Shroud of Turin is a fake created by famous master Giotto, claims Italian art expert

Daily Mail ^ | 06/08/2011

[grey_whiskers]

No. My contention is that the tests, with their medieval-origin outcome, were either bungled, sabotaged, or accurate.

They were accurate; therefore they were bungled.

Yes, that's G.K. Chesterton's Paradoxes of Mr. Pond mode.

Do you have any scientific training at all? It will make it much easier to explain to you if you do.

Please respond with your degree level, subject your degree(s) was (were) in, and school(s) you attended.

As with Al Gore and global warming, most scientists involved/questioned seem to believe the publicized findings, but I could see any of the three situations being true.

Not applicable at all, as it was the *proponents* of AGW who falsified data, hid the original data, lied about doing either one, and attempted to blacklist and destroy the careers of the honest scientists; whereas with the Shroud it is those who are hell-bent on enforcing their own view of the Shroud's "inauthenticity" who are doing this.

Too bad the “once bitten, twice shy” shroudholders won't double down and resample.

There's no need to resample, given that that there is a simple, self-consistent, consistent with the data explanation of the observed C-14 results; AND given that those who performed and/or trumpeted the testing showed themselves to be dishonest as to the sampling (violating the pre-agreed-upon protocol which had been specifically designed to avoid just this sort of mess); that those who performed the testing openly admitted their bias before doing the testing, and admitted to massaging the data rather than looking at the data to find a systematic error in the testing as performed; and the skeptics' baseless, personal, and scurrilous attacks on members of STURP.

As to just about any other test performed or particulate molecule discovered, coincidences may add up, if one trusts the particular coincidence's discoverer, but the shroud's unknown whereabouts (or even existence) in centuries 1-13 don't just cloud the findings, they force-five-gale the scholar's ship.

This is simply a mischaracterization: by using the word "coincidences" you are prejudging the issue.

It is not a coincidence that there is blood on the Shroud: it is in fact expected in the case that the Shroud is genuine; but it need not have been present at all in the case of a forgery.

It is not a coincidence that there are traces of paint on the Shroud: the Shroud had been used as a model for paintings, and during the time of the painting it was not shielded from the atmosphere in which the paints were mixed, poured, and used.

But the presence of paint is not enough to "prove" a forgery, given that the photomicrographs of the Shroud PROVE that the physical components of the image are not made by paint, but by a Maillard reaction taking place at the surface of the filaments making up the Shroud. And a negative test against the paint holds true, given that spectroscopic evidence shows the presence of paint does not coincide with the location of the image, but is "diffuse."

As for the presence of the pollen, recall that some of the pollens on the Shroud are of plants which are only known to grow in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem; and a subset of those only bloom within a couple of weeks of Easter.

Nobody knew of pollen contamination in the 1300s, nor knew to check for it; so the easiest explanation is that the Shroud's materials itself had been in the vicinity of Jerusalem around Passover / Easter. Why would a forger do that, and how much would it cost?

Then you have the problem of the bloodstains, which are genuine, and show old denatured hemoglobin. IF the stains are paint (which they are not), how and why did the blood get onto the Shroud? If the blood on the Shroud is genuine blood, why did the forger use blood when an easier and cheaper alternative was available?

The problem with your last sentence is that you are arguing "absence of evidence IS evidence of absence" which is known to be, and acknowledged to be, absurd. Any classicist can spend hours talking of artifacts and items which have been known in their time, but have since been destroyed or lost; conversely there are many examples of items being recovered after having been lost or missing.

Honesty is not your strong point.

If you're going to troll, learn to do more than parroting others' discredited arguments and learn to think for yourself.

In time, you too will end up voting for Palin.

Cheers!

[Swordmaker]

LOL....my friend, I could have saved you the headaches with this dude. He’s a closed-minded idiot, frankly.

Yes. Present him with facts and it is obvious he sticks his fingers in his ears, covers his eyes, and starts yelling "LA, LA, LA, LA, LA, LA!" at the top of his lungs. Heaven forbid that a salient fact invade his closed mind-set. . . or that he be forced to apply scientific method, or even Occam's poor chipped razor to the issue. He might have to set aside a cherished, preconceived notion! Horrors!

[Swordmaker]

As for the presence of the pollen, recall that some of the pollens on the Shroud are of plants which are only known to grow in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem; and a subset of those only bloom within a couple of weeks of Easter.

And some of the pollen found on the Shroud have been identified by Dr. Avinoam Danin, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the World's foremost expert on pollen and plants of Israel and the Eastern Meditteranean, as having come from plant that went extinct between 400 and 700 AD. It would have been impossible for a medieval forger or even a pre-1980s scientists to have known the necessity to find and plant this evidence on the Shroud for Danin to find in 2004 on the sticky tapes taken by STURP in 1978 and Frei in 1973.

[Melian]

I believe the Shroud is here on Earth to help those who need tangible outward signs of God’s love and grace to strengthen their faith. Some don’t need them; but some do and God kindly sends them to be available to those who need them. We also have the cloak miraculously imprinted by Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Is it so farfetched to imagine that God chose to leave us an imprint of Christ to sustain us, and one of Mary to comfort us? Wouldn’t a kind Father do such a thing for his children if he were leaving for a long time? Jesus, with Mary’s love, redeemed us. The Father left us evidence.

