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Miracle of the Shroud II: The Second Coming

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Jabba said:
Hugh,
- I don't think that your analogy is analogous.
- To make the sheep counting analogous, you'd need to get results of something like 10, 20 and 30 -- rendered by expert sheep counters. If that happened, you'd think that your expert counters must have gone to different fields!
Click to expand...
You would indeed, and I wonder if this comment gets to the heart of your misunderstanding of the significance of the radiocarbon dates. As Dinwar says above, the dates are much closer together than you realise. 646 and 676 are as close as any two independent labs are likely to achieve, and Oxford's 750, although, as in my analogy, indeed anomalous, is not far off (All these numbers are the average years BP from the Nature paper). It is perfectly reasonable to conclude, from these numbers alone, that the Shroud is no older than the 13th century or younger than the 14th.
 
Carbon Dating Doubts/One in 20

hugh farey said:
You would indeed, and I wonder if this comment gets to the heart of your misunderstanding of the significance of the radiocarbon dates. As Dinwar says above, the dates are much closer together than you realise. 646 and 676 are as close as any two independent labs are likely to achieve, and Oxford's 750, although, as in my analogy, indeed anomalous, is not far off (All these numbers are the average years BP from the Nature paper). It is perfectly reasonable to conclude, from these numbers alone, that the Shroud is no older than the 13th century or younger than the 14th.
Click to expand...
Hugh & Dinwar,
- I think that I now see what you mean. The Nature article accepts that there is a 95% probability that the three samples did not come from the same original weave -- they have, in fact, been "tampered" with, and/or contaminated, differentially. But then, the extent of that tampering/contamination is not sufficient to affect the dating significantly.
- How's that?
 
Jabba said:
- I think that I now see what you mean. The Nature article accepts that there is a 95% probability that the three samples did not come from the same original weave
Click to expand...
Please provide direct quotes supporting that assertion. There has literally been nothing--not one single datum--supporting this in this thread.

they have, in fact, been "tampered" with, and/or contaminated, differentially.
Click to expand...
Please provide specifics. HOW were they tampered with? HOW were they contaminated? How did this escape the notice of the experts--including those who owned the shroud--who were involved in sample selection? How did this contamination survive the various cleaning methods? SPECIFICS, Jabba--a proper response to these questions would allow us to fully reproduce the events. What you're doing is called "hand-waving"--making vague accusations without substantiating evidence in the hope that you can convince us to ignore the fact that there is in fact no man behind the curtain.
 
hugh farey said:
I'm getting behind here...

Ray Schneider's paper attempts to discredit the radiocarbon dating in three ways; first by examining the irregularity in the Nature paper itself, then by looking at three images of the radiocarbon area, and finally by correlating various gradients in those images with the different radiocarbon ages. In some cases his primary observations are correct, and in others false or deceptive, and in no case are his conclusions justified.

1) The Nature paper very properly calls attention to the circumstance that as reported by the laboratories, there is only a 1 in 20 chance that the three dates refer to the same piece of cloth. However, that does not mean that they need be rejected out of hand. An analogy may help. If a farmer sends three men to count the sheep in a field, and they return with 70, 72 and 65 (allowing for a sheep or two either way for miscounting), these numbers do not apparently concur. So what to do? Abandon the information altogether, or suspect that maybe the precision (a sheep or two either way) was not as great as suggested. Could there in fact be 250 sheep in the field? Or 14? Probably not. Making the best of a messy job, the farmer assumes that the counters were not as precise as they claimed, and makes an appropriate adjustment - maybe between 60 and 75. Probably not more or fewer. This is exactly what the Nature authors did. It is wholly untrue that the results are meaningless.

2) The Quad Mosaic photo (false coloured) shows a largely yellow and orange shroud, with a green corner which Schneider attributes to a different material. This is somewhat disingenuous, as this is only one quarter of a much larger photo. There are four of these Quad Mosaics covering the full length of the Shroud, and every one has a green corner. More importantly, every one also has a bright blue band across the top half. If the bottom left hand corners are indeed of a different material from the rest of the Shroud, then so are the four bright blue bands which cross the whole width of the material. A reductio ad absurdam, I think.

3) The next photo pretends to be a UV photo taken by Vernon Miller in 1978. Miller's photography is well detailed in his paper in the Journal of Biological Photography, and this photo does not even remotely resemble any of his. It is not a UV photo, and has curiously had the 'missing corner' section cropped away. I do not know its provenance.

