Those "findings" that the 1988 tests were invalid aren't truly findings. As discussed in the article below, it relied on a bogus study for the claim that the sample derived from a 16th century patch, analyzed threads that had serious chain of custody issues, and used methods that other scientists have called unserious.
As pointed out by Antonio Lombatti (personal communication), editor of Approfondimento Sindone, the skeptical international journal of scholarship and science devoted to the Shroud of Turin, only after one month of careful study on where to cut the linen samples for dating were the samples removed from the Shroud. This process was observed personally by Mons. Dardozzi (Vatican Academy of Science), Prof. Testore (Turin University professor of textile technology), Prof. Vial (Director of the Lyon Ancient Textiles Museum), Profs. Hall and Hedges (heads of the Oxford radiocarbon dating laboratory) and Prof. Tite (head of the British Museum research laboratory). There is no way these scientists and scholars could have made such an error and failed to see that the cloth samples they removed was really from a patch, "invisibly" rewoven or not.
Detailed photographs of the area from which the sample was removed clearly reveal that there was no patch there. (How could Benford and Marino's unnamed "textile experts" observe the correct proportions of 1st century and 16th century threads from the "patch" using photographs, while the legitimate experts named above--using both photographs and personal examination of the actual Shroud!--miss seeing that there was a patch there in the first place?) There is no 16th century patch in the area from where the 14C samples were removed; patches can be found only where the fire had burned the linen in 1532, and of course there is the Holland backing cloth. Both the patches and Holland cloth have weaves completely different from the Shroud's distinct herringbone pattern, which was easily identifiable by the radiocarbon dating scientists when they processed the cloth sample. Benford and Marino laughably publish a photo of a historical Shroud replica that they claim shows a missing corner section that was later patched; but this photo is a low-resolution JPEG image and the "missing corner" is really an artifact produced when low-resolution JPEG images are magnified beyond their true size! This anecdote just further illustrates their incompetence.
The tiny patch threads that Rogers analyzed are suspect: there is no official record of the supposed removal or donation of the radiocarbon dating sample threads or the Raes sample threads Rogers claims to possess (personal communication, Antonio Lombatti). "I received samples of both warp and weft threads that Prof. Luigi Gonella had taken from the radiocarbon sample before it was distributed for dating. Gonella reported that he excised the threads from the center of the radiocarbon sample" (p. 190). If Gonella's statement is true, then he seriously violated the protocols of sample removal and performed an irresponsible act. Furthermore, to receive threads of this spurious sample at this late date suggests that the threads are suspect and not to be trusted as really being from the sample sent out for radiocarbon dating. Rogers' entire argument rests on his analysis of these two tiny threads and the addiitonal Raes sample threads he claims to possess. I have no evidence to disprove Rogers' claim that the Raes sample fibers--supplied to him by Luigi Gonella and supposedly taken from the original Raes sample adjacent to the radiocarbon samples--are from the Shroud ("I received 14 yarn segments from the Raes sample from Prof. Luigi Gonella . . . "; p. 189). But I question this claim also, since this was also undocumented and unsanctioned. The samples used by the academic radiocarbon labs to date the Shroud, on the other hand, were officially removed, witnessed, and sanctioned. Are Rogers' two tiny threads truly from the same sample as the ones used for radiocarbon dating? If not, Rogers' entire argument is invalid, since Rogers' claim is that the radiocarbon samples have completely different chemical properties than the main part of the Shroud, and he purports that his two tiny threads are representative of the radiocarbon-dated samples. He could only know this if the threads he tested were actually from the same sample used for radiocarbon dating, and we must trust the words of Rogers and Gonella for this (for Rogers' word, see below).
