -- but,
1) Wouldn't the shroud probably have a lot of limestone on were it authentic?

Why?

As you said earlier, you are asserting that an authentic shroud would have more limestone, but you have given no reason why it should.

That reason is what people are asking you for, why would an authentic shroud have more limestone?

Your assertion is therefore a bald assertion, and as such has no weight.

 

[Pixel42]

The shroud would probably have limestone on it if it were authentic.

The shroud would probably have limestone on it if it were not authentic.

The presence or absence of limestone on the shroud therefore tells us nothing about its authenticity.

It beggars belief that this needs to be explained even once.

 

[JayUtah]

It beggars belief that this needs to be explained even once.

Even more so when Jabba's erstwhile ally and advocate, Hugh, very plainly and emphatically tried to impress this upon him.

In the logical sense, under the regime of qualitative consistency, the limestone proposition is the consequent of several antecedents. Jabba's argument is the classic fallacy of affirming the consequent and then unjustifiably asserting the desired antecedent.

In the probative sense the proposition of limestone is simply moot to the question of authenticity. Unless a distinction in expectancy arises from some other avenue, limestone is not probative to authenticity.

In the statistical sense, the proposition of limestone has been adroitly esconced as a preconception of authenticity, whereupon the model responds in kind.

Jabba has been predictably refractory. There is no magical mode of thinking that suddenly transforms this point, or any other, into a fact in his favor without actual evidence.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Jay,
- You keep claiming that (or, something similar) -- but,
1) Wouldn't the shroud probably have a lot of limestone on were it authentic?

My Dear Mr. Savage:

This has been explained to you, repeatedly. The question is not, as you would have it, whether there would "probably" be CaCO₃ on a theoretical cloth that had been (according to legend) "wrapped" around an HJ after his crucifiction, to be imprinted by his resurrextion into the MJ.

The claim you have made with your intentional mismanipulation of your version of Bayes' work is that such a cloth would be more likely to contain CaCO₃ that a sized and gessoed bit of medieval linen ostensibly stored in limestone churches for 700+ years.

Have you the faintest skerrick of evidence to support your claim?

Through it all, I remain,

Z-normally yours &ct.

 

[JayUtah]

As you said earlier, you are asserting that an authentic shroud would have more limestone, but you have given no reason why it should.

Standard Jabba-esque motte-and-bailey tactic. He wants someone to concede the rather innocuous claim that an authentic cloth would have limestone, which he will then inappropriately extend to support for his belief that it would have more limestone than an inauthentic cloth. It beggars belief that he keeps thinking this rather obvious tactic will work on this crowd.

 

[John Jones]

Standard Jabba-esque motte-and-bailey tactic. He wants someone to concede the rather innocuous claim that an authentic cloth would have limestone, which he will then inappropriately extend to support for his belief that it would have more limestone than an inauthentic cloth. It beggars belief that he keeps thinking this rather obvious tactic will work on this crowd.

He's been busted for that dozens of times, but keeps trying it.

 

[Jabba]

Blood/What difference does it make?/Bayesian Statistics/CAC03

My Dear Mr. Savage:

In what way is this (your claim) different from this (my statement of your claim)?

If the CIQ is taken to be a cloth that was "wrapped" around the MJ after hiis crucifiction and resurrexion, it would, in deed, be a cloth from the 1st Century, C.E. How does being used in a hypothetical event for which there is no evidence make it "more likely" to contain CaCO₃? Why are you ignoring the ubiquity of limestone throughout human history?

I remain,

yours, &ct.

ETA: are you, in fact, stooping to so transparently simple an argument as, "if the CIQ were, in fact, authentic, it would be much more likely that it were authentic"?

JF SV H

Slowvehicle,
- Interesting logical question.
- If the shroud were authentic, it would have spent a couple of nights, and at least one day, in a limestone tomb. If the shroud is any old cloth from the 1st Century, C.E., it probably would not have incurred that history -- or, anything especially similar.

- I've been assuming that the limestone found on the shroud is debris rather than gesso, and that lying in a limestone cave for 36 hours or so would assure a lot of collected limestone debris -- much of which would still be there after 2000 years. I must admit that those assumptions may be unwarranted. Is that what you're alluding to?

 

[Slowvehicle]

Slowvehicle,
- Interesting logical question.
- If the shroud were authentic, it would have spent a couple of nights, and at least one day, in a limestone tomb. If the shroud is any old cloth from the 1st Century, C.E., it probably would not have incurred that history -- or, anything especially similar.

- I've been assuming that the limestone found on the shroud is debris rather than gesso, and that lying in a limestone cave for 36 hours or so would assure a lot of collected limestone debris -- much of which would still be there after 2000 years. I must admit that those assumptions may be unwarranted. Is that what you're alluding to?

My Dear Mr. Savage:

You continue to try to assert a false dichotomy; this time that the CIQ is either the mythical cloth used to "wrap" the body of an HJ while it was miraculously transformed into the MJ, or "...any old cloth from the 1st. Century, C.E...."; and pretending that those are the only two options.

The truth is that the CIQ has been stored, and displayed, in limestone buildings for 700 years or so.

The truth is that the presence of other substances indicates that at least some of the CaCO₃ on the CIQ is, in fact, gesso.

The truth is that the only way the presence of CaCO₃ on the CIQ could affect the "likelihood" of "authenticity" in the way that you have cooked Bayes' work to pretend that it does is if you could explain why it is more likely that the CaCO₃ is the result of 36 hours in a theoretical tomb in the 1st Century, C.E. than that it is the result of 700+ years display and storage in, around, and near limestone structures (not to mention gesso).

You must make that demonstration to be able to pretend that the presence of CaCO₃ supports "authenticity" more than it supports the demonstrated provenance of the CIQ.

This has been explained to you many times...

Patiently yours, &ct.

ETA: It must also be pointed out that this latest sojourn into minutia does not address, in any way, the manifold deficiencies of the cartoon on the sized and gessoed surface of the manifestly medieval bit of linen...