In science, it is usual, customary, and totally appropriate to toss out findings that have been falsified by later findings and/or failure to be replicated by peers. If it cannot be shown again, or a test cannot be shown to be repeatable, then it is likely NOT TRUE. McCrone's claim of Red Ochre and Vermilion paint in a 10% solution of Egg Albumin Tempura matrix is just such a claim... both non-replicated and falsified by previous and later findings. Ergo, it must be tossed out... and has been. It belongs in the dust bin of other scientific ejecta as flogiston, phrenology, and global warming. A list of McCrone's failures due to his allowing his atheistic biases to get in the way of his science:
1> McCrone's findings were never peer-reviewed because he refused to submit them for peer-review.
2> McCrone broke his signed agreement with the Shroud of Turin Research Project to submit his findings for peer-review before publication.
3> McCrone broke his contract to publish only in approved peer-reviewed scientific Journals by publishing without approval in his in-house vanity magazine, The Microscopist, edited and published by Walter C. McCrone, claiming it was peer-reviewed by McCrone Associate employees
4> McCrone's findings were never replicated by any other researcher. No other microscopist, either optical, or electron, has found the Red Ochre or Vermilion associated with the blood stains that McCrone claims is present. The evidence is that McCrone saw what he WANTED to see, not what was there.
5> McCrone's findings have been falsified numerous times, by numerous scientists, more qualified than McCrone, working IN THEIR FIELDS, with work that has been replicated, and confirmed by independent testing with different approaches using different tests.
6> Even McCrone changed his story so many times it had become a running joke among Shroud researchers as to what type of Iron Oxide McCrone was claiming he saw on the Shroud this year.
7> McCrone refused even his employees permission to see, or test the samples in his possession with more sophisticated equipment because, saying, (paraphrased) in multiple interviews, "I want to to re-establish the primacy of the optical microscope as a research instrument, and using the optical microscope to prove the Shroud nothing more than a beautiful painting will do that."
8> McCrone refused to return STURP Shroud samples loaned to him at the conclusion of his research to STURP control and threatened to sue when STURP reclaimed "his" samples, irrationally claiming they had become his personal property, because of his research and findings.
McCrone has been discredited completely on his claims of Red Ochre paint and Vermilion as the blood stain on the shroud... by such tests as X-ray photomicrospectroscopy... a much more specific test that looking through an optical microscope and saying, "Gee, that looks like Red Ochre and Vermilion." When an X-ray photomicrospectrograph says there is no HgS on there, there is NO Mercuric Sulfide on there... no matter WHAT Walter C. McCrone claims he sees through his little microscope. Or how many times in 1998 or how many times Joe Nickell writes that it is there... IT IS NOT THERE! Follow the science, not the popular press.
The X-Ray spectrograph work was done in the early '90s... but still disingenuous people WILL trot out McCrone claiming him as definitive proof that the Shroud's blood stains are Red Ochre and Vermilion paint... and Joe (I'm a skeptical inkwirer) Nickell will write it in another book in the last few years, ignoring the good science, and claiming McCrone (an Atheist) as the only TRUE scientist involved and everyone else a "pseudoscientist" doing research from faith bias, despite many of them being Jewish (Adler, Heller, Schwortz) or agnostic (Rogers, Brown) or others who are Christian of various faiths... and YOU, BroJoeK, will dutifully find a citation to present on FR as though McCrone's outdated, falsified claims bear some probative weight in the discussion. they simply do NOT because McCrone's findings have been falsified and belong in the GARBAGE.
Now, now, settle down, pal.
Remember, it was you who suggested Biblical Archaeology Review (B.A.R.) as an acceptable source for reliable data on the Shroud. I simply followed your suggestion -- actually it was issued in the form of a "command" -- and did thorough searches of B.A.R. and other Biblical Archaeology Society (B.A.S.) archives on the Shroud of Turin and related subjects.
These searches have now produced several lengthy, and if I may say so, fascinating, posts here adding a lot of perspective to the discussion.
In total, B.A.R. published a few pro-Shroud articles in 1986, a couple more anti-Shroud in 1998 and some final notes & comments (mixed pro & con) ending in 2001. Since then they have had nothing to say on the subject.
The 2002 B.A.R. review of the Popular Mechanics "face of Jesus" article took it as, well, amusing and possibly misguided, but also positive because at last here was a face that at least "looked middle eastern."
Why B.A.R. has not kept up with current Shroud developments & debates, I don't know of course. I got the sense from one 1998 editorial comment that, even then, they were reluctant to "weigh in" on a subject that was outside their area of core concerns: stuff dug out of the ground in and around Israel (i.e., Dead Sea Scrolls).
Finally, we might note there was a 12 year gap between the B.A.R. Shroud articles of 1986 and those of 1998. If we add 12 years to 1998, then perhaps we will soon learn what the scholars at B.A.R. think today of all that's happened in the Shroud debate since then?
Btw, I began subscribing to Biblical Archaeology Society publications in the late 1980s, and have very much enjoyed this opportunity to walk down their memory lane.