Sauron

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Layman

No. You've expounded upon your assumptions. But you've yet to show that they are reasonable ones.


The fact that stone and metal are different is merely stating the obvious. It does not establish or support your point. The question is: does the difference matter, and if you think it does, then can you provide evidence why it does?

So: can you list the metals and types of stone/rock for which this claim of yours applies? Give examples? Show how those differences would invalidate surface scratch analysis (which is really what we're talking about here)?

If so, then fine. List the differences between how metal and stone behave under surface scratch analysis. Show that the analysis methodologies in question would be invalidated.


What? Horse-hockey. You have presented zero witnesses with metals/materials science expertise to refute Eylon's conclusion about the scratches on the ossuary.


Eylon is professor and director of graduate materials engineering at the University of Dayton. He has specialized in failure analysis investigations in the aerospace industry for more than 30 years. If he says it is transferable, then you need to show otherwise. He is an expert in the scientific field, you *clearly* are not.

Because the IGS did not comment upon the surface scratches, and thus are silent on that topic;

We're not discussing the entire body of evidence for the ossuary, only these results in isolation;

Not at all. You are *comfortable* in it, because it aligns with your personal bias. But that is not the same thing as being justified in it.


No, you're simply trying to twist their statement.

No, they did not. They concluded that there was nothing inconsistent with the purported age, etc. That is not the same as an affirmative claim for authenticity.


You're getting lost in the debate. Here's how it went:

1. My question was: Do you have any reason to believe that the principle of investigation that Eylon employed here (usually conducted on metal objects) would suddenly be invalid when conducted on stone objects?

2. You responded: . The IGS study of Patina suggests that the ossuary and inscription are in fact 2000 years old.

3. I replied: Eylon's examination shows that the patina, which is on the box, is missing from most of the inscription. So both the IGS and Eylon could be correct here.

By that I mean the IGS could be correct that the patina is 2000 years old.

And Eylon could also be correct that "the box has several service-related scratches, the result of moving the box against other boxes on the cave shelves, impact with collapsed cave roof material or the final excavation," Eylon said. "The inscription would be underneath these scratches if it had been on the box at the time of burial, but the majority of this inscription is on top of the scratches."

So Eylon's analysis includes the fact that there is missing patina. In fact, it was one of his three chief findings:

[1]
"This box has several service-related scratches, the result of moving the box against other boxes on the cave shelves, impact with collapsed cave roof material or the final excavation," Eylon said. "The inscription would be underneath these scratches if it had been on the box at the time of burial, but the majority of this inscription is on top of the scratches."

Eylon states two other key findings:

[2]* the nature of sharp surface edges, like an inscription, is to be subjected to a much faster rate of abrasion, wear and corrosion, which does not appear evident in the pictures and

[3]* the patina, or tarnish, which would normally be present on such an ancient artifact, is missing from most of the inscription.


Yes, period. Eylon:

An engineering professor at the University of Dayton, who has conducted failure analysis investigations in the aerospace industry for more than 30 years,[...] In Eylon's failure analysis work, he determines if a malfunction has occurred before or after an accident.

The man is an expert in materials and metal surfaces. If he weren't, then he wouldn't be used by the aerospace industry as a 'hired expert' to examine crash sites and airplane wreckage.

Sheesh, Layman. This is why you get your reputation for being arrogant, pompous and quite annoying.


Of course you are. You're somewhat alarmed that you were caught doing so, but you weren't very clever.

Wrong in both cases.

First, Eylon is an expert in metal and materials analysis. That will include such things as build-up on the surface. So your objection is groundless.

Moreover, since the IGS already stipulated and agreed that the patina had been rubbed off the ossuary, I don't see what your problem is here. You've created another bogus strawman position here, and you didn't even realize that your own source, the IGS, already concurred with Eylon in saying that there was missing patina on the inscription.

Finally, the IGS did not take an affirmative position on the inscription. All they said was that they found nothing inconsistent. Which isn't the same.


That's OK. Your bias sneaks out between the cracks anyhow.

I'm suggesting that you are biased, because you have provided zero evidence to support your claims of differences between how metal and stone, and how they behave under surface scratch analysis. Yet you retain your skepticism.