4) Finally, we have another false colour photo, also in yellow and green, which purports, as before, to demonstrate that the different colours represent different materials. Although in this case, the 'missing corner', in the form of the backing cloth, is present. Sadly for the hypothesis, the part of the backing cloth which had been covered with the Raes section is bright white, showing that the colours do not represent different material at all.

5) Be that as it may, the end of the paper shows a couple of graphs. The first one shows, correctly, that the sample furthest from the edge of the Shroud (Arizona) produced the youngest age, and the sample closest to the edge of the Shroud (Oxford) produced the oldest. This in itself is odd, as it suggests that the edge of the Shroud is less contaminated than the interior, but it is also in direct contradiction with the following graph, which instead of showing an inversely proportional relationship between the alleged contamination and the age (the more the contamination, the less the age) in fact shows exactly the opposite (the more the contamination, the more the age). If there is any truth in these images, they show that any contamination of the Shroud had the effect of making it appear older than it really is, not younger.

So, although a paper produced by a professor of Mathematics may at first sight appear reasonable, a detailed study of it shows that his conclusions are not only based on faulty evidence, but even if taken as true, that the evidence in fact shows exactly the opposite of what was hypothesised.
Click to expand...
Hugh,
- If you haven't already submitted this paper to Dan Porter would you submit it now?
 
Jabba said:
Hugh & Dinwar,
- I think that I now see what you mean. The Nature article accepts that there is a 95% probability that the three samples did not come from the same original weave -- they have, in fact, been "tampered" with, and/or contaminated, differentially. But then, the extent of that tampering/contamination is not sufficient to affect the dating significantly.
- How's that?
Click to expand...

Good morning,Mr. Savage!

The results of radiocarbon measurements at Arizona, Oxford and Zurich yield a calibrated calendar age range with at least 95% confidence for the linen of the Shroud of Turin of AD 1260 - 1390 (rounded down/up to nearest 10 yr). These results therefore provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval.
The results of radiocarbon measurements from the three laboratories on four textile samples, a total of twelve data sets, show that none of the measurements differs from its appropriate mean value by more than two standard deviations. The results for the three control samples agree well with previous radiocarbon measurements and/or historical dates.
Click to expand...
Nature 337, 611 - 615 (16 February 1989)
https://www.shroud.com/nature.htm

I fear we did not read the same article. Please be so kind as to quote the specific text in the Nature article that supports your assertions.

Seriously. I hope you are simply mistaken, or are fostering a misapprehension; the alternative would be to realize you were simply being dishonest. Be so kind as to clarify.
 
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Jabba said:
Hugh & Dinwar,
- I think that I now see what you mean. The Nature article accepts that there is a 95% probability that the three samples did not come from the same original weave -- they have, in fact, been "tampered" with, and/or contaminated, differentially. But then, the extent of that tampering/contamination is not sufficient to affect the dating significantly.
- How's that?
Click to expand...
Justification for this?

And I'm still waiting for your explanation of the nature of the contamination that could survive the cleansing processes and distort the radiocarbon dating.
 
If we took out the radiocarbon dating altogether, we would still be left with all the other evidence that the Shroud was medieval, notably the overwhelming likelihood that it was woven on a medieval treadle loom ( the width and length give it away).

I am trying to get a more precise date from the iconography. The all-over scourge marks have no precedent in the gospel sources or in medieval iconography before 1300. According to Professor James Marrow, a Princeton expert on the iconography of the Passion, they appear then when artists integrated Isaiah 1.6 into their iconography. Marrow does not refer to the Shroud but there are numerous other examples of all-over scourging - see the illustrations from the Holkham Bible ( 1330) and the Roettgen Pieta ( probably 1325- 50) -after 1300 but not before. The blood on the arms on Christ is also likely to be post-1300. I tend, but need specialist support for this, towards the original painted surface (now disintegrated leaving only shadows) being put on the outer surface of the Shroud, on a gesso as the craft manuals suggested, c 1325-50.

This is completely independent of any radiocarbon evidence but, as it is right in the middle of the dates 1260-1390, it does fit. It suggests that the Shroud was originally created shortly before its first documented appearance c.1355.

It is inconceivable that any forger would have added images to a burial cloth when there was no mention of them in the gospels or in any painting to be seen in churches. No one would have been taken in and the de Charny family constantly failed in their attempts to proclaim authenticity. However, the Church accepted that there was some spiritual significance to the Shroud,making it worthy,as was proclaimed in 1390, of an indulgence.

Only the prestige of a ducal family choosing to expose the Shroud to enormous crowds at a time when the images were still vivid was able to effect a tradition of authenticity even though the Church was reluctant to accept it.