The alleged differences between the Raes sample and the main Shroud samples that Rogers elucidates include (1) different amounts of vanillin (main Shroud absent, Raes sample present), (2) cotton fibers and madder root dye in the Raes sample, but none in the main Shroud samples, and (3) the Raes fibers have been "dyed" with some chemical, but not the fibers of the main Shroud. Rogers is incorrect about all of these. For the different amounts of vanillin, see below. It has long been known that cotton fibers occur elsewhere in the Shroud, being observed by several investigators including Italian textile experts and Walter McCrone. I don't doubt that cotton fiber impurities made their way into the flax used to make the linen cloth; it would be difficult to keep them separate, and contrary to Rogers, such fibers are found throughout the Shroud. As for madder root dye, McCrone detected rose madder pigment on the Shroud's blood areas and reported this. It is reasonable to believe that this pigment could have ended up anywhere on the Shroud, including a non-blood area. Finally, the entire Shroud is covered by a coating of very thin tempera protein paint used by the artist as a binder; its oxidation over time gives the Shroud its characteristic sepia color (very slightly yellowish-brown; natural linen is white). The tempera binder was not used as a paint but to shape or mold the linen over a bas relief carving or cast, and was used to bind the loose particles of red ocher pigment when still damp. Rogers identifies this as a "dye" only on the Raes threads, but in fact all Shroud fibers have this thin tempera coating and characteristic color, as is readily perceived by simply viewing the photographs. Rogers identification of a colored "dye" is the first admission by a STURP member that fibers of the Shroud have been painted or coated.
Rogers' new method of using the amount of vanillin in a sample to determine its age is useless and incompetent. According to Rogers, the vanillin in known Shroud fibers is missing, but the Raes "patch" fibers do possess vanillin from his tests. Thus, he concludes that the amount of vanillin (a breakdown product of flax over time) can be used to age date his samples, and because "the Shroud and other very old linens do not give the vanillin test, the cloth must be very old," thus making it "very unlikely that the linen was produced during medieval times." But this is nonsense: to demonstrate the efficacy of his new dating method and thus prove his claim of age discrepancy, Rogers first must date his Shroud samples by independent methods and must demonstrate the effectiveness of his method using other independent samples, and he fails to do both of these! Rogers refers to the presence of vanillin in "all other medieval linens," but he provides no evidence to support this statement.
Jay Ingram, writing in the Toronto Star, discusses a topic with which I was not familiar. Ingram interviewed Clint Chapple, a biochemist at Purdue University, and Malcolm Campbell, a botanist at the University of Toronto. Chapple points out that it was odd that Rogers used a powerful and precise technique, pyrolysis mass spectrometry, to assess the carbohydrates in the cloth, but didn't choose to apply that technique to the vanillin. This was odd because the incredible accuracy of this technique as applied to vanillin is scientifically well-documented. "I've published using this method and have this instrument in my own lab. The method would have easily revealed the presence (or absence) of degradation products like vanillin had the author been seriously interested in testing his hypothesis," Chapple says. Instead, Rogers used a staining technique that reveals the presence of vanillin if you get a color change. But this is a qualitative, not a quantitative test.
Malcolm Campbell states that, "in biological sciences, a scientist would be hard-pressed to get their paper published if they ever attempted to quantify vanillin on the basis of this staining technique." Staining is a rough guide to the presence of vanillin and cannot detect very small amounts. (In fact, the pyrolysis mass spectrometry was conducted by STURP in 1981 when they had access to the facility, but Rogers only had his kitchen laboratory, so a poor and inadequate staining technique was all he could manage.) Campbell and Chapple identified other flaws in the paper, such as the same lack of controls and replication that I describe above. As Ingram writes, "these should have been enough to deter the editors of Thermochimica Acta from publishing it. Why didn't they? Maybe they were unfamiliar with the chemistry of linen and its breakdown products; maybe they have a soft spot in their heart for the shroud. Who knows?" Ingram concludes, "the incident just underlines the fact that the Shroud of Turin will never go away, and believers will try anything, including arguments masquerading as science, to prove its authenticity."
http://www.freeinquiry.com/skeptic//shroud/articles/rogers-ta-response.htm
Since you have elected to call me a liar in post 290, my attitude is that I am no longer going to respond to your cut and paste articles from Geologist Steven D. Schafersman who claims to be both the Science Consultant and the Administrator of the The Skeptical Shroud of Turin Website... which is merely his own vanity site. How can he be a consultant to himself? None of his rebuttal articles have been submitted to peer review. Are you Schafersman, Jack? I suspect you might be.
His primary method of argument is to declare anyone who happens to disagree with him and McCrone as Psuedoscientists and claim that the real problem is the editors of peer-reviewed journals accepting "pseudoscience" articles.
