Miracle of the Shroud IV - The Phantom Image

[Slowvehicle]

- This is something I'm about to send to Dan Porter. I just want to make sure that my description of your consensus opinion about the implications of banding upon the claim that there has been significant repair on the sample is correct and fair.

I’m debating the Shroud with the skeptics at http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=299015. If you haven’t noticed me on Dan’s blog before, I’ve been doing this for a long time (over 3 years). We’re now on our 4th sub-thread, and ‘going strong’ (17,000 replies, and 788,000 visits altogether) – though, getting nowhere…
No one I’ve told about my hobby can understand my persistence -- and really, neither can I -- but, for some reason, I’m enjoying myself, and still have hopes. Maybe it has something to do with trying to love my enemies… I don’t know.
But then, my memory is easing down that slippery slope, and I could use a lot of help…

I’m trying to address one sub-sub-etc-issue at a time (there must be thousands of them) with the skeptics, and feel like I’m finally getting somewhere -- very slowly. I’ve done a lot of reading and studying about the shroud over the past 35 years, but my memory for specifics has never been that good (I can’t tell a joke), and as my memory of generalities gets worse, so does my memory for specifics, only worse.
But mostly, I haven’t done a good job of keeping track of citations. There’s more to this story, but I’ll spare you the details and just say that I’m looking for some needles in a lot of haystacks -- and need some help from people who have kept better track of the same, and more, needles. This blog seems full of such people, and if I can just interest you guys in my plight, I’m sure that I can get a lot of help -- and gain some real speed and substance when answering the skeptics.
Without further ado, here’s my first question: my opponents claim that the banding proves that there has been no significant repair on the sample. What’s our best argument(s) otherwise?

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/entry/turin_shroud_still_a_fake/

 

[Maurice Ledifficile]

There are no sub-sub issues and you are getting nowhere. You have no evidence in favour of a first century origin, therefore, you lost.

What you are sending Dan Porter (another deluded fool) is just a waste of everyone's time.

 

[Mojo]

I’m trying to address one sub-sub-etc-issue at a time (there must be thousands of them) with the skeptics, and feel like I’m finally getting somewhere...

As usual, you are in a minority of one.

 

[John Jones]

If anyone from Dan Porter's blog is reading this, do yourself a favor and read the previous three threads. It's the same stuff rehashed a thousand times. Jabba just keeps bring up the same stuff over and over again as if it had never been discussed. It's a slow-motion descent into dementia.

 

[MRC_Hans]

- This is something I'm about to send to Dan Porter. I just want to make sure that my description of your consensus opinion about the implications of banding upon the claim that there has been significant repair on the sample is correct and fair.

I am certainly not giving you any a-priori consensus, and I strongly recommend that nobody else does. Why? Because I simply don't trust you, Jabba. I have seen you misrepresent the position of me and others several times too many.

Without further ado, here’s my first question: my opponents claim that the banding proves that there has been no significant repair on the sample. What’s our best argument(s) otherwise?

Wrong. The fact that qualified scientists selected the sample and agreed that there was no patch in the area is the main proof.

Corroborating evidence is:

1) There is no known way to make an (near)invisible patch even by using otiginal material from the fabric.

2) There are plenty of patches on the shroud, and no attempts have been made to hide them.

3) The observed banding supports the notion that the cloth is continuous in the sampling area.

However, most importantly, you are yet again trying to shift the burden of proof: It is not our duty to prove there is no patch, it is YOUR duty to prove that there IS.

So, forget about the "patch hypothesis". You need "positive proof of patch", otherwise, you have nothing.

Hans

 

[catsmate]

Why did you suddenly abandon the alleged presence of blood?

And the magic "contamination"...

 

[zooterkin]

- This is something I'm about to send to Dan Porter.

Do whatever you like, but don't put words in the mouths of other members here.

I just want to make sure that my description of your consensus opinion about the implications of banding upon the claim that there has been significant repair on the sample is correct and fair.

How could you possibly presume to do this given your admitted failure to read more than a fraction of anything but the shortest and most agreeable posts?

 

[abaddon]

How does this...

– though, getting nowhere…

Square with this...

and feel like I’m finally getting somewhere -- very slowly.

You are making progress and you are not making progress.

Which is it?

How does this...

I’ve done a lot of reading and studying about the shroud over the past 35 years

Square with this...

I’m looking for some needles in a lot of haystacks

In 35 years of study, you have learned nothing, remembered nothing, taken no notes whatsoever. Over the course of 35 years of study? Really? You think this is remotely plausible?

 

[ferd burfle]

While Jabba is off chasing moonbeams, here's an idea I've been pondering relative to McCrone's particle analysis. He reported his EDX results in terms of peak height rather than weight percent but lookinng his data, he's seeing 10, 20 percent or more in the particles he determined were iron oxxide. Isn't that way more than you'd expect to see in human blood? Various online sources put the molecular weight of hemoglobin at about 64 to 68K grams per mole. If a hemoglobin unit has only 4 heme groups, meaning 4 iron atoms, doesn't that make the iron concentration in dried blood a very small fraction of a percent by weight? Relating this to McCrone's analysis, SEM/EDX rule of thumb is that EDX has a typical lower limit of detection of abut 1%. If the concentration of iron is very low, I think McCrone shouldn't have seen iron at all in the image particles if they were blood.