The Shroud was likely to have been originally created for some other liturgical function- I suggest the Easter ceremony of Quem Queritis when a grave cloth, sometimes a painted one, was held up before the congregation to symbolise the Resurrection. The images are, in medieval or ancient terms, greater than life size and the double image suggests that originally it was made for a large congregation. One only has to enter a large church of this date to understand why. The nave was often very long and the light early on Easter morning would have been poor. You needed a dramatic size for the images to make them seen, something exploited later by the Savoy family with their exposition of the Shroud before thousands.

So perhaps there is no need to bother about the radiocarbon date- although I think it is valid. Take it out and you are not a jot nearer to proving the authenticity of the Shroud.
 
SlowVehicle & Classmate1,
- Somehow, we seem to be passing in the night...
- The following is what I'm trying to understand.
hugh farey said:
...1) The Nature paper very properly calls attention to the circumstance that as reported by the laboratories, there is only a 1 in 20 chance that the three dates refer to the same piece of cloth...
Click to expand...
 
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Jabba said:
SlowVehicle & Classmate1,
- Somehow, we seem to be passing in the night...
- The following is what I'm trying to understand.
Click to expand...

Mr. Savage:

Mr. farey did not write the Nature article.
Nature 337, 611 - 615 (16 February 1989)
https://www.shroud.com/nature.htm

Have you ever actually read the entire article?

May I suggest that you do so?
https://www.shroud.com/nature.htm

I encourage you to indicate what specific passage or passages in the actual article support your assertion that "The Nature article accepts that there is a 95% probability that the three samples did not come from the same original weave -- they have, in fact, been "tampered" with, and/or contaminated, differentially. But then, the extent of that tampering/contamination is not sufficient to affect the dating significantly."

I eagerly await your response, after you have read the actual article.
 
You are quite correct, Jabba.

Table 2 of the Nature paper gives a series of percentages which it specifically says represent "The probability of obtaining, by chance, a scatter among the three dates as high as that observed, under the assumption that the quoted errors reflect all sources of random variation." The figure for the shroud samples is 5%. This could validly be taken to mean that there was a good chance that the samples were not from the same cloth. However, even if all three samples were from completely different artifacts, one could not conclude that any of those artifacts was made before the 13th century, or after the 14th century, on the basis of the data supplied.

Catsmate would like to know more about the nature of the contamination. If there is any, then it is important to realise (see my point 5 above) that it had the effect of making the Shroud appear older than it really is, not younger as in the reweave hypothesis. This is amply demonstrated by Ray Schneider in the paper you quoted above. I'm told that mineral oil is difficult to remove from radiocarbon samples (Dinwar might be able to comment on how true this is), and being millions of years old, it contains no C14. It would have the effect of making the Shroud appear older.

In a recent BSTS Newsletter, I produced some evidence to suggest that the Shroud was made around 1280, which my gut-reaction thought was a bit early. If the Oxford sample really was contaminated to appear older, then an early 14th century date would be a better estimate. Maybe someone could calculate what amount of a zero-C14 hydrocarbon would be needed to shift a radiocarbon date from 1340 to 1280?
 
Carbon Dating Doubts/CD Not Essential Anyway

Charles Freeman said:
If we took out the radiocarbon dating altogether, we would still be left with all the other evidence that the Shroud was medieval, notably the overwhelming likelihood that it was woven on a medieval treadle loom ( the width and length give it away).

I am trying to get a more precise date from the iconography. The all-over scourge marks have no precedent in the gospel sources or in medieval iconography before 1300. According to Professor James Marrow, a Princeton expert on the iconography of the Passion, they appear then when artists integrated Isaiah 1.6 into their iconography. Marrow does not refer to the Shroud but there are numerous other examples of all-over scourging - see the illustrations from the Holkham Bible ( 1330) and the Roettgen Pieta ( probably 1325- 50) -after 1300 but not before. The blood on the arms on Christ is also likely to be post-1300. I tend, but need specialist support for this, towards the original painted surface (now disintegrated leaving only shadows) being put on the outer surface of the Shroud, on a gesso as the craft manuals suggested, c 1325-50.

This is completely independent of any radiocarbon evidence but, as it is right in the middle of the dates 1260-1390, it does fit. It suggests that the Shroud was originally created shortly before its first documented appearance c.1355.

It is inconceivable that any forger would have added images to a burial cloth when there was no mention of them in the gospels or in any painting to be seen in churches. No one would have been taken in and the de Charny family constantly failed in their attempts to proclaim authenticity. However, the Church accepted that there was some spiritual significance to the Shroud,making it worthy,as was proclaimed in 1390, of an indulgence.

