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Wide Angle X-Ray Scattering

See also: fr:Discussion:Suaire_de_Turin § Datation_aux_rayons_X

Hello,

This study was published last month, challenging the radiocarbon dating analysis:

https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/5/2/47

An edit including it was recently reverted on the grounds that "MDPI is not a high-quality source." But MDPI is just a website hosting the journal in which this study was published - which is a legitimate, peer-reviewed scientific journal as near as I can tell and has an editorial board of legitimate, independent academics.

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/heritage/editors

Am I missing something here? Is there a reason that Heritage is not a reliable source? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.79.55.180 (talk) 21:48, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Reason: WP:REDFLAG.

And if you don't want your editing to be limited by the Wikipedia community's particular goals and methods and decisions, the good news is that there's plenty of other outlets for your work, like perhaps Conservapedia, or getting a personal blog. At the end of the day, Wikipedia really is the private project of the Wikimedia Foundation. It is, roughly, a service that provides summaries of the contents of mainstream scholarship, in the specific sense that "mainstream scholarship" has here at Wikipedia. It's really not an experiment in treating all views equally, and if you think it is, you're likely to wind up frustrated. Alephb (talk) 12:16, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 22:18, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
The study itself makes very little in the way of exceptional claims, although I agree the edit you reversed overstated the findings. The authors do suggest the SOT could be authentic, but also suggest that multiple studies using the same technique should be done in an effort to verify or dispel the initial result. It seems like an edit which appropriately reflects what the authors found could be appropriate?
I fail to see how this kind of thing should be relegated to Conservapedia. Is this journal not "mainstream scholarship"? I looked over it - it doesn't appear that Heritage or the authors are affiliated with a religious group or have an obvious political bias. The journal is new-ish, but has reputable academics on the board and doesn't appear to focused on religious artifacts. Again, is there something I'm missing?
The sources page says reliable sources are: "academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources in topics such as history, medicine, and science." That appears to be exactly what this is. 173.79.55.180 (talk) 22:22, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
To cut a long story short: see the entry about MDPI at WP:RSP. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:24, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
Thank you. That link suggests there is "no consensus" about MDPI journals and the archived discussion seems to suggest each MDPI journal should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, which is what I'm asking for here. Do you have a comment on this journal specifically? 173.79.55.180 (talk) 22:33, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
Scientific prestige isn't granted by fiat, it has to be earned. I will let others chime in. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:37, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
Okay. A casual skim of the lead author's publishing history suggests he's been publishing in the field of physics since 1989 and is a member of the Italian National Research Council. I see there is a forum for resolving disputed sources in that link you shared, should I post this over there? 173.79.55.180 (talk) 22:44, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
Debate is now taking place at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Shroud of Turin. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:44, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
Do you want to use that board, or the other one I posted on? Sorry, I meant to link it here after I posted it. 173.79.55.180 (talk) 23:52, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
@Tgeorgescu: A new study based on X-ray analysis has suggested that the Shroud may be actually authentic.[1] Potatín5 (talk) 08:48, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Discussion moved to Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#RfC:_MDPI/Heritage 173.79.55.180 (talk) 00:11, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

This passage from the article's abstract caught my eye: "The experimental results are compatible with the hypothesis that the TS is a 2000-year-old relic, as supposed by Christian tradition, under the condition that it was kept at suitable levels of average secular temperature—20.0–22.5 °C—and correlated relative humidity—75–55%—for 13 centuries... Quite a condition :) Achar Sva (talk) 01:27, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