His rebuttal of the Roger's peer-reviewed determination that the 1988 C14 samples were invalid is merely to throw everything he can think of, without citation of proof, against the wall to see what might stick. Some of his rebuttal facts are made up... on the spur of the moment it seems.
The last refuge of those who have no facts is to attack the opponent's character, competence, or motives... in other words, ad hominem... such as you did when you accused me of being mendacious.
An example of Schafersman's Ad hominem attack style is here:
"Ray Rogers is a member of STURP (Shroud of Turin Research Project, an organization totally composed of believers in the authenticity of the Shroud)[This is actually false. Many of the 26 scientists recruited to STURP were skeptics, several Jewish, some agnostics, and some even Atheists... like the late Walter C. McCrone] and accepted the authenticity of the Shroud from the very beginning of their work in the middle 1970s. He accepts all the shoddy work [only his characterization.] that STURP passed off as science two and three decades ago. As is well known, STURP's analyses on image formation, identity of the blood, sticky tape pollen, and history were hopelessly incompetent and unscientific [Ad hominem attack], despite their claims and posturing to be rigorously scientific. There is no real blood of any kind on the Shroud. Both the image and "blood" were applied by an artist. These facts were conclusively proved beyond even a shadow of doubt by microscopic chemist Walter McCrone[Who consistently refused to submit his work to peer-reviewed journals.], whose microscopic analysis revealed the presence of abundant iron oxide["The STURP microscopists couldn't see it because they didn't look at 2500X Maginifiction, like I did... you can't see it at lower magnifications" - Walter C. McCrone. ] (red ochre) and cinnabar (vermilion) pigments on the Shroud. "
Geologist Steven D. Schafersman's so-called papers are rife with assertions without proof... or any proper citations. His science is woefully lacking... and full of speculation that is both mischaracterizing of the research that has been done and insulting to the eminently qualified scientists who have been brought in, often without prior knowledge of the Shroud, to do the research using techniques they are very familiar with as they are IN THEIR FIELD of expertise which they use everyday. According to Schafersman, the ONLY competent scientist involved was Walter C. McCrone.
One good example of Schafersman's ad hominem attacks is this comment, attempting to ridicule STURP scientists competence and show the incompetence of Shroud researchers :
"I pointed out that the Christ figure's body, limbs, and fingers were unnaturally elongated, even deformed (amazingly, I was apparently the first person to describe this![AH, No, Schafersman, you weren't. Which really shows the status of your knowledge, or the lack, of the research into the Shroud.]); STURP members eventually claimed that Jesus had Marfan's syndrome or suffered skeletal deformities (odd for God on Earth, but there you are)."
This accusation, made primarily by Shroud skeptics such as Schafersman as evidence it was a fraud, prompted Dr. Frederick T. Zugibe, M.S., M.D., Ph.D., FCAP, FACC, FAAFS (who was NOT a member of STURP), to write "Did Christ Have Marfan's Syndrome?" La Sindon", Turin, Italy, Dec. 1983... and the conclusion was NO. This is the ONLY mention of Jesus possibly having Marfan's Syndrome on the scientific shroud sites found by a Google search. The rest of the Google results are all versions of Schafersman's claim or citations of the same claim - mostly quotations from Schafersman or Joe Nickell.
Who is Dr. Zugibe? He is a world renowned Forensic Pathologist:
"He holds a Bachelor of Science, Master of Science (Anatomy/Electron Microscopy), Ph.D. (Anatomy/ Histochemistry), and an M.D. degree. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Pathology in Anatomic Pathology and Forensic Pathology and a Diplomate of the American Board of Family Practice. Dr. Zugibe is an adjunct Associate Professor of Pathology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and is a Fellow of the College of American Pathologists, a Fellow of the American Academy of the Forensic Sciences, Forensic Pathology Section, and a member of the National Association of Medical Examiners."
This is the one of the scientists geologist Schafersman calls incompetent.
