Hi, Bill.
Please describe what results ought to be expected. How would this be determined?
As has already been conclusively demonstrated, de Fantis’s group’s WAXS method is useless for this purpose. The same data could be used to date the “shroud” to the year 3000 AD. Or do you think the “shroud” could be visiting us from the future?
I haven’t done that. I’ve accused people who fudge the numbers in their analyses (e.g. by putting 2000ya instead of 65AD on their data plot) of being dishonest cranks.
Feel free to ignore that bit and respond to the rest:
But if the shroud is genuine, the C14 date must be so inaccurate that it’s out by a factor of 3 - which would be extraordinary.
It comes down to which extraordinary result is accepted and rejected.
Personally, I’ll retain the result that has been supported by thousands of other measurements and calibrated to 50,000 years against unrelated annual events, is unaffected by variations in temperature and humidity, and has a known mechanism and measured variability; and reject the result that not only is affected by temperature and humidity, but also by physical handling of the material, has not been successfully used to date anything at all, and doesn’t even provide a date.
Hi Faizal
No one is claiming that measuring polymer breakdown is too inconsistent to measure the age of a fabric. When a result is so different than expectations of the measurement method the measurement method must be erroneous to completely discount the data.
This claim is not supported IMO.
The possible starting point is the current date for a new linen fabric. How do you propose it would be measured in the future?
It may or may not be true that polymer breakdown, properly measured, can be used to date fabric. I have no idea or opinion on that matter. I only know it is irrelevant to what is being discussed here.
That you do not seem to understand what is being discussed provides further support for my current “Bill is not as dishonest as he seems, he’s just more stupid than can be imagined” hypothesis.
We have a firm disagreement here as IMO it is imperative to support your claim.
If polymer breakdown is consistent over time how do you propose that the measurement is a far off relative to a medieval date as reported?
No one has shown that it is far off.
On what basis do you dismiss, outright, the many concerns that have been raised regarding de Fantis’s methodology, some by people with far more expertise than he has?
From Hugh Fareys rebuttal which came from De Caro et al
From this, Aging Parameters (AP) for these textiles can be derived using:
AP = (AF – AF(min)) / (AF(max) – AF(min))
where AF(min) is the AF of a modern textile, and AF(max) is the AF of textiles so old that they all have the same AF regardless of age. From the table, AF(min) is 7.56 and AF(max) is 11.6,The AP ranges from 0 (modern) to 1 (ancient) as follows: B: 0.0
A: 0.1 DII: 0.2D: 0.4 TS: 0.6 FII: 0.7 NII: 1.0 E: 1.0 HII: 1.0 LII: 1.0D11 is a medieval piece of linen (older than the carbon date of shroud) with an aging parameter of .2.
TS is the Shroud with an aging factor of .6.
How did the Shroud measure an aging factor so far off the medieval equivalent?
You should be able to answer that yourself. Go on, give it a try.
If you need help, I suggest you read the Hugh Farey article which, hilariously, you just quoted in defense of de Caro and de Fantis’s paper
Na na na na. It is not the burden for anybody to nullify WAXS. It is up to the authors to substantiate the technique, determine margins of errors and contributing factors; and if successful that would become a widely accepted method in archeaology. So far, the only interest demonstrated seems to be with respect to the shroud. Until WAXS is established and broadly validated, any claims to dating are at best tentative. That is a prudent and dutiful degree of rigor, and far from extraordinary.
For those who have time, this video is a must to understand why the medieval forgery hypothesis is an absolute dead end.
So we’re supposed to follow the hearsay, not the evidence?
It is really unfortunate that there are so many people out there promoting this sort of nonsense that makes Christians look like idiots. If I were Christian, I would be even more angry about this than I already am.
Could somebody explain to me why a near-two-hour video interviewing an apparently random Australian professor of surgery, whose “primary interest” is listed as “Cancer pharmaceuticals” is even worth watching, let alone a “must”?
Addendum: I could turn up no evidence that Hovens has hasd any involvement with the shroud beyond his appearance on this video.
It would depend on the environment in question. An underground tomb might well have a quite stable environment in terms of temperature, humidity, pollutants, etc, etc – assuming that it was the tomb itself being measured (not simply the country).
The environment that the shroud was in for its known history would have been far more variable – making the WAXS method even less reliable, and making the mummy fabrics more questionable comparators.
Has anybody demonstrated that polymer breakdown is sufficiently consistent over time?
Yes. This is really not very complicated at all.
I didn’t even get that far. Anyone claiming a 700 year old piece of cloth could somehow have been used to wrap someone’s body 2000 years ago can be immediately dismissed out of hand, no problem.
Wow. This tread is coming up on 1000 posts.
I don’t know what to say about that. So I won’t.
Why on earth the wonderful, articulate and documented presentation by Christopher Hovens should make Christians look like idiots? And have you even viewed it?
The same way that someone wonderfully and articulately saying the earth is only 6000 years would.