Shroud of Turin redivivus - Giltil doesn't follow where the evidence leads

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776

From http://www.factsplusfacts.com/resources/Vanililin.htm:

Vanillin is produced naturally by the thermal decomposition of lignin. But, it diminishes and disappears with time. The kinetics constants for calculating the loss of vanillin from lignin are E = 29.6 kcal/mole and Z = 3.7 X 10exp11/second.

Note that the authors ignore the demonstrated fact that vanillin can be continuously produced. Without a rate constant for vanillin production over time, the arguments posed by the authors are meaningless.

Quantitative counts of lignin residues show large differences between the carbon 14 sampling areas and the rest of the Shroud. Where there is lignin, in the sample area, it tests positive for vanillin. Other medieval cloths, where lignin is found, also test positive. But the main body of the Shroud, with significant lignin at the fiber growth nodes, does not have vanillin. This fact, alone, completely challenges the validity of the carbon 14 test.

Once one takes into account the fact that abiotic vanillin generation from lignin is inevitable, then one can as easily conclude that the “main body of the Shroud” is in fact much younger than the C14 sampling region. I repeat for your benefit, @colewd , younger not older.

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777

I offered to retract or modify my claim so I am not sure how you can justify your accusation in your own mind unless you are challenged with truth yourself. I simply made a rhetorical mistake which I owned up to. You accused someone of lying without facts of intent on your side. You should be more careful if you want people with integrity to take you seriously.

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Hi Art
Can you repost the paper. The link did not work.

779

Bill “Death To Irony Meters” Cole strikes again.

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780

Can vanillin be produced in a linen cloth that is hundreds of years old?

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If the linen cloth has lignin, then yes.

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Hi Art
Your observation is very interesting here. Thanks. What is your reason on why the body of the cloth is much younger? How would the body of the shroud be younger than the edges? If it was older why would it not produce vanillin?

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It was easy to counter.

Attacking the papers is not the same as attacking the author, which was your accusation.

The accusation of lying was appropriate because you are and always have been a shameless liar, and are currently engaged in posting shameless lies in order to avoid admitting to your earlier shameless lies.

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784

Do you claim that no one has attacked Fanti?

People who make accusations like this are the ones with problems with the truth. To accuse a person of lying you need to have proof of intent. I will give you the benefit of the doubt here but @faizal has no excuse given his education.

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To be fair, I think one could charitably interpret the “no observable defects” phrase as meaning that it is merely a realistic depiction, and not that the body depicted is in pristine health. That ignores of course the actual crudeness and disproportions of the picture. So one can fault the author for inattentiveness and/or ignorance of basic human anatomy without reading overt self-contradiction between one statement in the paper and the next.

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786

Whatever, how do you explain that the sample used for radiocarbon dating and the main body of the shroud produced such different results when subjected to the vanillin test? Is this not evidence that there may be a lack of homogeneity within the shroud?

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787

If vanillin is both made and degraded, then vanillin levels will first increase and then reach a steady state as time passes. The only way to have low vanillin is for the sample to be young, before the steady-state is reached.

I must re-state - older samples will produce vanillin, continuously and until lignin is no longer present. Only young samples will not have vanillin. Thus, Shroud enthusiasts who point to low vanillin levels as as an indicator that some parts of the Shroud are older than others are wrong, and in fact are getting their arguments backwards.

As for how the different Shroud samples may be different, the levels of vanillin may be so close to the limits of detection, and/or the inherent variability in the method may be so great, that the perceived differences are not real. I believe this is the best explanation. This, combined with the inherent unreliability of the use of vanillin to infer age (as explained in my prior comments), renders the vanillin test as useless. We should not be drawing any conclusions about relative ages. Period.

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788

Well, it seems that since 1900, most medical experts and anatomists that have studied the shroud have opined that the image was flawless. Below are some quotes taken from Meacham’s piece that illustrate the point:

Scientific scrutiny of the Shroud image began in 1900 at the Sorbonne. Under the direction of Yves Delage, professor of comparative anatomy, a study was undertaken of the physiology and pathology of the apparent body imprint and of the possible manner of its formation. The image was found to be anatomically flawless down to minor details: the characteristic features of rigor mortis, wounds, and blood flows provided conclusive evidence to the anatomists that the image was formed by direct or indirect contact with a corpse, not painted onto the cloth or scorched thereon by a hot statue (two of the current theories). On this point all medical opinion since the time of Delage has been unanimous (notably Hynek 1936; Vignon 1939; Moedder 1949; Caselli 1950; La Cava 1953; Sava 1957; Judica-Cordiglia 1961; Barbet 1963 ; Bucklin 1970; Willis, in Wilson 1978; Cameron 1978; Zugibe, in Murphy 1981). This line of evidence is of great importance in the question of authenticity and is briefly reviewed below.

Of greatest interest and importance are the wounds. As with the general anatomy of the image, the wounds, blood flows, and the stains themselves appear to forensic pathologists flawless and unfakeable. “Each of the different wounds acted in a characteristic fashion. Each bled in a manner which corresponded to the nature of the injury. The blood followed gravity in every instance” (Bucklin 1961:5). The bloodstains are perfect, bordered pictures of blood clots, with a concentration of red corpuscles around the edge of the clot and a tiny area of serum inside. Also discernible are a number of facial wounds, listed by Willis (cited in Wilson 1978:23) as swelling of both eyebrows, torn right eyelid, large swelling below right eye, swollen nose, bruise on right cheek, swelling in left cheek and left side of chin.

