Not quite right. Same age, yes, but composition is irrelvant. . . .
There is ABSOLUTELY nothing even approaching the scientific method in those statements. You indict yourself with your statements. You DO NOT understand the scientific method, regardless of how much you claim you do!
The second statement is particularly ridiculous because the offending sample includes EUROPEAN COTTON, which is found nowhere else on the Shroud. That makes the composition relevant. Very relevant!
The FACT, and that is what it is, that the area from which the C14 samples were taken is NOT exemplar is the balance of the Shroud is the defining test that invalidates a permissable general statement about the age of the rest of the material. It is entirely illogical to state that a PATCH, which could have been added at anytime since the original cloth was woven, can give any definititive age for the cloth to which it is applied. That is what makes the 1989 C14 tests invalid as a general statement for the SHROUD.
The tests, are also invalid for providing the age of the sample itself since it has been proved, again beyond a reasonable doubt, to be a melange of materials, including newer linen expertly rewoven into the original linen. Therefore, the laboratories burned a MIXTURE of unknowns and found an average age for those unknowns, not an absolute date for any of them.
This is simple logic, Orionblamblam, something that is PART of the Scientific Method... and something you seem to be lacking.
The proper test logic:
A (Sample) is equal to B (Shroud)
A is 650 years old.
Therefore: B is 650 years old.
That is the logic used to design the tests (indeed any sampled test). However if ANY of the premises are wrong, then the conclusion DOES NOT FOLLOW! In this instance:
A (Sample) is NOT equal to B (Shroud)
A is 650 years old.
Therefore: B is still unknown.
It may be that, as you illogically assume, that the patches WERE applied as soon as the cloth was woven. It may be, as I assume, based on history and other data about the patched area, that the patches were applied in the 16th Century using 16th Century sourced materials. The point, Orion, is that WE DON'T KNOW WHEN the patches were applied for certain. This one point invalidates the entire C14 test.
No matter how much you wish it were different or demand that we provide the age of the patches, just the mere FACT that A ? B makes any test of A irrelevant in providing information about B!
It means that reports from 700 years ago, when the shroud was new, said that the image was clearly visible to the naked eye. Now it's faint.
700 years ago it was clearly visible to the naked eye when the viewer was standing 15 or more feet away... in 2002, when it was last exhibited, it was clearly visible to the naked eye when the viewer was standing 15 or more feet away. I see no change.