Another example of your exalted Schafersman's ad hominem approach to science is this paranoid rant against an esteemed pyrology chemist, Raymond N. Rogers. It is truly amazing:
"In the past I have pointed out that the STURP "scientists" never used a polarizing microscope [False claim... it IS one of the tests that has been repeated following McCrone's own claims... and failed to reproduce McCrone's claims!] to examine their Shroud fiber samples, for if they did, they would have been able to easily identify the iron oxide particles. I even used pictures in my talks of them in front of expensive and elaborate biological microscopes, which are not the polarizing microscopes used for mineralogical, petrographical, forensic, and chemical analysis that McCrone, I, and thousands of other scientists use. Therefore imagine my surprise a week ago when I visited Barrie Schwortz's Shroud of Turin website at http://www.shroud.com/ and saw a photo of the smiling visage of Ray Rogers in front of his polarizing "petrographic microscope"! Now, why does a chemist need a petrographic microscope? [Could it be because Roger's hobby was archaeology and he had been donating his chemical expertise to various archaeology digs since 1968 and used a "petrographic microscope" in pursuit of analysis of microscopic chemical evidence??? Or perhaps he got it to examine the extremely small particles that resulted from the explosions relating to the pyrolysis work that he specialized in?] How long has he had it? Did he get it to use with the Shroud samples, or did he get it recently for the purpose of indirectly refuting me once again! Well, to me this is an example of overreaching yet again, for if Ray actually knew how to use his microscope--of which he appears to be quite proud, exactly mimicking the well-known photo of Walter McCrone!--he would be able to place one of his fiber samples from a Shroud image or blood area under it, add the immersion fluid of proper density, cross the polars, focus up to move the Becke line, and determine that the thousands of tiny orange and red particles he sees covering the fibers have a high index of refraction, revealing them to be iron oxide. That he has apparently neglected to do this reveals Ray Rogers to be either incompetent or mendacious, and thus not deserving of the esteemed designation of microscopist.
Jack, why don't you tell your friend that it really ISN'T all about him? He seems to need some serious counseling if he believe that Rogers got the microscope merely to tweak HIS nose. Your source is outed as a raving lunatic.
Your and Schafersman's approach to discussion is merely to shout "Red Ochre" and "Vermilion" louder. Not to provide ANY other scientists who have found what McCrone claims... against dozens of others who have NOT.
Let's finish with Schafersman's final paragraph where he ignores the hundreds of attempts by scientists, artists, and magicians to duplicate the shroud. In fact, in a leap of illogic, Schaferman ignore's own report just prior to his conclusion of one of the latest failed attempts at duplicating the Shroud. Here is his last paragraph... an example of wishful thinking:
"I have always thought that the Shroud of Turin would be very easy to re-create, but no one has attempted it because either (1) it would reveal the ease of reproducing a Shroud of Turin and thus serve to debunk the magic and mystery that the current Shroud possesses, or (2) the evidence that already exists that the Shroud is an artifact is so overwhelming that it isn't worth anyone's time and expense to reproduce it. No. 2 is certainly my reason for not making a Shroud. And so far, no one has indeed taken the time and expense to duplicate it."If it is so easy, WHERE IS SCHAFERSMAN's Shroud, Jack? Where? The man is a coward... hiding behind excuses for something he cannot do.
Here's a clue.
The whole thing revolves not around the age, but around the chemical composition of the stains.
If the image is that of Maillard reactions with the linen, then the simplest explanation is that the cloth was used to wrap a freshly dead body.
No resurrection need be implied, merely removal of the cloth for reasons unknown, by parties unknown.
History does not claim to be a science, we need not give a good reason for the removal.
And if you are feeling particularly resurrectophobic today, the cloth need not be associated with Jesus at all. Lots of people got sentenced to crucifixion back then.
If the image is that of a forger, we have to unambiguously find evidence of paint, and paint *only*. If there is a significant amount of blood breakdown products, blood proteins, and the like, how did they get there?
The way to solve this is to come up with a series of tests which will unambiguously distinguish between the blood components and pigments.
All of the tests performed so far have in fact been consistent with blood, and have involved the use of controls.
The tests, by the way, are well known and characterized in forensic science (and are admissible in a court of law) outside of the Shroud.
Whereas the supposed tests for the pigments have no such provenance.
Since all the tests done so far are consistent with blood (consistent with the burial cloth of a crucified man, but not with a and with Maillard reactions (consistent with a cloth draped over a newly-dead corpse, but not with any type of paint you can name), and none of these tests were known at the time you claim the Shroud was forged, you're starting in a fairly deep hole to begin with.
