Here is the article from the Skeptical Inquirer by Joe Nickell
Below is a draft of an article in the works that specifically addresses Nickell's article as seen in post #5. When finished it will be posted to my website, linked from Barrie's site (I talked with him last night), and released with a press release. I am awaiting some clarifications from Ray Rogers. He sent me one note last night and I have only a couple of remaining questions.
Dan
Draft follows:
In an article intended to be laudatory, An Interview With Joe Nickel (sic), Eric Krieg of the Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking, describes Joe Nickell (from Nickells own words) as an "investigator" and formerly an undercover detective, teacher, draft dodger, river boat manager, carnival promoter, magician, investigator and spokesperson.*
Joe impressed on me the difference between being a scientist and an investigator, Kreig wrote. Joe seems to have no significant credentials . . . Joe [Nickell] remarks that a scientist tends to approach an investigation from the narrow view of his own specialty - where as a jack of all trades would come up with more avenues of investigation.
Jack of all trades: yes! Joe Nickell, with his most recent article on Ray Rogers and the Shroud of Turin amply demonstrates that he is a facts dodger, a sideshow promoter and a spokesperson for a curiously single-minded point of view. Above all, he is a magician; skilled at diverting attention from what is really going on so that one sees only what he wants one to see. A couple of examples will serve:
Joe Nickell wrote: Astonishinglyand with serious implications to the spirit of peer reviewRogers omits any mention of McCrones findings [of paint particles] from his report . . . Rogers didnt mention McCrones findings, or the Battle of Waterloo, or Mrs. OLearys cow: for a single reason. McCrones findings have absolutely nothing to do with Rogers paper in the peer-reviewed scientific journal, Thermochimica Acta. Nickell desperately wanted the reader to focus on McCrone. He brought up McCrone so lets point out some things:
* McCrones findings were published in Microscope, a magazine published and edited by McCrone hardly peer reviewed.
* Definitive tests including visible and ultraviolet spectrometry, infrared spectrometry, x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, thermography, pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry, lasermicroprobe Raman analyses, and microchemical testing show no evidence for pigments or media that McCrone reported finding. The scientific work, in contrast to McCrones observations, is published in peer reviewed journals.
* Furthermore, it is now well understood that the images are chemical changes within a thin film of starch fractions and saccharides that coat some of the outermost fibers of the cloth; a film thinner than 1/100th the diameter of a human hair. That aint paint!
Elsewhere, Joe Nickell speaks of suspiciously bright red and picturelike 'blood' stains which failed a battery of sophisticated tests by forensic serologists, among many other indicators. Again, this topic is totally unrelated. This is a diversion, a slight of hand trick to deflect from Rogers findings. Which forensic serologists is Joe Nickell referring to? What sophisticated tests? What other indicators? He conveniently neglects to mention that others disagree, something an honest investigator would mention:
* Using ultraviolet-visible reflectance and fluorescence spectra, S. F. Pellicori analyzed the spectral properties of the Shroud's image color, the blood, and the non-image areas. These are quantitative measurements. They are based on reflectance and not a person's visual interpretation of indefinite splotches of different optical density. The spectra carry much important information, and they can not be ignored. This is documented in Applied Optics (1980). pp. 1913-1920].
* Alan Adler, an expert on porphyrins (the types of colored compounds seen in blood), chlorophyll, and many other natural products concluded that the blood is real. In collaboration with John Heller, the conclusion that the blood is real was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Applied Optics (also 1980). The heme was converted into its parent porphyrin, and this was confirmed with spectral analysis.
* Baima Bollone also found both the heme porphyrin ring of blood and the globulin in flakes of blood from Shroud samples, independently confirming the work of Adler and Heller.
* In addition, the x-ray-fluorescence spectra showed excess iron in blood areas, as expected for blood. Microchemical tests for proteins were positive in blood areas but not in any other parts of the Shroud.
* Chemical tests by E. J. Jumper, A. D. Adler, J. P. Jackson, S. F. Pellicori, J. H. Heller, and J. R. Druzik are documented in "A comprehensive examination of the various stains and images on the Shroud of Turin," American Chemical Societys Advances in Chemistry, Archaeological Chemistry (1984)
* Other confirming material provided by J. H. Heller and A. D. Adler includes: "A Chemical Investigation of the Shroud of Turin," Canadian Society of Forensic Science Journal as well as an article by L. A. Schwalbe and R. N. Rogers, Analytica Chimica Acta (1982).