That's bias.


Because you continue to miss the point. You don't disagree with it (at least not yet), you confuse it with another point.

Which is just another way of saying that you believe stone behaves differently than metal.

For which we still await the proof.


Just as soon as you refrain from strawmen.

Layman

Not that you have shown. Your simply casting inapplicable aspersions.

No thank you.

I do not believ everything that everyone with a degree has to say on a subject. Especially when they are contradicted by those with better credentials.

I have respect for appropriate expertise. But Eylon has not demonstrated an approrpiate expertise.

Dr. Amnon Reosenfeld and Dr. Shimon Ilani examined the ossuary and inscription with magnifying lenses. They examined the soil found in the ossuary and the stone of the ossuary itself. They used examined the chalk, patina, and soil with an electron microscope and and electron dispersive spoctrometer.

They found:

It is worth mentiuoning that the patina does not contain any modern elements (such as modern pigments) and it adheres firmly to the stone. No signs of the use of a modern tool or instrument was found. No evidence that might detract from the authenticity of the patina and the inscription was found.

First, please note that they too use the term "authenticity" as ferring to the inscription and not the ultimate issue of whether it refers to Jesus.

Second, they've done much more of a scientific investigation than Eylon. Please describe which tests and what equipment that Eylon used to reach his analysis. Has he been able to test the Ossuary itself? Or just reviewed pictures of it? According to the article in the Times, Eylon simply looked at a few pictures and apparently made some assumptions about how it would have been scaratched in the cave.

Third, they conclude that there were no signs of any modern tool or instrument and that there was " no evidence that might detract from the authenticity of the ... inscription." This directly contradicts Eylon who claims to have found modern tool marks and evidence of inauthenticity.

Yes. Can you disprove my assumptions? Has Eylon established why his expertise is so readily transferable? No he has not. And he is the one making the argument here. He has failed to convince me that his expertise is appropriate, or tha this study of the ossuary is sufficient for sucha conclusion, or that the IGS is wrong.

Not of the top of my head. No.

Eylon has the burden of proof here. And he has not met it.

If Eylon was offering an opinion on aircraft engineering I would be inclined to give him more credence on that opinion. If he has studied the ossuary at all, rather than looking at a few pictures, I might also give his opinion more weight. If the IGS had not -- after careful scrutiny of the ossuary itself -- determined that "no evidnece that might detract from the authenticity of the ... inscription was found" I might give his opinion more weight.

I've explained my reasoning at length. Eylon has failed to satisfy me that 1) he has the approrpiate expertise, 2) that he has any foundation for offering such an opinion given that he has only reviewed a few photographs, and 3) that his review of photos and lack of expertise should outweight the weighed opinions of Drs. Rosenfeld and Ilani.


[quote\Of course they are.

* You are inexperienced in the fields of metals analysis AND geology;[/quote]

The ossuary is not made of metal. And Eylon is not a geologist. Drs. Rosenfeld and Ilani are geologists.

Neither Eylon nor you have convinced me that metal and stone can be treated as if they are the same material.

It is Eylon who has failed to establish the approrpiateness of his expertise.

Nothing but an appeal to authority. Or at least an attempted one. Eylon is not an authority in this field. Nor has he even examined the artifact in question.

Actually, they are quite reasonable.

I am relying on an opinion expressed by two scientists with the Geological Survey of Israel who have put the ossuary and the inscription through a variety of tests. They have examined it with binocular magnifying lenses. They have examined samples of the chalk, patina, and soil with an electron microscope and an electron disperseive spectrometer. And they have reached a determination that there were "no signs of the use of modern tool or instrument" and there was "no evidence that might detract from the authenticity of the patina and the inscription."

Again this, there is an aircraft engineer with an expertise in metal who looked at a few pictures.

So yes, I am justified in my skepticism.

Jayhawker Soule

Sauron Contra Layman is getting a little old - maybe it belongs ~~Elsewhere~~.

joedad

No. Though I am not an engineer, I work with metals and ceramics, surface finishes and grinding media on a daily basis, and am enjoying the exchange. Layman clearly doesn't know what he doesn't know.

joe

Sauron

Translation: you're making this up under pressure, and have no basis for your statements.