Only the prestige of a ducal family choosing to expose the Shroud to enormous crowds at a time when the images were still vivid was able to effect a tradition of authenticity even though the Church was reluctant to accept it.

The Shroud was likely to have been originally created for some other liturgical function- I suggest the Easter ceremony of Quem Queritis when a grave cloth, sometimes a painted one, was held up before the congregation to symbolise the Resurrection. The images are, in medieval or ancient terms, greater than life size and the double image suggests that originally it was made for a large congregation. One only has to enter a large church of this date to understand why. The nave was often very long and the light early on Easter morning would have been poor. You needed a dramatic size for the images to make them seen, something exploited later by the Savoy family with their exposition of the Shroud before thousands.

So perhaps there is no need to bother about the radiocarbon date- although I think it is valid. Take it out and you are not a jot nearer to proving the authenticity of the Shroud.
Click to expand...
Charles,
- I'm old and slow and must take on one, or two, sub-issues at a time.
- So anyway, by saying that you "think" the date is valid, you apparently maintain some reasonable doubt. If so, good.
- Re the blood on the arms being added later, the wounds supposedly show the synergies invisible to the naked eye, but inherent to real wounds. Have you encountered such claims?
- If you've already addressed this on the Porter blog, please let me know and I'll find it.
 
Carbon Dating Doubts/Nature Article

Slowvehicle said:
Mr. Savage:

Mr. farey did not write the Nature article.
Nature 337, 611 - 615 (16 February 1989)
https://www.shroud.com/nature.htm

Have you ever actually read the entire article?

May I suggest that you do so?
https://www.shroud.com/nature.htm

I encourage you to indicate what specific passage or passages in the actual article support your assertion that "The Nature article accepts that there is a 95% probability that the three samples did not come from the same original weave -- they have, in fact, been "tampered" with, and/or contaminated, differentially. But then, the extent of that tampering/contamination is not sufficient to affect the dating significantly."

I eagerly await your response, after you have read the actual article.
Click to expand...
Slowvehicle,
- I have read the article at least once -- just not recently. I'll read it again.
 
hugh farey said:
You are quite correct, Jabba.

Table 2 of the Nature paper gives a series of percentages which it specifically says represent "The probability of obtaining, by chance, a scatter among the three dates as high as that observed, under the assumption that the quoted errors reflect all sources of random variation." The figure for the shroud samples is 5%. This could validly be taken to mean that there was a good chance that the samples were not from the same cloth. However, even if all three samples were from completely different artifacts, one could not conclude that any of those artifacts was made before the 13th century, or after the 14th century, on the basis of the data supplied.<snip for focus>
Click to expand...

Actually, no.

The Nature article cannot be said, in any fair analysis, to have implied, or even raised the possibility, that the three tested samples being form different cloths.

Mr. Savage is, as is his wont, blaming the piddle puddle for the puppy; to him, a 5% probability that the combined errors might be caused by random chance becomes a 95% probability that the samples were fraudulently selected from different cloths.

This is why I have encouraged him to actually read the article; I am hoping he will read, and understand, the conclusion section.
 
Jabba said:
Charles,
- I'm old and slow and must take on one, or two, sub-issues at a time.
- So anyway, by saying that you "think" the date is valid, you apparently maintain some reasonable doubt. If so, good.
- Re the blood on the arms being added later, the wounds supposedly show the synergies invisible to the naked eye, but inherent to real wounds. Have you encountered such claims?
- If you've already addressed this on the Porter blog, please let me know and I'll find it.
Click to expand...

Good Morning, Mr. Savage:

Are you forgetting, or just ignoring, the fact that the "blood" and the claimed "retractions rings" have been dealt with in this very thread (and its progenitor)?

Are you forgetting the the "blood" is depicted as "flowing" in gravitationally impossible directions?

Are you forgetting the that "blood" is not depicted as accurately flowing form a washed corpse?

Are you forgetting that the "blood" is not depicted as demonstrating the adsorption, and absorption, behaviors of actual fluids?

Are you forgetting to provide actual evidence of the CIQ being 200 years old?
 
Slowvehicle said:
Actually, no.

The Nature article cannot be said, in any fair analysis, to have implied, or even raised the possibility, that the three tested samples being from different cloths.
Click to expand...

I'm afraid I disagree. A 5% "probability of obtaining, by chance, a scatter among the three dates as high as that observed" raises a variety of possible scenarios, one of which is certainly the possibility that the samples came from different materials. Another is that the 1-in-20 chance just came up (as it could do again, were the Shroud tested in the same way another 40 times or so), and another is that the errors were greater than quoted, which is what the Nature editors actually went on to justify, as I said in my earlier comment.

