# Shroud of Turin redivivus - Not following where the evidence leads

**URL:** <https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910>\
**Category:** Side Conversation\
**Created:** [November 30, 2024, 3:47pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910 "2024-11-30T15:47:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 44

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**Author:** ![Tim](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/tim/32/9381_2.png) [@Tim](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Tim)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 4:26pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/876 "2025-01-08T16:26:40Z")

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> [@colewd](#):
>
> The conclusion from the evidence collect by the STURP team was that the shroud was not a painting.

Did STURP ever conclude the chemical composition of the image on the shroud?

If not, then:

1. It would not be being too cynical to suggest that STURP is more interested in _what the shroud is not_ than what the shroud is – hardly a particularly scientific viewpoint.

2. It would be _completely premature_ to attempt to speculate how this image might have been created.

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**Author:** ![colewd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@colewd](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/colewd)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 4:29pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/877 "2025-01-08T16:29:42Z")

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> [@Faizal\_Ali](#):
>
> Which would be an important advantage if the tests provided any useful information

If you don’t think that the information is useful make the case. If flax fibers break down at a predictable rate then your claim becomes problematic.

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**Author:** ![Rumraket](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/rumraket/32/9328_2.png) [@Rumraket](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Rumraket)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 4:31pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/878 "2025-01-08T16:31:01Z")

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> [@Faizal\_Ali](#):
>
> However, there is no good reason to think it is anything other than a smudgy image some forger painted on a piece of linen. That crackpots and gullible fools believe the fanciful stories of this being some miraculous image containing “3D information” that no one can explain is just part of the reams of nonsense surrounding this relic.

This. The list of putative “facts” to be explained about the image are all completely dubious.

Shroud research and scholarship has been so fantastically abysmal and pathetic, close to nothing claimed about it can be subject to much trust or certainty. Shroud claims are regurgitated uncritically among shroud apologists, about everything from the nature of certain limestone minerals to the nature and species of pollen grains found on it.

There is no use trying to come up with a hypothesis for the nature of the image on the shroud, when the details claimed about that image are simply not trustworthy and can’t be verified. It’s a total waste of time.  
Even regarding the the image, we have multiple contradictory claims about the nature of the image, ranging from being made of an extremely thin layer of caramelized linen fibres that can supposedly _only_ be formed by exposure to certain wavelengths of UV, through claims that it can be easily reproduced scorchmarks, to consisting of various common medieval pigments. How is one supposed to sort among these varying claims? Pick the facts you like and claim the people who disagree are biased. Total waste of time.

Just look at everything surrounding the claim that AB type blood has been found on the shroud as an example. With a test that can’t actually tell if it’s blood, this has to be already known beforehand otherwise the test is meaningless.

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**Author:** ![Tim](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/tim/32/9381_2.png) [@Tim](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Tim)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 4:31pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/879 "2025-01-08T16:31:59Z")

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> [@Rumraket](#):
>
> There is no use trying to come up with a hypothesis for the nature of the image on the shroud, when the details claimed about that image are simply not trustworthy and can’t be verified. It’s a total waste of time.

_ **This.** _

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**Author:** ![Faizal\_Ali](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/faizal_ali/32/12416_2.png) [@Faizal\_Ali](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Faizal_Ali)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 4:54pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/880 "2025-01-08T16:54:03Z")

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> [@colewd](#):
>
> If you don’t think that the information is useful make the case.

I just did. As have I and many others throughout this discussion.

Do you think you have any responsibility to demonstrate that the test _is_ useful? Or is it sufficient that you can use it as a pretext for yet more sealioning?

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**Author:** ![Tim](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/tim/32/9381_2.png) [@Tim](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Tim)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 5:05pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/881 "2025-01-08T17:05:09Z")

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> [@colewd](#):
>
> The main advantages are the tests are non destructive ie the sample can be re tested and several points on the shroud can be tested.