Oh, I love the quote from the Brittanica:
McCrone attended Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., before moving to Chicago, where he was credited with having revolutionized the design and use of light microscopes and electron microscopes and with having led the growth of his research institute as it attained the status of a world leader.
That's sweet. I turned down a free ride at Cornell for my PhD. I'm not impressed.
Pat Robertson of The 700 Club has a law degree from Yale, but you wouldn't listen to him on legal matters. And that is why rumor mongering and ad hominem doesn't cut it, such as your cut-n-paste from the "skeptic site" which makes vague claims about "serious custody issues" and "other scientists have called unserious."
If you want, I can show you really nasty professional rivalries between eminent scientists, where all kinds of things are said. But that's not where the truth is found.
It is found in independent peer-reviewed tests, and in multiple tests from different disciplines, all of which give consistent results pointing to a particular physical interpretation.
And all of the peer-reviewed research on the Shroud points to human blood and reactions of gases from a dead body reacting with the linen; to the presence of soil and pollen samples found in proximity to Jerusalem; to anatomical features consistent with a real crucifixion which were in direct contradiction to the 'knowledge' of it which a medieval forger would have possessed.
The problem is, *you* are arguing from authority: and you ar doing it based on sources already shown to be inaccurate. And they have been shown to be inaccurate by the scientific method, Occam's razor, and all that. All the things that 'brights' such as yourself love to masturbate over.
Why are you so threatened by the Shroud? Treat it as a historical record of Roman legal practice, and study it for the cool interactions between a corpse and cloth.
But don't call it a painting. That only reveals you as a close minded, or dishonest troll, or, it is beginning to look like, unbalanced.
(You know, "Shroud Derangement Syndrome").
Cheers!
Here's a clue.
The whole thing revolves not around the age, but around the chemical composition of the stains.
If the image is that of Maillard reactions with the linen, then the simplest explanation is that the cloth was used to wrap a freshly dead body.
No resurrection need be implied, merely removal of the cloth for reasons unknown, by parties unknown.
History does not claim to be a science, we need not give a good reason for the removal.
And if you are feeling particularly resurrectophobic today, the cloth need not be associated with Jesus at all. Lots of people got sentenced to crucifixion back then.
If the image is that of a forger, we have to unambiguously find evidence of paint, and paint *only*. If there is a significant amount of blood breakdown products, blood proteins, and the like, how did they get there?
The way to solve this is to come up with a series of tests which will unambiguously distinguish between the blood components and pigments.
All of the tests performed so far have in fact been consistent with blood, and have involved the use of controls.
The tests, by the way, are well known and characterized in forensic science (and are admissible in a court of law) outside of the Shroud.
Whereas the supposed tests for the pigments have no such provenance.
Since all the tests done so far are consistent with blood (consistent with the burial cloth of a crucified man, but not with a and with Maillard reactions (consistent with a cloth draped over a newly-dead corpse, but not with any type of paint you can name), and none of these tests were known at the time you claim the Shroud was forged, you're starting in a fairly deep hole to begin with.
Oh, I love the quote from the Brittanica:
McCrone attended Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., before moving to Chicago, where he was credited with having revolutionized the design and use of light microscopes and electron microscopes and with having led the growth of his research institute as it attained the status of a world leader.
That's sweet. I turned down a free ride at Cornell for my PhD. I'm not impressed.
Pat Robertson of The 700 Club has a law degree from Yale, but you wouldn't listen to him on legal matters. And that is why rumor mongering and ad hominem doesn't cut it, such as your cut-n-paste from the "skeptic site" which makes vague claims about "serious custody issues" and "other scientists have called unserious."
If you want, I can show you really nasty professional rivalries between eminent scientists, where all kinds of things are said. But that's not where the truth is found.
It is found in independent peer-reviewed tests, and in multiple tests from different disciplines, all of which give consistent results pointing to a particular physical interpretation.
And all of the peer-reviewed research on the Shroud points to human blood and reactions of gases from a dead body reacting with the linen; to the presence of soil and pollen samples found in proximity to Jerusalem; to anatomical features consistent with a real crucifixion which were in direct contradiction to the 'knowledge' of it which a medieval forger would have possessed.