The wounds of the crucifixion itself are seen in the blood flows from the wrists and feet. One of the most interesting features of the Shroud is that the nail wounds are in the wrists, not in the palm as traditionally depicted in art. Experimenting with cadavers and amputated arms, Barbet (1953:102-20) demonstrated that nailing at the point indicated on the Shroud image, the so-called space of Destot between the bones of the wrist, allowed the body weight to be supported, where-as the palm would tear away from the nail under a fraction of the body weight. Sava (1957:440) holds that the wristbones and tendons would be severely damaged by nailing and that the Shroud figure was nailed through the wrist end of the forearm, but most medical opinion concurs in siting the nailing at the wrist. Barbet also observed that the median nerve was invariably injured by the nail, causing the thumb to retract into the palm. Neither thumb is visible on the Shroud, their position in the palm presumably being retained by rigor mortis.

Between the fifth and sixth ribs on the right side is an oval puncture about 4.4 X 1.1 cm. Blood has flowed down from this wound and also onto the lower back, indicating a second outflow when the body was moved to a horizontal position. All authorities agree that this wound was inflicted after death, judging from the small quantity of blood issued, the separation of clot and serum, the lack of swelling, and the deeper color and more viscous consistency of the blood. Stains of a body fluid are intermingled with the blood, and numerous theories have been offered as to its origin: pericardial fluid (Judica, Barbet), fluid from the pleural sac (Moedder), or serous fluid from settled blood in the pleural cavity (Saval, Bucklin).

So convincing was the realism of these wounds and their association with the biblical accounts that Delage, an agnostic, declared them “a bundle of imposing probabilities” and concluded that the Shroud figure was indeed Christ.

So if the shroud has been made by a forger, the guy had a knowledge of human anatomy and physiology that even few of today’s experts have!

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I do not believe the reported differences are enough to draw any conclusions. So there is no reason to try to explain things.

Perhaps. @Giltil, would you agree with me, based on the simple chemistry I have presented, that lack of homogeneity indicates that the Shroud is in fact younger (much younger) than the C14 dating would indicate? If not, what reasons can you give for rejecting the simple chemistry and steady-state kinetics I have been trying to describe?

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790

Do you claim that “skeptics” are claiming no one has attacked Fanti?

I will admit the possibility that, as incredible as it might have seemed, I overestimated your ability to comprehend plain, written English and you actually believed what you wrote was the truth. In the future, I will try avoid the mistake of assuming you are less stupid than you actually are.

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791

Can you ever stop your relentless sealioning?

792

… except when it comes to basic proportions, that is.

Well, I for one have no expertise in such matters, so I’m comfortable to leave this debate to those better qualified.

For me the nail in the coffin (or the lock on the tomb, as it were) remains the much too young carbon date that conveniently matches the age of the earliest surviving records we have of anyone discussing the item. As I said in earlier posts to this thread, nothing about the visual (or chemical, for that matter) details can possibly add to or detract from the authenticity as long as it is so completely and utterly precluded by the fact that the shroud did literally not exist at the alleged time of the crucifixion and wouldn’t ever come to exist until well over a millennium too late.

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793

Flat earthers spend lots of hours writing useless bullshit as well. Doesn’t mean they aren’t cranks.

Yes, reasonable people are throwing away the work of STURP, because STURP was a bunch of incompetents.

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794

So, no evidence, then. Just the same garbage that we’ve had people regurgitating for decades.

I am not sure you understand how this looks. Relying on cranks isn’t going to get you anywhere. For the authenticity of the “shroud” to be plausible, there would have to be SOME evidence that it is the burial shroud of Jesus. There just isn’t any. You don’t even have adequate provenance. You’ve got instead something which was identified, while the artist was still alive, as a forgery. The carbon dating corroborates that – placing the origin of the forgery at the time that history tells us it was made. In response to these compelling and damning facts you have a grab-bag of the most astonishing nonsense, as “shroudies” have had for decades, with additional astonishing nonsense being added to the junk-heap every year.

Now, let’s talk about discrediting. I hope that you are aware that this sort of nuclear-grade credulity injures the reputation of the Christian faith. There are people who think that this kind of credulity is typical of the believer. They guffaw at it. They guffaw at the clowns who take pictures of angels, who find the image of Jesus on the rusty side panel of an old International Harvester refrigerator, and who show up at the ER after having found that the promised ability to handle deadly snakes isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

I imagine this must be awfully frustrating for dignified, intellectually serious Christians. This image of boundless, crazed credulity is so prevalent, and seems sometimes to work so very hard to promote itself, that serious, intellectual, honest Christian faith – much quieter but a thousand times as sincere – gets obscured by the torrent of nonsense.

Now, I personally have no stake in the Christian faith. If you want to go on damaging it, it is not a concern of mine, except insofar as I have Christian friends with whom I feel some sympathy. But I am surprised that it is not a concern of yours. You cannot honestly think that the “shroud” is genuine and you cannot fail to understand the harm you do by insisting that it is.

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795

Which is why there’s a (to a scientist) ridiculous focus on names, irrelevant qualifications, and the rhetoric they produce instead of the evidence itself.

Well, it routinely violates two of the Ten Commandments, too!

Exodus 20:4
“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”

The shroud fits cleanly in two of those three categories.

I find it indicative of a profound LACK of faith–particularly since no one involved is willing to even propose, much less do, something with the potential to falsify a hypothesis.

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