But if these tests have no _reliability_ advantage over carbon-dating, then what is the point? _However many_ unreliable ‘retests’ are performed they will still be trumped by a single **validated** test performed under controlled and well-documented conditions on samples of known provenance.

In the same way that a single **verifiable fact** will trump any number of unverifiable rumors.

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**Author:** ![Mercer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Mercer](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Mercer)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 5:33pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/882 "2025-01-08T17:33:29Z")

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> [@Faizal\_Ali](#):
>
> I doubt it. The Vatican could keep snipping pieces off the Shroud and C-14 testing them until there wasn’t enough left to cover Jesus’s foreskin.

Since you brought it up…

> **[Holy Prepuce](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Prepuce)**
>
> The Holy Prepuce, or Holy Foreskin (Latin præputium or prepucium), is one of several relics attributed to Jesus, consisting of the foreskin removed during the circumcision of Jesus. At various points in history, a number of churches in Europe have claimed to possess the Prepuce, sometimes at the same time. Various miraculous powers have been ascribed to it.
> All Jewish boys are required by Jewish religious law to be circumcised on the eighth day following their birth; the Feast of the Circumcisio...

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**Author:** ![RonSewell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/ronsewell/32/6194_2.png) [@RonSewell](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/RonSewell)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 5:49pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/883 "2025-01-08T17:49:54Z")

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> [@colewd](#):
>
> Why did these other methods come up with such different results on other areas of the Shroud?

Any dating method must justify the validity of assumptions around constancy of origin and the rate and linearity of change over time under defined conditions. All dating methods, even proven ones such as carbon dating, are subject to being screwed up by sample factors or contamination.

If you send a sample to be dated to any dating lab, the report you get back will include a reference to one of the ongoing IntCal standards, which are updated every few years. These are built on aggregate calibrations involving thousands of data points. It has taken decades of experience and testing to arrive at the present protocols and degree of confidence. Without a reliable calibration to measure against, all you have is a guess.

As I distantly recall from CHEM 101 lab, failing any analysis is as easy as slipping off a wet log. It is not at all surprising that novel methods yield erroneous results. Given that they were pursued to undermine confidence in the carbon dating, it would be surprising otherwise.

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**Author:** ![Faizal\_Ali](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/faizal_ali/32/12416_2.png) [@Faizal\_Ali](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Faizal_Ali)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 5:54pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/884 "2025-01-08T17:54:55Z")

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One can only speculate on how many other possible “dating” methods they tried that could not be manipulated to yield the results they wanted. Especially given how badly they had to torture the data to obtain acceptable results in the papers they _have_ managed to publish.(“Publish”, in this context, meaning “posted on the internet somewhere.”)

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**Author:** ![colewd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@colewd](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/colewd)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 6:25pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/885 "2025-01-08T18:25:48Z")

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> [@Faizal\_Ali](#):
>
> Do you think you have any responsibility to demonstrate that the test _is_ useful? Or is it sufficient that you can use it as a pretext for yet more sealioning?

I am asking you to get into the details vs simply a rhetorical argument.

> [@Tim](#):
>
> But if these tests have no _reliability_ advantage over carbon-dating, then what is the point?

Again, they are non destructive so more data can be generated across the shroud. I have heard of non destructive carbon tests but the shroud set up is not compatible with those tests at this point.

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**Author:** ![colewd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@colewd](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/colewd)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 6:30pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/886 "2025-01-08T18:30:20Z")

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> [@RonSewell](#):
>
> As I distantly recall from CHEM 101 lab, failing any analysis is as easy as slipping off a wet log. It is not at all surprising that novel methods yield erroneous results. Given that they were pursued to undermine confidence in the carbon dating, it would be surprising otherwise.

Hi Ron  
Regardless of what the motivation was the dating of the shroud is very limited at this point especially dating across the shroud.

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**Author:** ![Gisteron](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/gisteron/32/15845_2.png) [@Gisteron](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Gisteron)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 6:49pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/887 "2025-01-08T18:49:22Z")

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> [@colewd](#):
>
> I am asking you to get into the details vs simply a rhetorical argument.