The problem is, *you* are arguing from authority: and you ar doing it based on sources already shown to be inaccurate. And they have been shown to be inaccurate by the scientific method, Occam's razor, and all that. All the things that 'brights' such as yourself love to masturbate over.
Why are you so threatened by the Shroud? Treat it as a historical record of Roman legal practice, and study it for the cool interactions between a corpse and cloth.
But don't call it a painting. That only reveals you as a close minded, or dishonest troll, or, it is beginning to look like, unbalanced.
(You know, "Shroud Derangement Syndrome").
Cheers!
Jay Ingram, writing in the Toronto Star, discusses a topic with which I was not familiar. Ingram interviewed Clint Chapple, a biochemist at Purdue University, and Malcolm Campbell, a botanist at the University of Toronto. Chapple points out that it was odd that Rogers used a powerful and precise technique, pyrolysis mass spectrometry, to assess the carbohydrates in the cloth, but didn't choose to apply that technique to the vanillin. This was odd because the incredible accuracy of this technique as applied to vanillin is scientifically well-documented. "I've published using this method and have this instrument in my own lab. The method would have easily revealed the presence (or absence) of degradation products like vanillin had the author been seriously interested in testing his hypothesis," Chapple says. Instead, Rogers used a staining technique that reveals the presence of vanillin if you get a color change. But this is a qualitative, not a quantitative test.
That's rich. I took five minutes to google pyrolysis mass spec shroud and came up with this:
Note that this is directly from Rogers at Los Alamos.
The pyrolysis mass spec was not done primarily to check vanillin, but to look for paint!
I quote the relevant paragraph:
The method was sufficiently sensitive to detect traces of the low-molecular-weight fractions (oligomers) of the polyethylene bag that Prof. Luigi Gonella had used to wrap the Raes threads. It did not detect any unexpected pyrolysis fragments that indicated any Shroud materials other than carbohydrates. That is exactly what would be expected from a piece of pure linen. This helped confirm the fact that the image was not painted.
The paper goes on to give specific chemical details about the types of paints which could have been used, including red and yellow ochre, charcoal, tempera, and oil paints.
How could you refer to Rogers' pyrolysis mass spec and use it to 'refute' presence of vanillin, but NEGLECT TO MENTION THE MAIN POINT OF THE PAPER ???? T.W.N.F.P. !! (There was *no* f'ing paint!)
Nice try, troll.
Now go home and reload and then shoot yourself in the other foot.
Cheers!
Jay Ingram, writing in the Toronto Star, discusses a topic with which I was not familiar. Ingram interviewed Clint Chapple, a biochemist at Purdue University, and Malcolm Campbell, a botanist at the University of Toronto. Chapple points out that it was odd that Rogers used a powerful and precise technique, pyrolysis mass spectrometry, to assess the carbohydrates in the cloth, but didn't choose to apply that technique to the vanillin. This was odd because the incredible accuracy of this technique as applied to vanillin is scientifically well-documented. "I've published using this method and have this instrument in my own lab. The method would have easily revealed the presence (or absence) of degradation products like vanillin had the author been seriously interested in testing his hypothesis," Chapple says. Instead, Rogers used a staining technique that reveals the presence of vanillin if you get a color change. But this is a qualitative, not a quantitative test.
That's rich. I took five minutes to google pyrolysis mass spec shroud and came up with this:
Note that this is directly from Rogers at Los Alamos.
The pyrolysis mass spec was not done primarily to check vanillin, but to look for paint!
I quote the relevant paragraph:
The method was sufficiently sensitive to detect traces of the low-molecular-weight fractions (oligomers) of the polyethylene bag that Prof. Luigi Gonella had used to wrap the Raes threads. It did not detect any unexpected pyrolysis fragments that indicated any Shroud materials other than carbohydrates. That is exactly what would be expected from a piece of pure linen. This helped confirm the fact that the image was not painted.
The paper goes on to give specific chemical details about the types of paints which could have been used, including red and yellow ochre, charcoal, tempera, and oil paints.
How could you refer to Rogers' pyrolysis mass spec and use it to 'refute' presence of vanillin, but NEGLECT TO MENTION THE MAIN POINT OF THE PAPER ???? T.W.N.F.P. !! (There was *no* f'ing paint!)
Nice try, troll.
Now go home and reload and then shoot yourself in the other foot.
Cheers!