Shroud of Turin redivivus - Not following where the evidence leads

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@Tim

Your claims about “the image, the blood type, and pollen type” are not evidence, firstly because you merely make assertions about them, you never cite any verifiable facts (specific articles, etc).

Hi Tim

I simply asked Ron if he was interested in looking into the evidence I mentioned

What I have stated is evidence as generally defined. The counter argument is to show that the evidence that I have mentioned does not support the claim. Do you have an independent citing to support your definition of evidence? It is often that those here who do not like a potential conclusion dismiss real evidence out of hand. This is what you are doing IMO.

I am not sure why you are posting here as you seem to have no interest in investigating the shroud as possible physical evidence of the resurrection of Jesus.
The shroud is a very well studied artefact and all the evidence can be examined with a simple search.

[Tim]

@colewd

I simply asked Ron if he was interested in looking into the evidence I mentioned

False. What you stated was:

@colewd

I think you should take a fresh look at the evidence.

… and then failed to cite any verifiable evidence.

@colewd

What I have stated is evidence as generally defined.

Balderdash! Lacking a verifiable citation for your claims “what [you] have stated is” hearsay “as generally defined.”

I could as easily “mention” that “the Shroud of Turin is made out of polyester”.

@colewd

The counter argument is to show that the evidence that I have mentioned does not support the claim.

No. the obvious counter to your claims is:

That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

@colewd

Do you have an independent citing to support your definition of evidence?

I don’t need one. Your question was:

@colewd

How do you define evidence … ?

And I answered that. My definition is hardly idiosyncratic. OED for example defines it, in this context, as “testimony or facts tending to prove or disprove any conclusion”.

@colewd

It is often that those here who do not like a potential conclusion dismiss real evidence out of hand. This is what you are doing IMO.

There is no “real evidence” and there is no “conclusion”. All there is is Bill Cole blindly parroting some half-remembered factoids that he read, probably third or fourth-hand, and now repeats, without either the context or the math (which he famously lacks) to draw a reasoned conclusion from.

@colewd

This is what you are doing IMO.

You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.

Given I see no evidence that your opinion is informed, I see no reason to pay it any attention.

@colewd

I am not sure why you are posting here as you seem to have no interest in investigating the shroud as possible physical evidence of the resurrection of Jesus.

The topic of this conversation (per the OP) is also about “follow[ing] the evidence wherever it lead[s]”.

For @Giltil, this seems to be:

Rogers says it, I believe it, that settles it

… carefully ignoring the fact that Rogers’ claims have since been discredited.

For you it seems to be repeating the same vacuous (i.e. “not properly filled out or developed”) talking points over and over again.

It actually doesn’t seem to matter whether it is the Shroud or Evolution that is under discussion – both your game-plans are the same regardless.

@colewd

The shroud is a very well studied artefact and all the evidence can be examined with a simple search.

Yes, and the gold-standard for dating it is carbon-dating, unless and until an alternative methodology has been validated to a similar standard, and that dating suggests that it is of medieval origin.

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@Tim

Yes, and the gold-standard for dating it is carbon-dating, unless and until an alternative methodology has been validated to a similar standard, and that dating suggests that it is of medieval origin.

This is what you guys are pushing and carbon dating is one piece of the evidence. I agree it is the gold standard and that is why I lost interest in the shroud years ago. There are other dating methods that contradict the 1989 results. Here is a paper of one of the techniques.

X-ray Dating of a Turin Shroud’s Linen Sample

Blood samples on the Sudarium and Shroud match. The blood type is AB which is the least common blood type. This also puts the carbon date into doubt given the Sudarium has chain of custody back to about 600 AD.

There is more evidence at: https://www.shroud.com.

The biggest piece of evidence IMO is the image which is very hard to tie to a forgery. The issue is not just the image but how thin it is.

[nwrickert (Neil Rickert)]

@colewd

The biggest piece of evidence IMO is the image which is very hard to tie to a forgery.

To the contrary, the image is itself evidence that the shroud is a fake.

[Tim]

@colewd

There are other dating methods that contradict the 1989 results.

William “the Sealion” Cole:

What part of “unless and until an alternative methodology has been validated to a similar standard” did you fail to comprehend?

The methodology of the paper you cite does not appear to have been particularly well validated, and seems only to have been used previously by the same team that used it in that paper.

Also, its publisher, MDPI, hardly has a stellar reputation:

MDPI’s business model is based on establishing entirely open access broad-discipline journals, with fast processing times from submission to publication and article processing charges paid by the author, their institutions or funders.[6] MDPI’s business practices have attracted controversy,[23][24] with critics suggesting it sacrifices editorial and academic rigor in favor of operational speed and business interests.[4][8][25] MDPI was included on Jeffrey Beall’s list of predatory open access publishing companies in 2014;[26][27] it was removed in 2015 following a successful appeal,[24][26] while applying pressure on Beall’s employer.[28] Some journals published by MDPI have also been noted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Norwegian Scientific Index for lack of rigor and possible predatory practices.[29][30][31]

Contents

@colewd

Blood samples on the Sudarium and Shroud match.

So you repeatedly claim without evidence.

But even if the blood samples did match, you have failed to demonstrate:

1. The provenance of the Sudarium of Oviedo, particularly given the competing claims of the Veil of Veronica.

2. That a mere blood-type match is, in any way, dispositive.

So you have neither evidence nor conclusion.

@colewd

The biggest piece of evidence IMO is the image which is very hard to tie to a forgery. The issue is not just the image but how thin it is.

More worthless, evidence-free, hand-waving.

To summarise:

1. Validated carbon dating trumps non-validated X-ray dating

2. No evidence presented for Sudarium claim

3. No evidence presented for “image” claim

Bill Cole’s score: 0/3

[misterme987 (Andrew P.)]

Tim: You’ve presented no evidence for claims A and B.

Bill: Ah, but have you considered claims A and B?

[Tim]

@colewd

What is the provinance of the Sudarium of Oviedo?

The first mention of (what might be) it appears to be in 570 by the Anonymous pilgrim of Piacenza (often misattributed as Antoninus of Piacenza – but the latter died two centuries earlier), who never actually saw this sudarium:

There is a cave on the bank of the Jordan, where there are seven cells with seven girls, who are put there as little children. Whenever any of them dies, she is buried in the cell, and another cell is built and another girl is put there, so that there are always the same number. People from outside prepare their food. We entered this place with great fear to pray, but we saw nobody. The sudarium that covered Jesus´ head is said to be there.[1]

This is problematical for two reasons:

1. it leaves a gap of more than half a millennium from the date of Jesus’ death, where the sudarium is unaccounted for.

2. It contains no description of this sudarium, so no way to ascertain that it is the same object as the one that later turned up in Oviedo.

Thereafter we appear to have a bunch of conflicting and unreliable stories, from many centuries after the event, about how the sudarium got to Spain.

All told, the Sudarium of Oviedo seems to be “as dodgy as a nine bob note”.

Addendum: far from having a “chain of custody back to about 600 AD” – its custody appears to be largely hearsay until Alfonso II of Asturias apparently built a small chapel to house it in AD 840.

[Gisteron]

@colewd

Blood samples on the Sudarium and Shroud match. The blood type is AB which is the least common blood type. This also puts the carbon date into doubt given the Sudarium has chain of custody back to about 600 AD.

No, it really doesn’t. Blood type AB is shared currently by something like 5% of people on Earth. To say that a date of somewhere around the 13th century should be called into question because an artifact from half a millennium earlier happens to share the same blood type is frankly asinine. This assumes that the blood type is so rare as to basically not occurr at all on an entire continent for something like thirty generations. How does this sound anything other than utterly ridiculous, even to yourself?

@colewd

The biggest piece of evidence IMO is the image which is very hard to tie to a forgery.

Well, as a fellow lay person, allow me to also spew an irrelevant opinion here: The chemically determined date of the artifact is, IMO, the biggest piece of evidence concerning the claim that it could possibly have been the Nazarene’s burial cloth. If it is straight up too young to have existed at the time of Jesus’ alleged burial, then nothing else about it can salvage the claim. If it did not exist when Jesus died, it is not his burial cloth. Fullstop. End of story.

Pieces of evidence are not Poker chips, and their weight is not a matter of personal taste.

• Unless you can produce evidence that blood type AB just completely disappeared from mankind between the mid 30’s AD and until after the date of the blood type testing of the shroud, it has no bearing on the age of the shroud, and can therefore not re-open the possibility that the shroud is not about a millennium too young after all.
• Unless you can produce evidence that Palestinian pollen cannot have made their way onto a European linen cloth in the middle of the crusades, their presence on said cloth has no bearing on its age, and can therefore not re-open the possibility that the shroud is not about a millennium too young after all.
• Unless you can produce evidence that human faces completely disappeared from Earth between the mid 30’s AD and until after the date of the shroud’s recovery, such that no authentic image of a man could be imprinted on his burial cloth at any of the dates between Jesus’ burial and today, the image has no bearing on the age of the shroud, and can therefore not re-open the possibility that the shroud is not about a millennium too young after all.

As I said before:

@Gisteron

If it is the case, that the artifact is too young to have existed at the time of the events it is alleged to be a remnant of, that completely precludes the claim… Until the date can be conclusively dismissed, there is nothing here to talk about.

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@Tim

@colewd

It is often that those here who do not like a potential conclusion dismiss real evidence out of hand. This is what you are doing IMO.

There is no “real evidence” and there is no “conclusion”. All there is is Bill Cole blindly parroting some half-remembered factoids that he read, probably third or fourth-hand, and now repeats, without either the context or the math (which he famously lacks) to draw a reasoned conclusion from.

There are much, much better examples of Bill Cole’s inability to do maths.

This one, for example:

@colewd

-Even if there are 10^115 different sequences able to adopt the fold the total sequence space is 10^490 so there are 10^385 sequences that do not adopt the fold. These numbers are unimaginably large.

Then there’s Bill demonstrating his grasp of advanced (i.e. high school) mathematics:

@colewd

I showed the numbers. You can simply divide to understand the amount of exploration to find a solution. To divide exponents subtract the exponents. In this case 30000-28850=250 or 10^250.

Finally, this one:

@colewd

I did answer it. But my answer was about 3x in the exponent too large. The flagellum to fold and bind 30 proteins will take about 2^10000 trials. Translated to the fraction 2^-10000 or 18^10000/20^10000.

Bill is out by more than 2500 orders of magnitude. That’s more than the size difference between a single quark and the entire universe. It’s more than the age difference between a Planck interval and the age of the universe. His maths is so bad that reality does not provide enough scope to show how wrong it is.

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@colewd

This is what you guys are pushing and carbon dating is one piece of the evidence. I agree it is the gold standard and that is why I lost interest in the shroud years ago. There are other dating methods that contradict the 1989 results. Here is a paper of one of the techniques.

Yawn.

Everything @colewd has mentioned was refuted in that thread.

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@Tim

• Validated carbon dating trumps non-validated X-ray dating
• No evidence presented for Sudarium claim
• No evidence presented for “image” claim

All the papers for these claims are referenced in the website I posted.

If the only evidence was dating I would agree with you that carbon dating trumps the waxes method. The waxes method is better for a relic like this as it can be repeated because it is not destructive.

@misterme987

Tim: You’ve presented no evidence for claims A and B.

Bill: Ah, but have you considered claims A and B?

Hi Andrew

The evidence I mentioned is well understood by people that have studied the shroud and is available on the website I posted. I would think that you would be one to take an unbiased look at the evidence. Some claim this is the most studied artefact in human history. Why would it be so well studied if as most here claim it is an obvious forgery?

[Faizal_Ali]

@colewd

There are other dating methods that contradict the 1989 results. Here is a paper of one of the techniques.

We have already discussed this worthless paper at length in another thread. I will also mention that this forum has a search function.

@colewd

Some claim this is the most studied artefact in human history.

Which only further demonstrates how utterly unhinged from reality devotees of this “Shroud” are. Exactly how many studies of this artefact have been published in the peer-reviewed literature? Do you really think no other artefact has as many? If so, show the numbers.

Suppose some researcher today wants to study this “shroud.” Can he get access to it? Can he even have a fleeting glance at it? Is access similarly restricted to every other historical artefact in the world?

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@colewd

If the only evidence was dating I would agree with you that carbon dating trumps the waxes method. The waxes method is better for a relic like this as it can be repeated because it is not destructive.

“waxes”??? It’s WAXS - short for Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering.

But it wouldn’t surprise me if Bill thinks its got something to do with wax.

Some claim this is the most studied artefact in human history.

Some people tell lies.

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@Faizal_Ali

Exactly how many studies of this artefact have been published in the peer-reviewed literature?

Hi Faizal
Here is a list. The paper I perviously cited is on this list.

Peer-Reviewed Papers on the Shroud of Turin - a Bibliography

[Faizal_Ali]

@colewd

Hi Faizal
Here is a list. The paper I perviously cited is on this list.

OK. I notice lot of marginal and open access journals on that list, and also not a lot of actual primary research. But let’s take it at face value.

Show that no other artifact in human history has more publications than this. Thanks in advance.

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@Faizal_Ali

Show that no other artifact in human history has more publications than this. Thanks in advance.

I did not make this claim but others have. This below is from the Shroud website.

The Shroud of Turin is a centuries old linen cloth that bears the image of a crucified man. A man that millions believe to be Jesus of Nazareth. Is it really the cloth that wrapped his crucified body, or is it simply a medieval forgery, a hoax perpetrated by some clever artist? Modern science has completed hundreds of thousands of hours of detailed study and intense research on the Shroud. It is, in fact, the single most studied artifact in human history, and we know more about it today than we ever have before. And yet, the controversy still rages. This web site will keep you abreast of current research, provide you with accurate data from the previous research and let you interact with the researchers themselves. We believe that if you have access to the facts, you can make up your own mind about the Shroud. Make sure you visit the page where you can Examine the Shroud of Turin for yourself. We hope you enjoy your visit. Joseph G. Marino, Editor.

Can you refute this claim?

[Argon]

@colewd

It is, in fact, the single most studied artifact in human history, and we know more about it today than we ever have before.

Possibly because solid studies don’t support what believers want the answer to be. So, they’ve got to keep torturing the evidence.

See also: ‘people who continue to asset that childhood vaccines caused the increase diagnoses of autism’, or Young Earth Creationists’.

To be honest, I’d say the most studied artifact is the human genome. Or, if we’re taking about human artifacts, probably the Torah, New Testament or the Koran.

[Giltil (Gilbert Thill)]

I was responding to Ron who said, about the arguments in favor of the authenticity of the shroud he knew about, that they have that “Ancient Mysteries” type TV series characteristic where some maverick Dr. Brainiac proves Atlantis was an advanced civilization and aliens built the pyramids. By referring him to Rogers’ paper and underlying Rogers’ credentials, the purpose was simply to show Ron that anyone who expresses doubts on the validity of the carbon dating is not « some maverick Dr. Brainiac ». That’s all. No need to get on yours high horse here.

[Faizal_Ali]

@colewd

I did not make this claim but others have.

I see.

Do you believe it is true?

If so, what is your evidence?

If not, well, whatever.

FWIW, I went to Google Scholar, looked up “Shroud of Turin” along with some other possibilities like “Rosetta Stone”, “Dead Sea Scrolls”, “Mask of Tutankhamun” and “Stonehenge”(because I’m just a typical dolt and those are the kinds of things that came to my mind) and saw how many hits came up. Try it!

[Giltil (Gilbert Thill)]

@Argon

To be honest, I’d say the most studied artifact is the human genome. Or, if we’re taking about human artifacts, probably the Torah, New Testament or the Koran.

Neither the human genome, the Torah, the New Testament or the Koran are artefacts. However, a particular physical copy of the Torah or the New Testament or the Koran can be considered an artefact.