The Shroud is real and those who refuse to see it are ignoring forensic Facebook from God!

[grey_whiskers]

Your source for Danin please? I only knew of Frei, and that he had been "Palined" by Shroud skeptics.

Cheers!

[Swordmaker]

I’d have to go back through the scientific papers on Shroud.com. There were a couple written with Danin in collaboration with the Whangers...

[Swordmaker]

Try this link:

http://www.shroudstory.com/pollen.htm

[Swordmaker]

And this:

http://www.amazon.com/Flora-Shroud-Turin-Avinoam-Danin/dp/0915279762

[Swordmaker]

Another one:

http://www.shroud.com/danin2.htm

And for our poster who chooses to ignore facts, Avinoam Danin is anything but a Christian apologist trying to prove the Shroud is authentic. He is Jewish.

[flowerplough]

Re: “dishonesty in discussion...”

Discussion, a word Sword used a few posts back, caught my eye. Might be the key. This communication between us could be called a discussion, at least on my end. In many discussions, Party A will state “This is what I think, feel, believe, or know, and these are some of the reasons I do so.” Party B might then reply in kind with different information or conclusion and some explanation of his side. Not sure that’s happening here. You two seem to be coming at me like Party Mao in a Cultural Revolution Struggle Session, with insults, rapid-fire obscurities, hollow threats, demands and keyboard-shouting, telling me what I must CONFESS and why I must CONFESS it. Not sure many would see much of your side as “discussion”.

Both of you seem (to me) to be occasionally angrily irrational in your chapter-and-verse Shroud History recitations; you’ll never change me, or even reach me, that way. I honestly believe you may be sometimes making yourself appear somewhat foolish in trying to defend what seems to many to be little more than the church’s dirty linen, and by trying to figuratively beat what you call critical thought, logic, and sense into me. Give it up. Apparently, we live our lives to different standards; my thoughts are not your thoughts, and neither are your ways my ways. Sorry.

[Swordmaker]

Both of you seem (to me) to be occasionally angrily irrational in your chapter-and-verse Shroud History recitations; you’ll never change me, or even reach me, that way. I honestly believe you may be sometimes making yourself appear somewhat foolish in trying to defend what seems to many to be little more than the church’s dirty linen, and by trying to figuratively beat what you call critical thought, logic, and sense into me. Give it up. Apparently, we live our lives to different standards; my thoughts are not your thoughts, and neither are your ways my ways. Sorry.

Then STAY OUT OF SHROUD DISCUSSIONS... you are dishonest when you enter them, dishonest when you discuss. I have reviewed your participation, and you are dishonest every time. Your purpose is pure disruption. You were told to leave by the admin moderators in previous threads. So don't pretend to be what you are not. Stay out, troll.

[flowerplough]

Not at all dishonest. Don’t believe that the shroud is likely to be eventually proven The Shroud, and am more than willing to so state. And am just now able to put into words another angle on my (and others?) skepticism that may help some of you understand a little.

It’s like this: A smart guy at work once told me that caring more than the boss cares is usually a losing battle, and you shroudmen seem to be just there. The church, owners of the shroud, could, if they cared, remove restrictions, invite study, and get the deal cleared up quite quick, hayna? But they don’t. It’s their shroud, and they sit on it, politicking and playing dumb, seeming to bet on both sides of the authenticity question. It don’t matter much to the church, but it seems vital to you all.

Odd. Distinctly odd. I’ve posted here on a Palin thread or two that I respect her enough that I don’t rush to her defense at any small slight, and am willing to stand back and let her fight her own battles in her own way; do you gents similarly respect the church?

[grey_whiskers]

This communication between us could be called a discussion, at least on my end. In many discussions, Party A will state “This is what I think, feel, believe, or know, and these are some of the reasons I do so.” Party B might then reply in kind with different information or conclusion and some explanation of his side. Not sure that’s happening here.

Judging from this comment you missed my post #141 in which I quoted some of your earlier points and factually refuted them one at a time.

You two seem to be coming at me like Party Mao in a Cultural Revolution Struggle Session, with insults, rapid-fire obscurities, hollow threats, demands and keyboard-shouting, telling me what I must CONFESS and why I must CONFESS it.

You apparently have this thread confused with one of those autofellating atheist/skeptic sites.

Addressing your list one item at a time.

1) No insults. Calling a liar a liar, a troll a troll, and pointing out to someone that the Admins have asked them to stay off of threads about a certain topic, none of these are insults.

2) Rapid fire obscurities = scientific detail which is apparently either above your level to comprehend, or so contradictory to the propaganda you have apparently feasted upon, that it results in cognitive dissonance and brain-lock on your part.

Either Swordmaker or I will be happy to elucidate or give further details if we are asked in good faith about points a reader finds obscure.

3) Hollow threats --> no such here. The Admin moderators have asked you to stay off of these Shroud threads, as you are on this topic, a troll.

