Clete

You know, I had the same thought while I was watching the show. The guy also seems kind of statuesque and stylized to me, not really what you'd expect from the imprint of a dead body.

MortalWombat

Read about McCrone's work here.

fishbulb

All of the carbon dating stuff seems to be a red herring. This observation (from skepdic.com) says all that needs to be said about whether or not the shroud is the body impression of a real person, never mind the Christ:

Unless Jesus was a Conehead, I don't think that the image on the shroud can be the impression of his wrapped corpse.

Reynard

Sorry for not responding sooner, Clete, but I decided to do my taxes and not wait until the last minute like I usually do. Thanks MortalWombat for helping me out by posting the McCrone source.

First, it's important to note McCrone's credentials: Many in the field consider him the "Father of Modern Microscopic Analysis.� McCrone, who died in July 2002 at the age of 86, had a PhD in organic chemistry from Cornell U. He published 600 papers and 16 books or chapters. Five “shroud� papers were published by McCrone in three peer-reviewed journals.

It's important to note that McCrone's findings were also verified by the Electron Optics Group at McCrone's laboratory using electron & x-ray diffraction and electron microprobe analysis. As the reference cited by MortalWombat states, McCrone’s investigation employed polarized light microscopy, involving examination of thousands of linen fibers from 32 different areas from the shroud, “characterization of the only colored image-forming particles by color, refractive indices, polarized light microscopy, size, shape, and microchemical tests for iron, mercury, and body fluids.�

The original investigation by the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) was mostly comprised by a group of believers, who made every attempt to make the facts fit the theory (if the facts don’t fit the theory, discard the facts is their mantra. That sounds like creationism!). In addition to McCrone’s analysis, he also exposed fraudulent claims endorsed by STURP, such as the positive ID for blood and the claim that pollen was found on the shroud that only came from Palestine at the time of Christ.

Joe Nickell (see below for reference) reported that STURP representatives paid a surprise visit to McCrone’s Chicago lab and confiscated his 32 samples. They gave these samples to STURP members, John Heller and Alan Adler, who had no expertise in forensic serology or pigment chemistry as did McCrone. Guess what? Heller & Adler ID’d blood. However, at the 1983 conference of the International Association for Identification, noted forensic analyst, John F. Fischer showed how H&A's results could be obtained from tempera paint.

Nickel states that McCrone “was held to a secrecy agreement, while statements were made to the press by STURP that there was no evidence of artistry.� McCrone stated that he was ‘drummed out of STURP’ because his findings. Nickell also makes note of the strenuous STURP effort to obtain DNA from blood. This effort was disputed by Victor Tryon, a DNA expert. Tryon was concerned that the shroud was contaminated by thousands over the years. Nickell states that “Tryon resigned from the new shroud project due to what he disparaged as ‘zealotry in science’. �

The C-14 testing was done at laboratory facilities at Oxford, Zurich and U. of Arizona, with results published in Nature by 21 scientists from the U. of Oxford, the U. of Arizona, the Institut für Mittelenergiephysik in Zurich, Columbia U., and the British Museum. The testing was performed on shroud samples that had been cleaned according to established protocol. Tests were run on both unburned and burned samples, the latter demonstrating that the often-cited church fire had no effect on the C-14 dating. The results obtained were also compared to available control standards, where dates had been established by alternate means.

The following is reported in Joe Nickell’s article “Scandals and Follies of the ‘Holy Shroud’ � in the Sept./Oct. 2001 issue of Skepical Inquirer (published by CSICOP):

IMPORTANT HISTORY: The shroud showed up in 1355 at a church in Lirey, France. In 1389, Bishop Pierre D’Arcis wrote a report that was sent to the Avignon Pope, Clement VII. D’Arcis complained that “ ‘the shroud was being used as part of a faith-based healing scam.’ � Nickell, in part, quotes from this report, [He (the Dean of Lirey)] ............“ ‘procured for his church a certain cloth cunningly painted, upon which by a clever sleight of hand was depicted the twofold image of one man, that is to say, the back and the front, he falsely declaring and pretending that this was the actual shroud in which our Savior Jesus Christ was enfolded in the tomb, and upon which the whole likeness of the Savior had remained thus impressed together with the wounds which HE bore......’ �.

D’Arcis also referred to an investigation conducted by his predecessor who discovered that the shroud was painted by a forger (artist): “ ‘Eventually, after diligent inquiry and examination, he discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was the work of human skill and not miracuously wrought or bestowed.’ �

The “infallible� Pope Clement ordered that that the shroud could continue to be exhibited, but it must be loudly announced that “ ‘it is not the True Shroud of Our Lord, but a painting or picture made in the semblance of the Shroud.’ �

Nickell also points out , “There have been numerous ‘true shrouds’ of Jesus--in Medieval Europe alone, there were ‘at least forty-three True Shrouds’ claimed, along with vials of his mother’s breast milk, hay from the manger in which he was born, and countless relics of his crucifixion.�

McCrone’s conclusion that the Shroud of Turin “is an inspired painting produced by a Medieval artist just before its first appearance in recorded history in 1356�, together with the C-14 dating evidence, is particularly significant in light of the Bishop D’Arcis/Pope Clement VII historical documentation from 1389.

Sorry for the excessive length of my post, but I had to get it off my chest.

Reynard

Just received CSICOP's (Joe Nickell) official response to PBS re the Shroud of Turin:



http://www.csicop.org/list/listarchive/msg00455.html

krazykatlady

Did anyone see it? I missed it, but this popped into my email this AM. I thought I'd share it.