You see, Layman, you have stated that metal and stone are different. That's merely stating the obvious. We all know that they are different; that's why we don't use the same word to describe both of them.

You need to do more than state "but they're different". You need to show:

1. What these differences are; and then
2. Demonstrate that the stated differences would materially impact the outcome of such analysis techniques as Eylon used

Eylon is professor and director of graduate materials engineering at the University of Dayton. He has specialized in failure analysis investigations in the aerospace industry for more than 30 years. So I'll be real eager to see how your back-of-the-envelope analysis stacks up against his.

If you can't do #1 or #2, then your objection "but stone is different from metal" is just handwaving. As usual.



More handwaving. You can't even enumerate the differences between stone and metal, nor can you illustrate how those differences would impact his analysis.

Contradicted by better credentials? Not Eylon. The news article plainly states that Eylon is the first person to examine the ossuary from such a materials science standpoint - thus demonstrating that the IGS didn't do that kind of surface scratch analysis. The IGS only commented on the geology of the ossuary. The findings of Eylon are thus orthagonal to those of the IGS, and your claims of contradiction are nonsense.



Hasn't demonstrated appropriate expertise? What a howler, Layman - even for you.

Eylon is an engineering professor at the University of Dayton, who has conducted failure analysis investigations in the aerospace industry for more than 30 years. He is not only a professor at the U of Dayton, but is the director of graduate materials engineering. The DIRECTOR.

And you think you - a run of the mill California attorney - you're qualified to tell when someone with his experience and background "hasn't demonstrated appropriate expertise"? You? And you're the same person who cannot list the differences between stone and metal, and who also cannot describe why those differences would invalidate such an analysis method?

You?

Furthermore, your claim of no expertise for Eylon is ridiculous, in light of the fact that the IGS did not do any surface scratch analysis like Eylon did. So the three principal findings of Eylon and the IGS don't even have to contradict each other here.

None of this contradicts Eylon's three principal findings. To review:

[1]"This box has several service-related scratches, the result of moving the box against other boxes on the cave shelves, impact with collapsed cave roof material or the final excavation," Eylon said. "The inscription would be underneath these scratches if it had been on the box at the time of burial, but the majority of this inscription is on top of the scratches."

[2] the nature of sharp surface edges, like an inscription, is to be subjected to a much faster rate of abrasion, wear and corrosion, which does not appear evident in the pictures and

[3] The patina, or tarnish, which would normally be present on such an ancient artifact, is missing from most of the inscription.

I know you'll trot out Eylon's comments about the inscription itself, however as I've outlined several times before, Eylon was offering those comments as an Israeli with a knowledge of Hebrew & Aramaic; sort of an armchair archaeologist. Those comments are not part of his formal findings that he submitted to the Biblical Archaeology Review. Moreover, Eylon (praticing full disclosure) does not try to pass off his analysis of the text as that of a full biblical scholar:

Moreover, the sharper letters bisect scratches on the box; if the scratches came after the inscription, they should go inside the letters, too. Only the "Shua" letters have interior scratches, he said.

Eylon's interest in the matter is far afield from his primary expertise of failure analysis (such as metal fatigue in airplanes). But he also does scholarly archeological work in Israel, his homeland. He analyzes metallurgical technology (whether iron artifacts were forged or cast).


On the geology of the ossuary, yes. But not on the materials analysis. You seem to think they are the same discipline. They are not.

Huh? Don't *YOU* know?

I mean, after all you're the one who claimed that Eylon's testing methodology would be invalid when applied to stone. If you didn't even know what those testing methodologies were in the first place, then upon what basis did you make your statement, Layman? Assumption? Bias? Ignorance of the discipline at hand?


Eylon (to the best of my knowledge) has not been able to test the ossuary itself. You are correct, he is working off of photographs. However, that is not unusual for someone in his field; he does not have to deal first-hand with every airplane wing or section of tail rudder, in order to derive useful information about of it.

In addition, when someone with 30 years of failure analysis looks at photos (whether or not it is an airplane wing or an ossuary), his conclusions are not to be trifled with. Your flippant phraseology "apparently made some assumptions" shows your evident bias. As you probably know, I live in Seattle, so every time there's a plane crash, they "round up the aviation experts" from Boeing here and ask them their opinions on the causes. This analysis is often done working from photos, although they (of course) prefer to have the real item in front of them.