4) Demands and keyboard shouting --> haven't seen either myself of Swordmaker (to whom your post was addressed) putting sentences into all caps. The occasional word in all caps is something you have done in the post I'm replying to right now, though. As for demands, the only thing I've seen is that you've been asked to "put up or shut up" and been asked for your demonstrated level of scientific expertise or training. And that is germane to the discussion, since there are aspects of sample treatment or preservation, controls, and the like, which are known to scientists but often misunderstood by laypeople.

5) Telling you what you must CONFESS? I haven't seen that.

Feel free to give the exact post number and paste in the text making the demand for confession, in italics.

Both of you seem (to me) to be occasionally angrily irrational in your chapter-and-verse Shroud History recitations; you’ll never change me, or even reach me, that way.

much?

I honestly believe you may be sometimes making yourself appear somewhat foolish in trying to defend what seems to many to be little more than the church’s dirty linen, and by trying to figuratively beat what you call critical thought, logic, and sense into me.

I have no idea what this sentence actually means. I cannot speak for Swordmaker's intended audience, but I am writing for the lurkers on the thread, so that they can tell the difference between ill-informed skepticism and scientific fact. You should realize that the evidence for the legitimacy of the Shroud is based on multiple, logically independent, physically indpendent tests, all of which are consistent with the Shroud being genuine, and all of which from very different fields, from hemoglobin chemistry to various spectroscopy, to electron microscopy, to Maillard reactions, to textile weaving, to C-14 dating, to image analysis, to pollen studies.

ALL of them are consistent with the Shroud being genuine.

ALL of them are inconsistent with the Shroud's being a forgery; and they are not based on conjecture, nor historical happenstance, nor the deranged scribblings of desperate atheists, but direct physical evidence on the Shroud itself.

Tests which have been conducted independently of one another, in different labs, by atheists, Jews, and skeptics alike, as well as Christians.

Tests which have controls present, with care taken to observe proper procedure.

The only tests which do NOT seem to be done carefully, are the slipshod, haphazard tests of the skeptics: which are found to violate controls, chain of custody, "double-blind" status, independent checks, timely reporting, and the like.

A Royal Flush beats an empty hand, six high, every time.

Cheers!

[Swordmaker]

Not at all dishonest.

Absolutely dishonest. You ask question you've asked before with no intention of reading the answer or even caring what the answer might be. Your only purpose on these threads, given your admitted refusal to even read the responses to your direct questions, your participation is inherently dishonest. Quite frankly, you've stolen from me a very valuable commodity. You enter a discussion, those participating expect honesty and that you at least give an ear to the responses you requested, but you refuse to give fair value to the effort they made to honestly answer you. YOU come on here and steal our time and our expertise and given back absolutely nothing of value. When we call you on it, you arrogantly throw your dishonesty in our face and accuse us of somehow harming you! You, sir, are beneath contempt.

[flowerplough]

no intention of reading the answer or even caring what the answer might be, because I’ve read it and heard it before, and it just doesn’t seem to matter.

Straining at gnats while swallowing camels:

The Turin shroud was woven/discovered/recovered in 1390. Its undocumented, unknown origin or travel history and its handling, vetting, scorching, mending, fondling, and fetishization from the middle ages right up to recent time practically ruin it as a researchable artifact, as the bungled or sabotaged (or accurate?) STURP C-14 tests demonstrate. Your side brings the purported supreme pollenologist of all pollenologists, and distinctive middle eastern stone granules, and Malliard peptide and near-blood substances, over and over.

Yet one thing thou lackest, the shroud’s owner’s seal of approval. You say this and you say that, and quote various obscure scholars’ opinions and findings, yet the church, with so much to gain from an authenticated shroud, remains skeptical. As do I.

And p.s. to to grey:

“confess” can be a synonym to admit, or concede. And the animation in your post, does it mean “Dance much?”
“Grin much?”
“Wink much?”
or maybe “Dance while grinning and winking much?” Please explain.

[Swordmaker]

no intention of reading the answer or even caring what the answer might be, because I’ve read it and heard it before, and it just doesn’t seem to matter.

Then QUIT asking for answers since your ONLY purpose in asking them is to act like a skunk at a picnic. You are a troll. You are a thief of our time and efforts since you enter these threads, at your own admission only for the purpose of wasting them and obfuscating the issues. Your sole purpose is to irritate other Freepers. You are a quintessential troll. It must be very sad to be you.

You are not "skeptical," you are certain in your certainty. You refuse to consider the evidence, refusing to even consider it.

Consider this: the Dead Sea Scrolls have even less evidence for their existence in history than does the Shroud. . . and FAR less scientific examination. With that comment, I am done with you.

[flowerplough]

enter these threads, at your own admission only for the purpose of wasting them and obfuscating the issues?

This is a skeptics thread, judging by the title, “Shroud of Turin is a fake.” My contributions belong here. You and your ilk are the contentious wastrels on this thread. And the Scrolls? The vast majority of ‘em were discovered, protected, preserved, and cataloged by scholars and historians, while the shroud was, for over a century, the main attraction in a cathedral’s periodic fundraising bazaar.