# Legitimacy of the Shroud of Turin
**URL:** https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557
**Category:** Conversation
**Created:** [November 18, 2022, 8:23pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557 "2022-11-18T20:23:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Eddie](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Eddie)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2022, 8:08pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/81 "2022-11-27T20:08:07Z")
> [@Rumraket](#):
>
> Several years later he decided to test his theory, so he met with Dr. Scott Minnich, a scientist friend, for advice on structuring the experiment.
I believe this is the first time in the history of PS that any atheist has suggested that biologist Scott Minnich was capable of providing good scientific guidance. A red-letter day!
---
### Author:  [@Faizal\_Ali](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Faizal_Ali)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2022, 8:48pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/82 "2022-11-27T20:48:22Z")
> [@colewd](#):
>
> To start with the Sudarium and the Shroud have the same rare blood type 2% of general population.
So wrong. We don’t even know if there is any blood on the “shroud” at all. I asked for a legit scientific reference to support his claim and received nothing but crickets in response
> [@colewd](#):
>
> In addiition marks on the Sudarium matching the Shroud which also makes the chance of forgery unlikely.
Another likely story that the Shroudies probably tell each other around a campfire.
> [@colewd](#):
>
> Here is a well researched book
By a biologist. So why should anyone care? If I want to read a book about human biology, I don’t go to an archeologist or art historian.
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### Author:  [@Tim](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Tim)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2022, 11:18pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/83 "2022-11-27T23:18:48Z")
I think it may be useful to provide a short reminder for some members of a widely used convention on this, and other, forums:
> This is a quote.
When we do this we are _not_ ourselves stating the material marked up in this way, we may not in fact even agree with it, we are simply providing it as a quote from another source.
When @Rumraket quoted the website [www.shadowshroud.com](http://www.shadowshroud.com) (and more specifically [it’s History page](https://www.shadowshroud.com/history.htm)) as stating:
> Several years later he decided to test his theory, so he met with Dr. Scott Minnich, a scientist friend, for advice on structuring the experiment.
…it was not “the first time in the history of PS that any atheist has suggested that biologist Scott Minnich was capable of providing good scientific guidance”, it was merely an atheist on PS _quoting somebody else_ making this suggestion – I will leave it to others to work out whether this is the _first_ such quote.
---
### Author:  [@Rumraket](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Rumraket)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2022, 11:47pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/84 "2022-11-27T23:47:09Z")
And hey, I have no reason to think this Scott fellow can’t make suggestions for how to conduct a simple practical experiment like exposing a linen cloth to sunlight.
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### Author:  [@colewd](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/colewd)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2022, 11:47pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/85 "2022-11-27T23:47:40Z")
Hi Faizal
Here is a paper identifying the blood on the Shroud and Sudarium as most likely AB.
> **[kearse.pdf](https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/kearse.pdf)**
> [@Faizal\_Ali](#):
>
> By a biologist. So why should anyone care? If I want to read a book about human biology, I don’t go to an archeologist or art historian.
Much of the analysis is both Chemical (Shroud) and Biological (Blood and DNA). The book organizes the evidence and is well resourced.
---
### Author:  [@Faizal\_Ali](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Faizal_Ali)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2022, 2:38am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/86 "2022-11-28T02:38:36Z")
> [@colewd](#):
>
> Here is a paper identifying the blood on the Shroud and Sudarium as most likely AB.
I’ve read that already. Please quote the passage where they describe how they personally removed samples directly from the alleged bloodstains on the “shroud” and subjected them to the usual tests employed in forensic science or archeology to detect blood stains on fabric. I couldn’t find that in the paper.
---
### Author:  [@colewd](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/colewd)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2022, 1:54pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/87 "2022-11-28T13:54:29Z")
Here is a brief discussion of methods. This is from page 5 which contains more detail.
> In the early 1980s, Heller, Adler, and colleagues used labeled antibody reactive with human albumin to immunologically probe for blood components on the Shroud (5,13). For these studies, anti-albumin antibodies were labeled with a fluorescent tag and added to slides containing sticky tape samples taken from both bloodstained and unstained (control) areas of the Shroud and examined microscopically (Figure 6, top).
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### Author:  [@Roy](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Roy)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2022, 1:54pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/88 "2022-11-28T13:54:30Z")
> [@Rumraket](#):
>
> > [@Roy](#):
> >
> > But if there are blood traces on the shroud, that would mean that (i) it was in contact with a body
>
> It wouldn’t even mean that of course. One can collect and use blood to put on something. Animal blood is frequently used in cooking and has been for millennia.
Well, yes.
But if the blood traces on the shroud were from Jesus, as is claimed, they would have been from being wrapped round a body. Unless some-one (@Giltil) will concede that either (i) the blood on the shroud is not Jesus’s blood, or (ii) some-one else was using Jesus’s blood as an artistic medium.
