Why they did it? The politics of Atheists and skeptics in science seeking to denigrate Christian or any religious beliefs.
This is the part I have the biggest problem with. I hesitate to assume bad faith on the part of such reputable institutions, including the Vatican, and so many scientists when a professional disagreement on methods seems more likely. To me this strays into conspiracy territory and I just don’t see the upside for the testers to risk their personal and institutional reputations.
It also doesn’t change my opinion of the execrable article that started this dialog.
“I hesitate to assume bad faith on the part of such reputable institutions, including the Vatican, and so many scientists when a professional disagreement on methods seems more likely.”
There are no reputable institutions. Every university, every research lab is rotten to the core with leftwad scoundrels.
Read more. Irredeemably corrupt individuals saw an opportunity to produce “evidence” against the existence of God, and they took it.
They thought a “scientific finding” that the Shroud was fake would contribute to their effort to eradicate religion, and they knew they could produce such “data” by testing a medieval patch instead of the Shroud itself.
The problem with dismissing an allegation as a “conspiracy theory” is that people do conspire. All the time.
(Rolls eyes into next *continent*.)
This isn't a difference between two different conventions, each of which has plausible validity under different circumstances.
Making sure the sample is
a) homogeneous
and
b) representative of the item from which it was taken
is something you learn in freshman chem.
These clowns didn't do that.
And motive and opportunity have already been amply demonstrated.
The fact that the age of the three samples varies systematically with the increasing fraction of what was already *known* to be a foreign substance, and consistent with the known age of that foreign substance...when the prior-agreed protocols all agreed to avoid that area of the Shroud, makes this a slam dunk.
The only other thing they could do more is closed circuit drone films of the people conspiring, and email logs of them discussing exactly how they'd do it.