The X-squared figure does not imply that the Shroud, or any other tested fragment, is 2000 years old, but we cannot deny that it is present, and clearly differentiates the Shroud samples from the results from the controls.
 
hugh farey said:
I'm afraid I disagree. A 5% "probability of obtaining, by chance, a scatter among the three dates as high as that observed" raises a variety of possible scenarios, one of which is certainly the possibility that the samples came from different materials. Another is that the 1-in-20 chance just came up (as it could do again, were the Shroud tested in the same way another 40 times or so), and another is that the errors were greater than quoted, which is what the Nature editors actually went on to justify, as I said in my earlier comment.

The X-squared figure does not imply that the Shroud, or any other tested fragment, is 2000 years old, but we cannot deny that it is present, and clearly differentiates the Shroud samples from the results from the controls.
Click to expand...

The meaning of the 5% figure is, correctly stated, that a statistical analysis indicates that there is no more than a 5% probability that the results observed are due to random chance. However, your invention, that the results fairly imply that there is a 5% chance that the three cloth samples are from different cloths, is not supported by the article.

If you want to join Mr. Savage in claiming that collusion is a possibility; that is, that three different pieces of cloth were intentionally provided to the three different labs, you are free to danbrownit to your heart's content. You should not, however, claim that your plot is a reasonable interpretation of the Nature article's conclusion.
 
I do not use the Porter blog as a site for the full range of my views, only to offer responses when I think fit, especially as my long article I History today was extensively quoted or misquoted on that blog.
I would always welcome a rerun of the radiocarbon date but no, I do not have any reason to believe that it is not valid. Perhaps some evidence that has not yet been raised will become apparent in another context, but so far I have not seen any which undermines the existing dating.
I believe that originally the painting of the Shroud included both the bloodstains and the scourge marks although it is possible, as is known from other paintings on linen, that the original fourteenth century images were touched up at a later date.
 
Again, we're using a technique at the limits of its range. Those percentages are essentially meaningless; at these young dates, we should expect a large range of variability.

We have the documentation that these did come from the same cloth. If there's any evidence against that, please let me know. If the numbers are all you've got, you've got nothing--and are ignoring the nature of the methodology in question.
 
Slowvehicle said:
Your invention, that the results fairly imply that there is a 5% chance that the three cloth samples are from different cloths, is not supported by the article.
Click to expand...
That's not my invention, and that's not what I said. However it does our argument no good to ignore the fact that the X-squared figure for the Shroud was vastly different from the equivalent figure for the controls. It is an anomaly, and it has to be explained. As I actually did say, there are various possible explanations, and, from the data alone, one cannot distinguish between their probabilities. From the Nature data alone, 'Shroud' dates from different materials cannot be ruled out.

But of course, as Dinwar says, there is other data. I do not believe in any conspiracy to muddle the samples, and I do not believe in the patch, the reweave or the interweave hypotheses, and have done more than most to demonstrate why. My first article as editor for the BSTS Newsletter was a detailed demolition of most of the arguments in favour of it. Nevertheless, the Riani/Atkinson paper demonstrating a chronological gradient is sensible, and, as I have suggested above, may result from a zero-C14 addition of some kind, which could have had the overall effect of shifting an estimated date of about 1340AD back to that of about 1280AD, which I believe is is better interpretation of the Nature data as it stands.
 
hugh farey said:
I'm afraid I disagree. A 5% "probability of obtaining, by chance, a scatter among the three dates as high as that observed" raises a variety of possible scenarios, one of which is certainly the possibility that the samples came from different materials. Another is that the 1-in-20 chance just came up (as it could do again, were the Shroud tested in the same way another 40 times or so), and another is that the errors were greater than quoted, which is what the Nature editors actually went on to justify, as I said in my earlier comment.

The X-squared figure does not imply that the Shroud, or any other tested fragment, is 2000 years old, but we cannot deny that it is present, and clearly differentiates the Shroud samples from the results from the controls.
Click to expand...

hugh farey said:
That's not my invention, and that's not what I said. However it does our argument no good to ignore the fact that the X-squared figure for the Shroud was vastly different from the equivalent figure for the controls. It is an anomaly, and it has to be explained. As I actually did say, there are various possible explanations, and, from the data alone, one cannot distinguish between their probabilities. From the Nature data alone, 'Shroud' dates from different materials cannot be ruled out.