You are not “asking” for a case as to how alternative dating methods here mentioned or discussed do not yield useful information, for _several_ cases to that end have already been made by several users, with various levels of depth. If this was a genuine challenge, it would have been long met already, and you would not have a need of raising it again.

Moreover, there would be absolutely nothing preventing you from getting into the details _even if_ no case as to the meaninglessness of the alternative dating methods here mentioned or discussed had been made already. The very first moment any doubt as to the reliability of any one of them was raised, you could have made an attempt at alleviated it by providing any peer-reviewed documentation of the test in question’s range of applicability and margins of error, provided any such documentation exists and is known to you. In fact, you could have preemptively bolstered the case by doing that _even before_ any such doubts were raised.

That you did not implies that you either (a) trust the method _without_ having any scientifically respectable reason to, or (b) that keeping this a rhetorical argument is _exactly_ what you want, and you are _actively_ avoiding opportunities to actually advance the discussion, even in your favour.

> [@colewd](#):
>
> > [@Tim](#):
> >
> > But if these tests have no _reliability_ advantage over carbon-dating, then what is the point?
> 
> Again, they are non destructive so more data can be generated across the shroud.

Incorrect. If we have no information about how and when the tests in question are applicable, nor about their accuracy, then what they yield cannot be considered “data”. Doing more of them therefore does nothing to accumulate data.

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**Author:** ![colewd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@colewd](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/colewd)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 6:57pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/888 "2025-01-08T18:57:49Z")

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> [@Gisteron](#):
>
> Incorrect. If we have no information about how and when the tests in question are applicable, nor about their accuracy, then what they yield cannot be considered “data”. Doing more of them therefore does nothing to accumulate data.

Hi Gisteren  
As I mentioned previously this issue is if the breakdown in the linen fibers is approximately linear over time. If so then it can be used to estimate the age of the fabric.

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**Author:** ![Puck\_Mendelssohn](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/puck_mendelssohn/32/11849_2.png) [@Puck\_Mendelssohn](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Puck_Mendelssohn)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 7:00pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/889 "2025-01-08T19:00:58Z")

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> [@colewd](#):
>
> The conclusion from the evidence collect by the STURP team was that the shroud was not a painting. In addition the image contained things like blood marks of the head and marks on the body that were consistent with the Gospel accounts.

Dubious conclusions from cranks. But not helpful even if accurate, of course. Nothing in there provides any positive case for authenticity. Once again, it’s the old creationist method: if one can dispute the truth, then anything goes. But it doesn’t work that way. If the “shroud” were not a painting, then that would only mean it had been produced by some other method. If the “shroud” contains blood, that only means it is blood, not the blood of Jesus. If the marks are in the locations expected from the gospels, that is completely explained by the fraudster – and, I would remind you, we have strong historical evidence that this was indeed a fraud – trying to make it look like the very thing he was trying to make it look like.

Positive evidence for authenticity? None, still. No provenance, no reliable dating that isn’t completely inconsistent with authenticity, nothing.

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**Author:** ![Mercer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Mercer](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Mercer)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 7:10pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/890 "2025-01-08T19:10:08Z")

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> [@colewd](#):
>
> As I mentioned previously this issue is if the breakdown in the linen fibers is approximately linear over time. If so then it can be used to estimate the age of the fabric.

> [@colewd](#):
>
> If you don’t think that the information is useful make the case. If flax fibers break down at a predictable rate then your claim becomes problematic.

Farey covers it very well:

> Ignoring the Shroud for a moment, it might be thought that the possibility of dating archaeological textiles by two or three different methods could only be a good thing. If mechanical deterioration could really be used as a chronograph, then surely it would have been taken up by now, but a glance at Google Scholar tells us that ‘Multi-parametric micro-mechanical dating of single fibers coming from ancient flax textiles’ has only been cited 11 times since publication in 2014, 7 times by Fanti himself, and all of them solely in connection with the Shroud. The archaeological world, it seems, remains unimpressed. We’ll have to wait to see if this crystallographic idea meets with better success.