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### Author:  [@Roy](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Roy)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2022, 1:54pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/89 "2022-11-28T13:54:31Z")
> [@Roy](#):
>
> … the Shroudies ought to be clamouring for the blood to be analysed to get details of Jesus’s blood type, DNA and haploidity.
Oops. Apparently they are, and have ‘determined’ that Jesus was AB-positive.
---
### Author:  [@Faizal\_Ali](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Faizal_Ali)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2022, 6:01pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/90 "2022-11-28T18:01:13Z")
> [@colewd](#):
>
> Here is a brief discussion of methods. This is from page 5 which contains more detail.
>
> > In the early 1980s, Heller, Adler, and colleagues used labeled antibody reactive with human albumin to immunologically probe for blood components on the Shroud (5,13). For these studies, anti-albumin antibodies were labeled with a fluorescent tag and added to slides containing sticky tape samples taken from both bloodstained and unstained (control) areas of the Shroud and examined microscopically (Figure 6, top).
Thanks, that is what I recall.
Is this the standard method by which the presence of blood, and the type of any blood that might be found, is determined? Someone dabs at the cloth with a piece of adhesive tape, and then has someone else analyse whatever schmutz the tape might have been picked up several years later?
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### Author:  [@Giltil](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Giltil)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2022, 6:05pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/91 "2022-11-28T18:05:36Z")
> [@Roy](#):
>
> But if the blood traces on the shroud were from Jesus, as is claimed, they would have been from being wrapped round a body.
Yes. So what?
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### Author:  [@Rumraket](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Rumraket)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2022, 6:05pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/92 "2022-11-28T18:05:38Z")
The least-useful for blood transfusion. Figures.
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### Author:  [@Roy](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Roy)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2022, 8:28pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/93 "2022-11-28T20:28:15Z")
> [@Giltil](#):
>
> > [@Roy](#):
> >
> > But if the blood traces on the shroud were from Jesus, as is claimed, they would have been from being wrapped round a body.
>
> Yes. So what?
You said earlier:
> [@Giltil](#):
>
> No. And the reason has been advanced by @Faizal_Ali himself, when he rightly noted that the image couldn’t have been created by contact with a body for in this case, the image would have appeared distorted, which is not the case.
If the blood traces were from being in contact with Jesus’s body, then the shroud was wrapped around his body, so the image would appear distorted.
I understand that you want the shroud to both to have been wrapped around Jesus’s body to explain the positioning of the ‘bloodstains’ _and_ not have been wrapped around Jesus’s body to explain the lack of facial distortion.
But you can’t have it both ways.
Perhaps you should explain what position the shroud was in when the image was formed, that accounts for both the lack of distortion and the ‘bloodstain’ positions.
But you won’t. Because you can’t.
---
### Author:  [@Michael\_Okoko](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Michael_Okoko)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2022, 9:01pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/94 "2022-11-28T21:01:31Z")
> [@colewd](#):
>
> Here is a brief discussion of methods. This is from page 5 which contains more detail.
>
> > In the early 1980s, Heller, Adler, and colleagues used labeled antibody reactive with human albumin to immunologically probe for blood components on the Shroud (5,13). For these studies, anti-albumin antibodies were labeled with a fluorescent tag and added to slides containing sticky tape samples taken from both bloodstained and unstained (control) areas of the Shroud and examined microscopically (Figure 6, top).
You know, Kearse made an update on his 2012 paper. Enjoy.
[1-s2.0-S2665910720300190-main.pdf](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/uploads/short-url/x5E1Bd3s0hCmWbILy5qDqgppdee.pdf) (479.1 KB)
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2665910720300190](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2665910720300190)
---
### Author:  [@Eddie](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Eddie)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2022, 11:53pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/95 "2022-11-28T23:53:38Z")
> [@Tim](#):
>
> When we do this we are _not_ ourselves stating the material marked up in this way, we may not in fact even agree with it, we are simply providing it as a quote from another source.
A petty, caviling objection to my point. I was perfectly aware that Rumraket was quoting someone else, and I’m also perfectly aware that someone can quote something without agreeing with it. But context strongly suggested that Rumraket thought the procedure recommended by Scott Minnich was good. The opening statement of Rumraket’s post was _not_ in the gray of a block of quotation, but in the white of Rumraket’s own voice, and it read:
> [@Rumraket](#):
>
> Incidentally this is how the Shroud image was most probably created:
The words “most probably” indicated that Rumraket found the described procedure highly plausible. And Rumraket knew that in the quoted matter there was a reference to Dr. Scott Minnich, who advised on structuring the experiment. The most natural inference is that Rumraket thought that Dr. Scott Minnich had made at least _some_ (however small) intelligent contribution to the experiment. And since the experiment was, in Rumraket’s view, a pretty good one, the most natural inference is that Rumraket was conceding that Scott Minnich contributed something good with his advice.