But of course, as Dinwar says, there is other data. I do not believe in any conspiracy to muddle the samples, and I do not believe in the patch, the reweave or the interweave hypotheses, and have done more than most to demonstrate why. My first article as editor for the BSTS Newsletter was a detailed demolition of most of the arguments in favour of it. Nevertheless, the Riani/Atkinson paper demonstrating a chronological gradient is sensible, and, as I have suggested above, may result from a zero-C14 addition of some kind, which could have had the overall effect of shifting an estimated date of about 1340AD back to that of about 1280AD, which I believe is is better interpretation of the Nature data as it stands.
Click to expand...

The suggestion that the data can fairly be interpreted as supporting the possibility of the three samples being from different cloths is NOT presented in the Nature data; it is, in fact, your invention, your sensational danbrowning of actual data. Not to mention that you appear to be trying to have your cake and eat it, too, as your invention of "multiple sources for the samples" contradicts your adoption of the supposed "chronological gradient" of a single sample. You should distinguish between rational data analysis and fanfic.
 
hugh farey said:
That's not my invention, and that's not what I said. However it does our argument no good to ignore the fact that the X-squared figure for the Shroud was vastly different from the equivalent figure for the controls. It is an anomaly, and it has to be explained. As I actually did say, there are various possible explanations, and, from the data alone, one cannot distinguish between their probabilities. From the Nature data alone, 'Shroud' dates from different materials cannot be ruled out. .
Click to expand...

Yes, that is true. Of course, the obvious answer is that "the originally assigned error limits were too small."

Because this happens all the time in physical measurements. In fact, it's a possibility that is addressed in standard statistical books (I remember it being addressed in Bevington).
 
Slowvehicle is correct that the Nature paper itself does not speculate much upon why, for the Shroud samples alone, "The spread of the measurements for sample 1 is somewhat greater than would be expected from the errors quoted." Nor did I say it did. However, the unexpected spread of the measurements surely entitles any interested party to ask; why? And as I did say, various possibilities present themselves, which, on the data alone, cannot be ruled out. Some of those possibilities may be mutually contradictory. One possibility is that the samples came from different materials. Another possibility is that the sample was progressively contaminated. Another possibility is that it was just luck. Another possibility is that the sample was homogeneous but that the error measurements quoted by the laboratories were smaller than they really were. There may be further possibilities involving secret agents or aliens. On the statistical data alone, it is not possible to ascribe probabilities to these alternatives. We must then use other data to distinguish between them. On the basis of that other data (mostly the detailed examination of the samples by the laboratories), the Nature paper authors assumed that the reason for the anomaly was erroneous errors ("It is unlikely that the errors quoted by the laboratories for sample 1 fully reflect the overall scatter.") and proceeded accordingly.

It is a common feature of authenticist arguments that they pretend that anomalies in their information simply do not exist. That saves them the bother of having to explain them. It is important that non-authenticists do not fall into the same error, I think. I bow to Dinwar's expertise in radiocarbon dating, but I fear I do not think that "Those percentages are essentially meaningless" (even if largely true) is a sufficient way of explaining the difference between the X-squared result for the Shroud (6.4) and the contemporaneous Control Sample 4 (the St Louis Cope) - 2.4. If it were, then there would have been no need for the authors of the paper to comment on it.
 
hugh farey said:
That's not my invention, and that's not what I said. However it does our argument no good to ignore the fact that the X-squared figure for the Shroud was vastly different from the equivalent figure for the controls. It is an anomaly, and it has to be explained. As I actually did say, there are various possible explanations, and, from the data alone, one cannot distinguish between their probabilities. From the Nature data alone, 'Shroud' dates from different materials cannot be ruled out.
Click to expand...


Presumably all properly published C14 measurements report an error figure, whether larger or smaller than the 5% in the Nature paper. In fact, just off the top of my head, that same question probably applies to everything science ever measures.

Does that mean you would argue that everything that has ever been dated or measured should be suspected of being invisibly repaired with various different materials from wildly different eras?

As you know, there were 10 years of discussion before the church and STURP agreed to the C14 and decided which piece of the cloth could be cut for the C14. And that cutting and examination was viewed by dozens of people, and it was filmed too. The whole point was to be sure that the cut sample was well clear of any repairs or damage etc.
 
hugh farey said:
Slowvehicle is correct that the Nature paper itself does not speculate much upon why, for the Shroud samples alone, "The spread of the measurements for sample 1 is somewhat greater than would be expected from the errors quoted." Nor did I say it did. However, the unexpected spread of the measurements surely entitles any interested party to ask; why? And as I did say, various possibilities present themselves, which, on the data alone, cannot be ruled out. Some of those possibilities may be mutually contradictory. One possibility is that the samples came from different materials. Another possibility is that the sample was progressively contaminated. Another possibility is that it was just luck. Another possibility is that the sample was homogeneous but that the error measurements quoted by the laboratories were smaller than they really were. There may be further possibilities involving secret agents or aliens. On the statistical data alone, it is not possible to ascribe probabilities to these alternatives. We must then use other data to distinguish between them. On the basis of that other data (mostly the detailed examination of the samples by the laboratories), the Nature paper authors assumed that the reason for the anomaly was erroneous errors ("It is unlikely that the errors quoted by the laboratories for sample 1 fully reflect the overall scatter.") and proceeded accordingly.