Quote:

PBS "Secrets of the Dead" Buries the Truth About Turin Shroud Friday, April 9, 2004 Joe Nickell, Senior Research Fellow, Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal Although science and scholarship have demonstrated that the Shroud of Turin is a medieval fake, die-hard shroud enthusiasts continue to claim otherwise. Just in time for Easter 2004 viewing, a PBS television documentary that aired Wednesday, April 7, gave them a forum to state their conviction that the image on the cloth is a first-century picture--miraculous or otherwise--of Jesus' crucified body. As part of the Secrets of the Dead series, the "Shroud of Christ?" presentation was a study in pseudoscience, faulty logic, and the suppression of historical facts. Omitted were mention of the contrary gospel evidence, the reported forger's confession, and the microanalytical analyses that showed the "blood" and "body" images were rendered in tempera paint. Unsubstantiated claims were presented as fact, and the radiocarbon results--which dated the cloth to the time of the forger's confession--were treated in straw-man fashion: presented as virtually the sole impediment to authenticity. Knowledgeable skeptics were avoided. Instead, viewers were subjected to the astonishingly absurd notion of an art historian named Nicholas Allen that the image was "the world's first photograph." (The technique was supposedly invented to make a fake shroud and then conveniently lost for subsequent centuries!) The intellectual incompetence or outright dishonesty of the show's producers is matched only by that of the PBS executives who foisted it on a credulous Easter-season audience. The following facts are an antidote to that scientific and historical revisionism: - The shroud contradicts the Gospel of John, which describes multiple cloths (including a separate "napkin" over the face), as well as "an hundred pound weight" of burial spices--not a trace of which appears on the cloth. - No examples of the shroud linen's complex herringbone twill weave date from the first century, when burial cloths tended to be of plain weave in any case. - The shroud has no known history prior to the mid-fourteenth century, when it turned up in the possession of a man who never explained how he had obtained the most holy relic in Christendom. - The earliest written record of the shroud is a bishop's report to Pope Clement VII, dated 1389, stating that it originated as part of a faith-healing scheme, with "pretended miracles" being staged to defraud credulous pilgrims. - The bishop's report also stated that a predecessor had "discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it" (emphasis added). - Although, as St.Augustine lamented in the fourth century, Jesus' appearance was completely unknown, the shroud image follows the conventional artistic likeness. - The physique is unnaturally elongated (like figures in Gothic art), and there is a lack of wrap-around distortions that would be expected if the cloth had enclosed an actual three-dimensional object like a human body. The hair hangs as for a standing, rather than reclining figure, and the imprint of a bloody foot is incompatible with the outstretched leg to which it belongs. - The alleged blood stains are unnaturally picture-like. Instead of matting the hair, for instance, they run in rivulets on the outside of the locks. Also, dried "blood" (as on the arms) has been implausibly transferred to the cloth. The blood remains bright red, unlike genuine blood that blackens with age. - In 1973, internationally known forensic serologists subjected the "blood" to a battery of tests-for chemical properties, species, blood grouping, etc. The substance lacked the properties of blood, instead containing suspicious, reddish granules. - Subsequently, the distinguished microanalyst Walter McCrone identified the "blood" as red ocher and vermilion tempera paint and concluded that the entire image had been painted. - In 1988, the shroud cloth was radiocarbon dated by three different laboratories (at Zurich, Oxford, and the University of Arizona). The results were in close agreement and yield a date range of A.D.1260-1390, about the time of the reported forger's confession. Defenders of the shroud's authenticity have rationalizations for each damning piece of evidence. For example, they assert that microbial contamination might have altered the radiocarbon date, although for an error of thirteen centuries, there would have to be twice as much contamination by weight as the cloth itself! Beginning with the desired answer, they work backward to the evidence, picking and choosing and-all too often-engaging in pseudoscience. In contrast, the scientific approach allows the preponderance of evidence to lead to a conclusion: the shroud is the work of a medieval artisan. The various pieces of the puzzle effectively interlock and corroborate each other. In the words of Catholic historian, Ulysse Chevalier, who brought to light the documentary evidence of the Shroud's medieval origin, "The history of the shroud constitutes a protracted violation so often condemned by our holy books: justice and truth." [] For more information on the Shroud of Turin and other allegedly miraculous images of Jesus of Nazareth, visit the new "Miraculous Self-Portraits of Jesus?" Feature Exhibit on the Skeptiseum (www.skeptiseum.org). Joe Nickell, Ph.D. is CSICOP's Senior Research Fellow and an expert on the Shroud of Turin. He is author of Inquest on the Shroud of Turin (Prometheus 1983, 1998) and numerous articles, including "Blooming 'Shroud' Claims" (Skeptical Inquirer, Nov./Dec. 1999) and "Pollens on the 'Shroud': A Study in Deception" (Skeptical Inquirer Summer 1994).

Ange =^..^=

colin

Geez... Anything for a buck. I really expect better from them.

Roland98

I was flipping through channels and caught a bit of it. Just that little view pissed me off; they were discussing why the radiocarbon dating was "seriously flawed" due to the location of the piece of shroud they sampled it from, and then they cut to an interview with Ian Wilson (author, The Blood and the Shroud, and The Shroud of Turin) to elaborate on that. Gave it a and turned the channel.

Postcard73

There is already a fairly established discussion of this in GRD, so I'm gonna move this thread and merge it.

Scott (Postcard73)
BC&H Moderator

American Humanist

I just glanced at the first couple of posts and I didn't see the show but I saw something about it on the History Channel the other day.

Although it remains uncertain how the image was made the first 1300 years of its alegged history are unaccounted for. The shroud was dated to around 1350 just a couple years before the first historical recodrs of it. Believers in the shroud claim that the shroud's exposure to extrem heat in 16th century fire added extra carbon and therefore made it read younger than it acually is. They claim the close proximity of the C14 date to the first hisrical record of it is pure coincidence :banghead: :boohoo: :banghead: So where the hell was if over 1300 years!?