Note, since you are being pedantic, that I did not say that Rumraket _said_ that Scott Minnich provided good guidance; I said he _suggested_ it – meaning that his endorsement of an experiment shaped significantly by Minnich _suggested_ that he would grant some credit to Minnich. So my language was careful, and made no attempt to be materially misleading.
Next, I would ask you to find me any earlier opinion expressed by a PS poster, either directly stating or suggesting that Scott Minnich had ever provided good scientific input about _anything_.
Finally, I would point out that certain persons here in the past, including Roy and, if memory serves, you as well, have accused me of misleading by leaving out part of some quoted words. Well, that’s exactly what you did here. I originally wrote:
> [@Eddie](#):
>
> I believe this is the first time in the history of PS that any atheist has suggested that biologist Scott Minnich was capable of providing good scientific guidance.
But you quoted me with some words missing, i.e.:
> [@Tim](#):
>
> “the first time in the history of PS that any atheist has suggested that biologist Scott Minnich was capable of providing good scientific guidance”
– without noting that I had prefaced the words you quoted with “I believe this is…” indicating uncertainty and openness to correction. I was in effect inviting anyone with knowledge to either confirm or deny that this was the first (albeit here only indirect) compliment paid to Minnich by a poster on this site. I was not writing declaratively.
The spirit of “catching someone out” around here on small matters of form is both pervasive and petty. My comment was a tentative suggestion that Minnich, an ID proponent, had actually received a compliment here, possibly the first ever. And it was offered in the spirit of _play_, the joke being that one of the inveterate disrespecters of ID scientists around here had (perhaps unwittingly) paid a Dover Trial witness a scientific compliment. I was trying to get a _smile_ out of people. But apparently wit by itself is not sufficient around here; from now on, I guess I will have to add a smiley face even where I think the humorous intent should be obvious. (Though I would have thought the addition of “A red-letter day!” should have been sufficient to competent readers, even without the smiley face, to indicate that I was bantering playfully.)
OK, back to the Shroud …
(about which, by the way, I have no firm opinion and find tones of certainty – for either yea or nay – to be inappropriate, given all the unknowns)
---
### Author:  [@Art](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Art)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2022, 3:04am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/96 "2022-11-29T03:04:09Z")
> [@Eddie](#):
>
> Next, I would ask you to find me any earlier opinion expressed by a PS poster, either directly stating or suggesting that Scott Minnich had ever provided good scientific input about _anything_.
Such as [this?](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/lenski-s-long-term-evolutionary-experiment-the-skeptical-zone/13260/3)
---
### Author:  [@Michael\_Okoko](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Michael_Okoko)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2022, 10:44am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/97 "2022-11-29T10:44:33Z")
> [@Roy](#):
>
> Unless some-one (@Giltil) will concede that either (i) the blood on the shroud is not Jesus’s blood,
Based on Kearse’s recent commentary, that could be a dog’s, cat’s, rabbit’s, etcetera, blood. Even if future analysis show it’s actual human blood, we would have to wonder how that leads to the conclusion that it belonged to Jesus.
---
### Author:  [@Michelle](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Michelle)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2022, 10:54am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/98 "2022-11-29T10:54:21Z")
2 posts were merged into an existing topic: [The Argument Clinic](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-argument-clinic/15561/108)
---
### Author:  [@Giltil](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Giltil)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2022, 6:25pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/99 "2022-11-29T18:25:14Z")
> [@Roy](#):
>
> Perhaps you should explain what position the shroud was in when the image was formed, that accounts for both the lack of distortion and the ‘bloodstain’ positions.
Well, according to this study, the position of the shroud was the same when the bloodstain and the image formed. Moreover, it shows that _the argument (which I used to endorse) that the top half of the Shroud could not have been draping a real body when the images formed-to avoid prominent image distortions-is incorrect._
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330311578\_The\_Turin\_Shroud\_was\_not\_flattened\_before\_the\_images\_formed](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330311578_The_Turin_Shroud_was_not_flattened_before_the_images_formed)
---
### Author:  [@Faizal\_Ali](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Faizal_Ali)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2022, 12:27am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/legitimacy-of-the-shroud-of-turin/15557/100 "2022-11-30T00:27:59Z")
> [@Giltil](#):
>
> Well, according to this study, the position of the shroud was the same when the bloodstain and the image formed. Moreover, it shows that _the argument (which I used to endorse) that the top half of the Shroud could not have been draping a real body when the images formed-to avoid prominent image distortions-is incorrect._
> [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330311578\_The\_Turin\_Shroud\_was\_not\_flattened\_before\_the\_images\_formed](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330311578_The_Turin_Shroud_was_not_flattened_before_the_images_formed)
tl:dr version: “Some guy wrote some words and printed out some pictures that, he says, mean the ‘shroud’ is real.”
Lather, rinse, repeat.
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