I'm dashing this off before an appointment; I'll try to supply links for the above when I'm free later. Meanwhile if anyone can point to a flaw in the above I'd appreciate it so I don't embarrass myself longer than necessary.

 

[Giordano]

While Jabba is off chasing moonbeams, here's an idea I've been pondering relative to McCrone's particle analysis. He reported his EDX results in terms of peak height rather than weight percent but lookinng his data, he's seeing 10, 20 percent or more in the particles he determined were iron oxxide. Isn't that way more than you'd expect to see in human blood? Various online sources put the molecular weight of hemoglobin at about 64 to 68K grams per mole. If a hemoglobin unit has only 4 heme groups, meaning 4 iron atoms, doesn't that make the iron concentration in dried blood a very small fraction of a percent by weight? Relating this to McCrone's analysis, SEM/EDX rule of thumb is that EDX has a typical lower limit of detection of abut 1%. If the concentration of iron is very low, I think McCrone shouldn't have seen iron at all in the image particles if they were blood.

I'm dashing this off before an appointment; I'll try to supply links for the above when I'm free later. Meanwhile if anyone can point to a flaw in the above I'd appreciate it so I don't embarrass myself longer than necessary.

If this is by weight (not molar) there is one Fe per globin chain. Fe is about 56 MW. Each globin chain is about 16,000 MW. So by weight Fe would be a tiny percent of the weight of a hemoglobin particle, even less of a dried up red blood cell. As you state. But someone please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Giordano]

Do people here know the old joke about the business office in which everyone knows the same old jokes and so they give each joke a number to save time in re-telling it? One person says, "12" and everyone breaks up laughing. Another person shouts, "34" and everyone starts rolling on the floor in laughter. A new guy sees the pattern and yells, "37" but not one person reacts. The new guy asks, "Why didn't anyone laugh at my joke?" An older employee explains, "It's not the joke- it is the way you tell it!"

 

[John Jones]

Do people here know the old joke about the business office in which everyone knows the same old jokes and so they give each joke a number to save time in re-telling it? One person says, "12" and everyone breaks up laughing. Another person shouts, "34" and everyone starts rolling on the floor in laughter. A new guy sees the pattern and yells, "37" but not one person reacts. The new guy asks, "Why didn't anyone laugh at my joke?" An older employee explains, "It's not the joke- it is the way you tell it!"

Yes, and it didn't escape me when someone up-thread suggested just listing the post and thread numbers.

 

[John Jones]

I am certainly not giving you any a-priori consensus, and I strongly recommend that nobody else does. Why? Because I simply don't trust you, Jabba. I have seen you misrepresent the position of me and others several times too many.


[...]

This. Jabba, in the thread previous to this one, you summed up the consensus opinion as being that there was blood on the CIQ, when in fact not one person agreed with that assessment.

So don't include me, and don't post my remarks on your website in case you were going to ask.

 

[Rincewind]

Do people here know the old joke about the business office in which everyone knows the same old jokes and so they give each joke a number to save time in re-telling it? One person says, "12" and everyone breaks up laughing. Another person shouts, "34" and everyone starts rolling on the floor in laughter. A new guy sees the pattern and yells, "37" but not one person reacts. The new guy asks, "Why didn't anyone laugh at my joke?" An older employee explains, "It's not the joke- it is the way you tell it!"

Didn't Monty Python do it?

 

[aleCcowaN]

Hans,
- No. I'm having trouble finding the stuff I'm looking for re the implications of banding re the repair hypothesis.
- Not to worry, I'll be back.

All advocates here -GW denialist, 911 truthers, Amanda Fort Knox apologists, etc.- have their key points in order and ready to "unsheathe" when needed. Your "I misplaced these relevant defining arguments; I can't find one, I'll be bzzack" sounds puerile like the rest of what you said. It's crystal clear that shroud is to you what Santa's polar headquarters with the elves making toys are to a 5 y.o.

You seem to be the only one thinking "as long as I continue to hear the echoing voices there's a debate still going on". The rest of us know better.

 

[Giordano]

Didn't Monty Python do it?

My Aunt told me. I didn't think she was a Monty Python fan, but who knows?

 

[Slowvehicle]

My Aunt told me. I didn't think she was a Monty Python fan, but who knows?

I first heard it told about being in prison, in the early '70s.

 

[SezMe]

You seem to be the only one thinking "as long as I continue to hear the echoing voices there's a debate still going on". The rest of us know better.

Yet we keep posting and, as Jabba states, giving him enjoyment. Why?

 

[John Jones]

I first heard it told about being in prison, in the early '70s.

I think I read it in the old National Lampoon, also in the early '70s.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Yet we keep posting and, as Jabba states, giving him enjoyment. Why?

When vandal graffiti occurs, forum rules make the continuous whitewashing of the tainted threads the only available answer. Jabba defaces common sense here on a daily basis and we just repair the fabric of decency with invisible mending.

I'd rather not take any offence from his enjoyment, as Internet is plenty of activities that fill their practitioners with joy and excitement -like bondage, erotic asphyxiation or gun owning- and still I'm not inclined to share their points of view. I wouldn't envy patients with advanced Alzheimer's who are having a good day and showing stupid grins.