I don’t see anything more to discuss.

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**Author:** ![Gisteron](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/gisteron/32/15845_2.png) [@Gisteron](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Gisteron)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 7:11pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/891 "2025-01-08T19:11:33Z")

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> [@colewd](#):
>
> > [@Gisteron](#):
> >
> > Incorrect. If we have no information about how and when the tests in question are applicable, nor about their accuracy, then what they yield cannot be considered “data”. Doing more of them therefore does nothing to accumulate data.
> 
> Hi Gisteren (sic)  
> As I mentioned previously this issue is if the breakdown in the linen fibers is approximately linear over time. If so then it can be used to estimate the age of the fabric.

Hi, Bill.  
Respectfully, I have no clue what your reply has to do with the passage from my message you quoted.

But to answer to you anyway (just to be more respectful of your time and attention than you are of mine, apparently), no, the issue is _not_ how plausible you personally find some particular method, or what in your lay opinion would or does render it reliable. Thank you for ~~demonstrating once more the spottiness of your reading comprehension~~ the opportunity to explain the issue to you again, even after you had already quoted the explanation.

The issue is that you have neither performed, nor are willing/able to cite anyone who did, any experiments verifying that the alternative dating methods so far here mentioned or discussed actually are any sort of dependable, let alone robust enough to challenge a ¹⁴C dating. The advantage you claim they have is that they can be done lots of times, because, you say, more data can be gathered by performing more of those tests. This is false. What comes out of toy experiments with no verified scientific merit/value is not data, no matter how much of it is done.

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**Author:** ![Puck\_Mendelssohn](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/puck_mendelssohn/32/11849_2.png) [@Puck\_Mendelssohn](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Puck_Mendelssohn)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 7:17pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/892 "2025-01-08T19:17:56Z")

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There do remain SOME legitimate questions about the “shroud.” To me the most interesting is: if Henri de Poitiers, the bishop who spoke to the man who made the shroud in the 14th century, were to witness discussions like this, would he laugh more than he would cry, or vice versa?

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**Author:** ![colewd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@colewd](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/colewd)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 7:26pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/893 "2025-01-08T19:26:18Z")

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> [@Gisteron](#):
>
> Respectfully, I have no clue what your reply has to do with the passage from my message you quoted.

Here is a paper that discusses the development of one of the alternative methods.

> **[X-ray Dating of Ancient Linen Fabrics](https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/2/4/171)**
>
> We propose a new method for dating ancient linen threads by inspecting their structural degradation by means of wide-angle X-ray scattering. X-ray dating of a textile sample can be performed nondestructively and on a submillimeter area, e.g., 0.2 ×...

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Gisteron](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/gisteron/32/15845_2.png) [@Gisteron](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Gisteron)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 7:41pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/894 "2025-01-08T19:41:51Z")

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> [@colewd](#):
>
> Here is a paper that discusses the development of one of the alternative methods.

And [here](https://www.gsjournal.net/Science-Journals/Research%20Papers/View/1183) is a paper that discusses the experimental and theoretical implausibility of gravity. I did not write “peer-reviewed” on accident.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RonSewell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/ronsewell/32/6194_2.png) [@RonSewell](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/RonSewell)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 8:08pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/shroud-of-turin-redivivus-not-following-where-the-evidence-leads/16910/895 "2025-01-08T20:08:27Z")

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> [@colewd](#):
>
> Here is a paper that discusses the development of one of the alternative methods.

Where is the empirical calibration? The paper mentions that ancient textile has been found in Egypt ( actually, not rare ), but there is no mention of scattering methods being applied or verified against such archeological artifacts of known date. At the very best this is an idea in progress with some demonstration of concept, for a method which may prove too subject to manufacturing and environmental variation to improve on age determinations by other means.

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