It is a common feature of authenticist arguments that they pretend that anomalies in their information simply do not exist. That saves them the bother of having to explain them. It is important that non-authenticists do not fall into the same error, I think. I bow to Dinwar's expertise in radiocarbon dating, but I fear I do not think that "Those percentages are essentially meaningless" (even if largely true) is a sufficient way of explaining the difference between the X-squared result for the Shroud (6.4) and the contemporaneous Control Sample 4 (the St Louis Cope) - 2.4. If it were, then there would have been no need for the authors of the paper to comment on it.
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Woo!-of-the-gaps argument, buggering the concept of the word, "possibilities"*. Not really a problem, except for when disputants such as Mr. Savage claim the the "5%" possibility documented is a "95%" probability that the samples were from different cloths,"because I read that someone said so".

*Possibly the anatomical anomalies, so often lied about by authenticisti, demonstrate that Jesus was really a 'Squatch. Possibly the scriptural anomalies are explained by the fact, the fact, I say, that the Squatches mind-controlled the canon councils. And own Zondervan. Possibly at least one of the lab techs at each of the three labs was a yeti/'Squatch/human hybrid, a sleeper agent put in place to protect the secret.
 
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I most certainly agree that a 5% "probability of obtaining, by chance, a scatter among the three dates as high as that observed" does not imply a 95% probability that the different measurements come from different materials. That is merely one of many possible ways of explaining the anomaly, whose probability cannot be assessed from the Nature paper data alone, but which can be discredited on other grounds.

Should you find yourself at http://theshroudofturin.blogspot.co.uk, you will find that your "Possibly at least one of the lab techs at each of the three labs was a yeti/'Squatch/human hybrid, a sleeper agent put in place to protect the secret" is seriously proposed by one Stephen E. Jones. As far as I know he is totally alone in this belief, but it's there none the less!
 
Charles Freeman,

A few pages ago, Hugh introduced your theory here. I responded in this post: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10489702&postcount=1005

I have a question. Is there any image on the reverse side of the shroud? I think that's probably been discussed here in years gone by, but I honestly can't remember. If the shroud does have an image on the reverse, wouldn't any contemporary painting done on gessoed fabric also have a similar ghost image on the back? I don't know if the shroud does. I don't know if other paintings do. I'm just asking.

Ward
 
Good question,Ward. There were two reasons why gesso was applied to a linen, then as now, before the paint was applied. First was to prevent the paint itself being diffused through the material and losing its precision. Secondly it allowed a different painting in the other side. Many of these painted linens were flags or banners with images in both sides.

At one point it was claimed that there was an image of a face in the other side of the Shroud but this has never been confirmed- in fact it seems unlikely. The Quem Queritis ceremony would only have required one side to be gessoed and painted for a congregation to see.

One of the ingredients of gesso is calcium carbonate and STURP found ' large' quantities of this across the Shroud surface. As not a single member of the STURP team knew anything about ancient textiles or painting on linen, they failed to recognise the evidence for what it was, the sign of an original dealing for painting. They though it was no more than an accumulation of dust!!

Of course, they also failed to realise that painted images were only on the outer fibrils of the cloth- as indeed was originally the case on the Shroud. The pigments tended to disintegrate. The best comparative example I know of is the Zittau Veil in Saxony where the pigments of the central panel were steamed off in 1945 from a1492 painted linen leaving shadowy images similar to those in the Shroud. These paintings were very vulnerable which is why we have very few surviving. Unless they were pasted to a board the pigments usually disintegrated when folded or unfolded. The linen underneath would appear discoloured according to how long the pigments had been in place and this may explain why the remaining images in the Shroud appear to be negatives. The thicker the original paint,the lighter the discolouration underneath and vice versa.

All these ideas fit the evidence for the Shroud but need specialist support. There is some evidence from depictions of the Shroud that the original surface pigments disintegrated in the nineteenth century. Until then the images on the Shroud could be seen from a distance.
 