Nickell writes: "Rogers (2004) does acknowledge that claims the blood is type AB 'are nonsense'." There can be only one reason for stating this: to imply that Rogers is debunking the blood; else why mention it at all since it is totally unrelated to anything in Rogers' paper or Nickell's article. What Rogers actually wrote in a letter to the editors of Skeptical Inquirer was: "The blood is real blood, but the things you hear about typing are nonsense." [typing being AB typing]
Nickell sometimes calls himself a journalist. Such misappropriation of the quotes of others is not journalism. Nor is it good writing. A high school English student would get an F for such misrepresentation.
At one point, in his article, Joe Nickell wrote: "McCrone once referred to Rogers and his fellow STURP co-authors 'incompetence in light microscopy and pointed out errors in the test procedures they relied on . . . "
It is fair to say that many scientists have said similar things about McCrone. How should we judge who is right? Consider this:
In Biblical Archeology Review, McCrone wrote this statement: "The paint on the shroud was dilute (0.01 percent in a 0.01 percent gelatin solution)."
Is there a microscopist, chemist, scientist of any discipline or a jack-of-all-trades who can explain how anyone can look through an optical microscope at tiny particles stuck to sticky sampling tapes and determine how much water was used to dissolve the gelatin (assuming that there is gelatin)? A high school chemistry student would get an F for making such a bogus claim.
Joe Nickell makes this whopping statement: "He [=Rogers] attempts to date the shroud by the amount of the lignin decomposition but admits that that method can offer only an accuracy range of a whopping 1,700 years (contrasted with about 150 years by radiocarbon dating).
One wonders if Joe Nickell even read the paper in Thermochimica Acta. What Rogers stated is that it might take 1300 to 3000 years for vanillin content in lignin to fully decompose depending on storage temperatures over the centuries. At the very least, the cloth is about twice as old as the carbon 14 dating suggested. What Rogers made explicitly clear was that if the cloth was produced at even the earliest date that the carbon 14 dating suggested, the lignin in the fibers should have retained about 37% of their vanillin content. There is none, or the amount is too small to be detected.
By the way, the accuracy for the carbon 14 testing was not 150 years. The range of dates were determined as the result of differences in the measurements of several observations of sub-samples of the single cutting. It is not a reflection of radiocarbon 14 accuracy.
Joe Nickell, the poor writer that he is, makes repeated, fallacious use of words like admits or acknowledges to misrepresent Rogers. He did so with the inappropriate characterization of the blood and he did so with the mistaken explanation of lignin decomposition. He did so in the first paragraph of the article as well. Joe Nickell started his article by stating that, "Ray Rogers, a retired research chemist, now admits there is the equivalent of a watercolor paint on the alleged burial cloth of Jesus."
He did not. He found dyestuff on threads from the carbon 14 sample area only. No such stuff is found on the Shroud proper. This along with other chemical differences shows that the sample was not representative of the cloth and was not, therefore, valid for carbon 14 dating. This writing tactic, known as yellow journalism, is a method of stretching the facts to sway opinion.
The facts that Rogers reported in a letter to the editors of Skeptical Inquirer read differently than Nickell's characterizations. Here is the full list from Rogers letter to Skeptical Inquirer magazine (as republished in Red Nova):
1) X-ray fluorescence, visible/UV spectra, and chemical analyses proved that the image is not a high-Z pigment.
2) The blood is real blood, but the things you hear about typing are nonsense.
3) The image was not produced by radiation. There are no defects in the cellulose crystals.
4) The image color is in a 200-500-nanometers-thick amorphous surface layer.
5) The image spectrum looks like a Maillard product; i.e., the products that form when you bring reducing saccharides (e.g., starch) into contact with the amine decomposition products of a rotting body. No miracles or painters are required.
6) The radiocarbon sample is dyed with a gum/dye/mordant system containing madder root dyes. The rest of the cloth is not. It was a medieval patch.
7) Lignin decomposition kinetics show that it would have taken between 1300 and 3000 years to reach the composition observed.
8) I [Rogers] found a medieval splice in the sampling area.
Joe Nickell may be a jack of some trades. Journalist and scientist are not part of the mix.
*Note:
Joe Nickell hold a Ph. D. in English Literature from the University of Kentucky.
According to their websites, Nickell is a Senior Research Fellow with the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), a Senior Research Fellow with Center for Inquiry which includes the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, a staff member for the Council on Secular Humanism and a Fellow of the The Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health. All of these organizations are affiliated, have tax exempt status as educational institutions, and have websites owned by Barry Karr of the Center for Inquiry.
Nickell is a frequent writer for Skeptical Inquirer, a magazine published by Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP).