Shroud of Turin redivivus - Not following where the evidence leads

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@Faizal_Ali

One result of this flaw, which I suspect is actually an advantage for Fanti’s purposes, is that the results can easily be fudged to give almost any result you want.

Fanti is not the lead author here. The method is one of 4 methods that give similar results.

The problem you have is that the results would be very different if the shroud was indeed 700 years old and only lived in much cooler environments such as Italy and France than the homes of the comparative Egyptian linens.

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@Faizal_Ali

Uh huh. I find it hard to believe you do not realize how this, alone, completely invalidates the entire WAXS paper…

Need a hint?

Do understand the difference in sample size of the methods?

[Faizal_Ali]

@colewd

Fanti is not the lead author here. The method is one of 4 methods that give similar results.

I guess you don’t understand how academic publishing works. Oh well.

@colewd

The problem you have is that the results would be very different if the shroud was indeed 700 years old and only lived in much cooler environments such as Italy and France than the homes of the comparative Egyptian linens.

Yes, if this method was not an entirely useless crock of excrement, it would present a problem for those who accept that correct age of the “shroud.” But, as things are, no such problem exists.

@colewd

Do understand the difference in sample size of the methods?

“Ork, ork, ork!”

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@Faizal_Ali

Yes, if this method was not an entirely useless crock of excrement, it would present a problem for those who accept that correct age of the “shroud.” But, as things are, no such problem exists.

A bald assertion ignoring a very big problem with your position. Linen polymerisation does break down over time and the calibration done does show reasonable accuracy. The results here are way off what would be required to validate the carbon date of around 1300 AD.

@Faizal_Ali

“Ork, ork, ork!”

Yep this sea lion is asking you to think about the actual details.

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@colewd

@Roy

No, it’s an argument that means you do not yet understand basic arithmetic. Since the effects of temperature require at least basic arithmetic, your opinion of them is irrelevant.

What is irrelevant is your assertions about my understanding of mathematics or test and measurement.

They aren’t assertions. You did refer to “a 65 year error” between 65AD and when Jesus was buried.

Let’s stop beating each other up and learn something here. You did look at the paper and the graphs which puts you ahead of most. Now it’s time to take a deeper dive into the measurement methods and to understand why a minimum may have assumptions that if changed by a little will move the minimum.

The ‘minimum’ in this case is based on historical events, not on any measurement assumptions. It’s not going to move. The best you can do is render it irrelevant - but that means you have no date at all.

Anyway, I’ve dived into WAXS deeper than you have. You are the one who should be diving deeper, into both WAXS and carbon dating. At this point, you can’t even get the name right.

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@Gisteron

@colewd

Now it’s time to take a deeper dive into the measurement methods and to understand why a minimum may have assumptions that if changed by a little will move the minimum.

If the minimum is a not-actually-a-minimum, then we are dealing with dishonest reporting.

Ah, dishonest reporting.

That would be like the authors choosing to not report the 65AD date for one of their samples, which is after Jesus’s burial, saying instead that it was “2000 years old”, which is not.

There is no “If”.

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@Roy

The ‘minimum’ in this case is based on historical events, not on any measurement assumptions. It’s not going to move. The best you can do is render it irrelevant - but that means you have no date at all.

Hi Roy
The method shows reasonable accuracy certainly enough to invalidate the carbon date given the environment over the last 700 years is known .

What we are left with at this point is an image that no one can explain how it was formed in the ancient past. Blood stains that show a crucified man that matches the gospel accounts.

Can you help me understand why there is so much opposition to the possibility that the relic is real?

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@colewd

@Gisteron

Or is it, perchance, the case that in order for their study to mean jack poop at all, the whole nuclear contamination “theory” needs to fly out the window, leaving you and yours with no way of dismissing the carbon date?

Based on this statement it does not appear you have followed the arguments. The contamination of the sample could be due to repair which was part of @Giltil original thesis.

Which would also affect the WAXS results. If you’re carbon dating the wrong piece of cloth, you’re also WAXS analysing the wrong piece of cloth. And if the carbon date is correct but for the wrong material, the WAXS date is hopelessly wrong.

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@Roy

Which would also affect the WAXS results. If you’re carbon dating the wrong piece of cloth, you’re also WAXS analysing the wrong piece of cloth. And if the carbon date is correct but for the wrong material, the WAXS date is hopelessly wrong.

The sample size of the WAXS method is much smaller than the carbon sample.

[Gisteron]

@colewd

Linen polymerisation does break down over time…

Unaffected by neutron radiation? Affected by neutron radiation in some unspecified manner? Or was there no neutron radiation in there to begin with, and the carbon date is either (a) perfectly fine, as it’s gathered from the same sample whence the WAXS date you trust came from, or (b) incorrect, and because it is gathered from the same sample whence the WAXS date is determined, so is it?

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@Gisteron

Unaffected by neutron radiation? Affected by neutron radiation in some unspecified manner? Or was there no neutron radiation in there to begin with, and the carbon date is either (a) perfectly fine, as it’s gathered from the same sample whence the WAXS date you trust came from, or (b) incorrect, and because it is gathered from the same sample whence the WAXS date is determined, so is it?

There may or may not be neutron radiation. Again if there is cotton in the sample that WAXS method could avoid it due to a much smaller sample requirement.

[Gisteron]

@colewd

There may or may not be neutron radiation.

What is that supposed to mean? Are you seriously suggesting there would be no way of telling if an organic sample had been subjected to a massive burst of neutron radiation enough to alter its carbon date by a quarter halflife? “Oh you know, maybe there was, maybe there wasn’t. Really, looks the same either way.” Are you serious?

[Faizal_Ali]

@colewd

Again if there is cotton in the sample that WAXS method could avoid it due to a much smaller sample requirement.

Uh huh. The sample that dates to 700 years old because it is a repair patch suddenly is no longer a repair patch when a new dating method gives a result of 2000 years old.

Very reasonable. Very scientific.

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@colewd

@Roy

The ‘minimum’ in this case is based on historical events, not on any measurement assumptions. It’s not going to move. The best you can do is render it irrelevant - but that means you have no date at all.

Hi Roy
The method shows reasonable accuracy …

If that were true, you would have a date and error range from the WAXS method.

You don’t.

So it’s not true.

… certainly enough to invalidate the carbon date given the environment over the last 700 years is known .

Not without actual numbers it isn’t.

[Argon]

It’s like Schrödinger’s cat. There is massive neutron emission when needed to justify one argument and none when it might adversely affect another. And free from any sense of cognitive dissonance. Remember, for certain ID proponents, there are no recognized bad or mutually incompatible hypotheses in ID or in justifications of miracles. Don’t ask them to choose one hypothesis over another. They’re all precious.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@Dan_Eastwood

Changed the topic title, because calling someone out like that is rude. My apologies to @Giltil for not acting on this sooner.

Why? The title was a response to @Giltil’s OP, as well as his rudeness to @Roy here:

@Giltil

Well then it seems that you don’t know what is the meaning of the word « evidence »

[Tim]

Thank you Bill for that dishonest, cherry-picked misrepresentation of Roy’s post.

@colewd

The minimum date is not absolute. 65 years is very close. Dating has errors.

As Roy demonstrated:

WAXS is not dating – in that it provides no independent dates.

The “65” AD date was borrowed by WAXS from some other method.

As it has no endogenously-generated dates, it has no explicit error measures, so we have no idea how inaccurate it is. This is part of why WAXS is “not properly filled out or developed” (i.e. vacuous).

@colewd

In the case of carbon due to contamination in the case of waxes due to temperature.

This claim dishonestly ignores Roy’s point in the post you were replying to:

@Roy

For contamination to cause a real age of ~2000y to appear to be ~700y, there would need to be more contamination than original sample - which would be bloody obvious to anyone handling it - of the material would have to be contaminated with something that gave a carbon date in the far future.

I think it is time for some (more) MATH Bill. If you want to claim that the shroud is 12-13 centuries older, then you have to show the math as to how this is possible. What percentage of contamination, what date of contamination, and calculations showing that this would give the date that Carbon Dating found.

Addendum: I see that I had already provided Bill with evidence of this:

@Tim

This is important because it is the the age and proportion of contaminants that affects the degree to which they skew the dates, and it requires a very large amount of contaminant to do so:

[source]

You whine piteously when everybody on this thread accuses you of lying and/or dishonesty, but you demonstrate that dishonesty with practically each and every post Bill.

[Tim]

@colewd

Again if there is cotton in the sample that WAXS method could avoid it due to a much smaller sample requirement.

“Again”, the dishonest “cotton” bullshit.

1. The amount of cotton discovered was tiny Bill. It would not have significantly altered the Carbon dating even if it was not original. (Again, if you want to claim contamination, you need math Bill.)

2. There is no evidence that it was not original. It could easily have been introduced during the weaving process, e.g. due to the weaver weaving both fibres, and therefore having both around in their workplace.

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@Tim

“Again”, the dishonest “cotton” bullshit.

1. The amount of cotton discovered was tiny Bill. It would not have significantly altered the Carbon dating even if it was not original. (Again, if you want to claim contamination, you need math Bill.)
2. There is no evidence that it was not original. It could easily have been introduced during the weaving process, e.g. due to the weaver weaving both fibres, and therefore having both around in their workplace.

Bald assertion Tim strikes again

@Roy

If that were true, you would have a date and error range from the WAXS method.

We have dates of linen with know dates that show the method is reasonably accurate. Again if the shroud was of the 14th century it would have spent its life a low temperature and would show little degradation.

[Tim]

@colewd

Bald assertion Tim strikes again

Dishonest sealion William “I can’t do the math, but I’ll make the claim anyway” Cole strikes again.

My claim, that the amount of cotton was tiny and could have been original, was factual Bill:

[1])

The only (bald, unsubstantiated, batshit, bullshit, half-arsed, etc, etc) assertion was your claim that the cotton fibres were a problem.

Addendum: looking back, I had ALREADY provided Bald-faced flyer^[1] Bill with this information:

@Tim

@colewd

The cotton fibres are younger and possibly from repairs this could skew the results. This is case @Giltil has made.

1. @Giltil has made no mention of cotton or of repair.
2. Where is the age and the proportion of the cotton established?

One report I’ve seen is that, in one of the samples, there were only “two or three fibres that looked out of place”, these were taken for closer examination and were found to be cotton fibres and “quite old”.

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1. Someone who baldly “flies in the face of” the facts. Sort of like a cross between a lappet-faced vulture and Donald Trump. ↩︎