If it is your claim that the kinds of conclusions that Eylon derived are not possible with photos, then you need to substantiate such a claim. And before you get started on that, I remind you that the IGS has already concurred with at least one of Eylon's findings - that the patina is missing from part of the inscription. So the prima facia evidence is that accurate conclusions most certainly can be derived from the use of photos.



And as I said many times before, Eylon was offering those comments as an Israeli with a knowledge of Hebrew & Aramaic; sort of an armchair archaeologist. Those comments are not part of his formal findings that he submitted to the Biblical Archaeology Review. So your objection is baseless, since it fails to deal with his three principal findings.


I don't have to. It's up to you to demonstrate that your assumptions are correct. We have an expert in the field, with 30 years of experience and who is a director of graduate materials engineering.

Given the choice between trusting that professor, or the biased assumptions of one mediocre lawyer, you'll have to excuse me if I prefer the expert over the pretentious blusterer.


I knew it: you're making this all up as you go.

We're talking about surface scratches, Layman. I doubt seriously that it's going to matter if the material in question is metal, stone, plastic, glass, whatever. It's the order in which the cuts/scratches are laid down that is the key yere. A cut/scratch that is 2000 years old should always appear underneath a scratch that is younger than that. Younger scratches don't recede behind older ones, regardless of the material that you're talking about. That's why Eylon's analysis is so interesting: because it's really quite elegant, and doesn't actually depend upon whether we're talking about stone or metal. But you knew alll that already, didn't you?


Wrong. You're the one with the burden of proof here - because you're the one who is claiming that surface scratch analysis (normally done on metal) won't work on stone. Your claim, your burden of proof.

Eylon is an expert in the area. You are not. You want to contradict an expert? Be my guest. But you aren't going to succeed by tossing out vague claims, and then admitting that you don't know the first thing about the physical properties of stones vs. metal.



The principle of examination in question work on stone as well as metal--and you have failed to demonstrate otherwise--so your 1st objection is groundless.

If the the kinds of conclusion that Eylon arrived at were not possible through photos, then it's highly unlikely that he would have offered an opinion on them. So your 2nd objection is groundless.

And as I've said (three times in this response, alone) Eylon was offering those comments as an Israeli with a knowledge of Hebrew & Aramaic; sort of an armchair archaeologist. Those comments are not part of his formal findings that he submitted to the Biblical Archaeology Review. So your 3rd objection is baseless, since it fails to deal with his three principal findings.




Irrelevant. We're not talking about them, we're talking about YOU.

It was YOU who dropped the claim that Eylon's method of analysis (done on metal) is invalid when applied to stone. In order for you to make such a claim, YOU need to be an expert in both fields. Otherwise, you're just tossing out guesses, and expecting them to be accepted as facts.


Eylon is an expert. You are not. In addition, you're the one who claimed that metal & stone CANNOT be treated the same. That's your claim to prove, and attempts to shift the burden of proof aren't going to work.


On the contrary. He is an expert with 30 years of experience, a professor, and a director of materials engineering at a university.

On the other hand, you have utterly failed to show any differences in stone vs. metal, where such differences would impact the analysis method.

Again: we're talking about surface scratches, Layman. It's the order in which the cuts/scratches are laid down that is the key yere. A cut/scratch that is 2000 years old should always appear underneath a scratch that is younger than that. Younger scratches don't recede behind older ones, regardless of the material that you're talking about.



Do you have an answer? What makes you, an attorney, think you would be able to spot a flaw in Eylon's application of this methodology to stone?

Eylon is an authority in this field: surface analysis. And you have yet to explain why his methodology is invalid. If the conclusions he drew were impossible to draw from mere photos, then let's see your evidence for that. Keep in mind that the IGS has already concurred with 1 of Eylon's conclusions, even though he only used a photo. So the prima facia evidence is that accurate conclusions most certainly can be derived from the use of photos.


No, you are comfortable and firmly rooted in it. But justified?

No.

Layman

I completely agree.