The “Shroudies” strike again.
Like a horse race, it’s a matter of opinion, with each side citing “experts” who have their own agenda.
There are differences in the weights one should give the "opinions" that are presented. Sorry, the "experts" on the sides of the skeptics you quote are working OUTSIDE of their fields of expertise (Tell me me, what exactly qualifies a BA in English Literature to critique people with multiple doctorates and specialties in identifying human blood in all its antecedents and gives him ANY gravitas at all?) and have never had their critiques published in any peer-reviewed scientific journals. The opinions I provide are from scientists, analyzing the shroud by applying science from WITHIN their fields of expertise, applying what they KNOW, and trying to find answers. If they cannot, they say so. What they find raises even more questions than answers.
Your very first question is and denigrating ad hominem attack... meant to diminish the value of the scientific work done in the minds of the people who are not familiar with the work. The scientists involved included Christians, Jews, agnostics, and even atheists... most of them entered with an open mind. Most went with the intent to falsify the Shroud. Talk a few measurements, find paint or other obvious evidence of pigments, make a report and go home. Job done... instead they did NOT find that.
Only McCrone claimed to have found it, but none of the other hundreds of scientists who have looked have found pigments. NONE. None of the various, very sophisticated equipment brought to bear has found what McCrone claims he saw with his microscopes and even his own electron Microscope department did NOT back up his claim until he forced them to re-write their report. You want to talk about an agenda? McCrone over the years changed his characterization of the Red Ochre no less than seven times... and in one report claimed it was red ochre that was developed in 1830! Absurd!
Incidentally, McCrone was not an official member of STURP. He was granted access to STURP samples as a courtesy under a specific contract which he violated by not publishing his findings in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, publishing instead in his own vanity magazine “The Microscopist”, refused to return the samples which he started referring to as “my samples”, and the samples had to be physically retrieved by STURP officials.
He told his own employees that he was “going to debunk the shroud by using only a light microscope” because he thought that the microscope was being left behind as a serious scientific instrument!
“Like a horse race, it’s a matter of opinion, with each side citing “experts” who have their own agenda.”
As legendary Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote, “It is a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals.”
That, IMO, is what you are doing. Those on “each side” are not equals.
One side is seeking to find the truth, even if it proves them wrong. The other side is closed-mindedly certain of its position, and has no interest in examining contrary evidence.
The second group are called “skeptics,” although they are not skeptics at all. They are God-haters, burning with a abhorrent lust to disprove His existence and defame His followers.
Catholics and honest scientists do not wish to believe or say that the Shroud is genuine if it is not.
The God-haters are just seagull pseudoscientists: they flap in, make a bunch of noise, crap all over everything, and leave as much confusion as possible in their wake. After all, why bother with genuine inquiry when you already know the answer?