Charles Freeman said:
The linen underneath would appear discoloured according to how long the pigments had been in place and this may explain why the remaining images in the Shroud appear to be negatives.
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This peculiarity has not been discussed here for some time. It once constituted a major element of the Shroudie argument, but for some reason seems now to have less prominence. The dimensionality of the negative images is the most striking feature of the shroud, and accounts for its impressiveness as a supposedly supernatural object.

Another thing that has vanished completely from discussion is the once much-touted coin images over the eyes, which were even declared to be of known issues of local copper coins.
 
P.S. It is just possible that there may have been an original painting on the other side which was erased by scraping off the gesso and pigments before the images on the Shroud were painted on the other side. I know of no evidence to support this but it is a possible line of enquiry.

One must always remember that any study of the Shroud should begin with the mantra 'what we see today on the Shroud is not what it looked like originally.' Once that is accepted then serious research can begin. The second mantra is 'Until some evidence is found to date the material of the Shroud to earlier than AD 1000 it should be treated as medieval'. Then the research becomes really interesting but so far it has hardly begun.
 
Calcium carbonate, generally deriving from ancient chalk, contains no C14, and, if by any chance it were not removed by the cleaning processes, would have the effect of making a radiocarbon date come put older than it should, as seems to have occurred with the Oxford sample.
 
Good point. The STURP team could obviously only work from their tapes but there does seem to have been some variation in how much calcium carbonate was found on the Shroud. If there was an area where the concentration was greater then it would seem that it might well come up with an older date. If this had been a factor working the other way, we would never have heard the end of it!
 
Again, I feel compelled to note that we're dealing with dates 15% of one half-life of C14. Ideally you want to use a dating method with a half-life roughly the same as the thing being dated (not circular--you estimate the date based on other data available). At 15% of the half-life, variation is nearly inevitable. (Same with dates more than three or four halflifes, incidentally.)

Before we look for potential sources of contamination, we need to prove there WAS contamination. A good first step is to look at the variation on other Medieval artifacts from around the same time, and determine if the variation we see is within the normal variation for this method at these dates.
 
I'm only familiar with one similar radiocarbon dating, that of some purported relics of St Francis of Assisi, detailed in "AMS radiocarbon dating of medieval textile relics: The frocks
and the pillow of St. Francis of Assisi", M.E. Fedi et al., Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 266 (2008) 2251–2254. Here three samples from three different artifacts supposedly associated with the saint were dated, and gave (in years BP), 857 +/- 18, 915 +/- 40, 885 +/- 30, and 666 +/- 18. (The middle two readings are from two pillowcases which are found one inside the other). Here the errors are significantly less than the Shroud dating of 20 years earlier, and I have no doubt that the chances of all three samples coming from the same source is considerably less than 1 in 20. In this case, there was no X-squared calculation carried out; since the samples all came from different cloths, the younger one was rejected as not from St Francis's own property without further consideration.
 
Yes. They have to use a different calibration curve, taking into account the uptake of atmospheric CO2 into solution in the sea. I don't know if you followed the carbon dating of the bones of King Richard III, found recently in the UK, which dated to a significant number of years before he actually died. This is attributed to his diet, of which shellfish formed a large part. So if the calcium carbonate found on the Shroud derives from shells, it would still make the Shroud appear older, but considerably less. Rocks, on the other hand, do not have any atmospheric C14 uptake, and have essentially zero C14.
 
hugh farey said:
Yes. They have to use a different calibration curve, taking into account the uptake of atmospheric CO2 into solution in the sea. I don't know if you followed the carbon dating of the bones of King Richard III, found recently in the UK, which dated to a significant number of years before he actually died. This is attributed to his diet, of which shellfish formed a large part. So if the calcium carbonate found on the Shroud derives from shells, it would still make the Shroud appear older, but considerably less. Rocks, on the other hand, do not have any atmospheric C14 uptake, and have essentially zero C14.
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This is a known issue. The very same issue that raised it's head with regard to whether syphilis came from the new world to the old, or vice versa. It is known that a seafood diet will skew carbon dating. Feel free to tell us all what exactly was the diet of the tablecloth. I cannot see what diet a cloth might have had. As far as I know, the tablecloth of turin had no diet whatsoever.
 
abaddon said:
This is a known issue. The very same issue that raised it's head with regard to whether syphilis came from the new world to the old, or vice versa. It is known that a seafood diet will skew carbon dating. Feel free to tell us all what exactly was the diet of the tablecloth. I cannot see what diet a cloth might have had. As far as I know, the tablecloth of turin had no diet whatsoever.
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But maybe Jesus had a diet which could have had an incidence on the dating of the shroud... :rolleyes:
 
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