...and not actually possible until post industrialisation. well spotted. - Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 02:05, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
  • Hi, I am just swinging by from the RS noticeboard, given the fact I have found out quite a bit about the work of Liberato De Caro, lead author in this paper, I thought I would add the information here as well. I feel it may well be useful in the future:
I expected to find Italian news sources referring to the research, probably allowing it to be added. I found nothing outside of exceptionally Catholic non-reliable websites. I did come across a report of another study by Liberato De Caro in La Stampa, (RS) which claimed that the shroud contained ferrides and creatine (this was detected with an X-ray process), and thus could be shown to have been in contact with the body of a man who had been tortured. I personally would not consider adding this to be WP:DUE as it is an exceptional claim which has had very limited coverage.
I then had a look into De Caro, and while he is clearly a professional scientist in the field of X-rays, he is also very much a fringe theorist in terms of matters relating to the life of Jesus. Here he publishes an article completely outside of his field, the text refers to another study he has published, also outside his field. The older study has as its goal the rehabilitation of the traditional dating of Jesus' as 1 BCE to 33 CE, claiming that ancient astronomical and calendar reasons would even allow us to pinpoint the birth to the winter of 1 BCE(!). Another WP:REDFLAG is that he always publishes his bible related stuff around Easter time, suggesting to me that there is a strong apologetic motivation for his work.
I would strongly suggest avoiding Liberato de Caro's work on anything relating to the Bible, as WP:FRINGE very clearly applies. However, he may at some point publish something which garners massive attention, and in that case careful inclusion may be warranted. Boynamedsue (talk) 08:36, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
Firstly, the science here has PROVEN that the C14 test results are solid. No scientific test has come close to undermining the C14 test results in over 30 years. To claim that the C14 tests are disproved, is an extraordinary claim, and as such it will require extraordinary evidence. Such a development would surely have been headline news around the world. Instead, we have here an invisible paper, published on a non-reliable platform that claims to support heritage preservation.
This new Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering (WAXS) process has not yet been verified as reliable by anybody else, so it is by definition unreliable. However this paper also has a number of other short-comings.
Any scientific test has to ensure the provenance of its sample. From where came this tiny scrap of a linen sample? Did the team have permission to snip bits off the Shroud? No, the paper glosses over this fatal flaw by saying only that "Sample name, description and age are reported in [3,10,11,14] and re-assumed here." If you are familiar with those papers – three of which were also co-authored by Fanti – you know that these samples are actually dust that was vacuumed off the Shroud during a restoration effort. These tiny fragments are therefore by definition more brittle than the body of the Shroud, since they have crumbled off on their own, and these fragments of dust are in no way representative of the Shroud itself.
The team admits that their X-ray dating and the C14 dating agree well "when the ancient fabrics are preserved by environmental contamination—i.e., when they were kept in the tombs where they were found." That condition does NOT apply to the Shroud, which is apparently well-travelled, and which was frequently exhibited both indoors and outdoors. Another fatal flaw.
The team admits that "the natural aging process that degrades cellulose over thousands of years can be accelerated in suitable ovens by increasing the temperature". They admit that the Shroud was involved in a series of fires, which would have "accelerated" the apparent aging. They concluded that half an hour at 200 degrees made no difference to the apparent aging. However, the Shroud is damaged by burns caused by molten silver, when its silver container melted to liquid in the heat of one fire. Silver melts at 960 degrees. Only a lack of oxygen saved the Shroud from bursting into flames. How do we take in account the "aging effect" of 960 degrees, for an unknown period of time? Surely that much heat would have made the fibres seem very much older than would have been the case had they been allowed to age at "room temperature"?
The team admits that this short oven experience yellowed the linen, and would have faded the image away if the oven treatment had been prolonged. It is well known that the Shroud image was originally much more distinct, and it is now literally only "the shadow of its former self". But the team glossed over that as well.
The team makes complicated assumptions about average room temperatures in France and Italy, but ignores the assumptions that the "authentic" Shroud was reputedly present in Palestine and Turkey (Constantinople) for dozens of centuries at room temperatures much warmer than Europe. They also gloss over the fact that the real temperature is seldom actually average - the fibres would age faster in summer temperatures than at "average" temperatures. However for all their complicated equations and "corrections", which inevitably accumulate to "prove" an age of around 2000 years, they have seemingly neglected to take these counter-corrections into account.
Overall, like many previous tests, this test suffers from numerous scientific and procedural flaws. It is thus unsurprising that it gets published only on obscure platforms, and is ignored by everyone other than straw-clutching Shroudies. On the other hand, the C14 tests were conducted by a large team of experts, using technology that has been verified thousands of times since, and all challenges to those results have been found wanting. So also with this paper.
Wdford (talk) 11:08, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
I appreciate the actual replies and answers to my questions, which the editor who initially responded here absolutely refused to provide. 173.79.55.180 (talk) 21:06, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
I would only add that it would be helpful to include the information somewhere on Wikipedia - I came to this page from reading Catholic news publications about DeCaro's work. It is being shared by several Archbishops on social media. So it's getting attention in the Catholic community - which is why it would be nice to be able to read about the points for/against DiCaro and his research, especially for those of us who don't know any Italian. 173.79.55.180 (talk) 21:11, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
That's interesting IP user, I wasn't aware of the level of interest Caro's work is getting among Roman Catholics outside of Italy. He is certainly linked to very traditionalist interpretations of Catholicism, the dating research is the kind of thing that is really not mainstream. The church has no real need to place the birth of Christ in 1 BC, and the historicity of Jesus argument is not really a big deal today, so he is obviously pushing a traditionalist narrative.
The problem we are likely to have at some point is that his techniques appear to be so far from accepted science, history and even theology, that unless he gets very famous, nobody is going to bother debunking them. The possible solution is that if he garners lots of coverage in undeniably reliable sources, we create an article about his theories, but that runs its own risks. Boynamedsue (talk) 07:06, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Weird inserts

<!--THIS IS AN ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLE AND IS NOT INTENDED TO INCLUDE ENTIRE PASSAGES FROM BOOKS AND OTHER REFERENCES. PLEASE ADD INFORMATION IN A "CONCISE" FORM WITHOUT QUOTING LARGE SEGMENTS OF TEXT, IN ORDER TO KEEP THE ARTICLE LENGTH WITHIN WIKIPEDIA LIMITS. PLEASE PROVIDE EQUAL WEIGHT FOR PRO/AGAINST AUTHENTICITY REFERENCES. PLEASE SUPPORT EACH STATEMENT YOU ADD BY A SPECIFIC REFERENCE AND PROVIDE PAGE NUMBERS FOR REFERENCES. -->

Lots of these were inserted in 2010 by User:VanishedUserABC. They are not rooted in policy, especially the "PLEASE PROVIDE EQUAL WEIGHT FOR PRO/AGAINST AUTHENTICITY REFERENCES" part, and I removed the still existing ones. I also deleted a "Professor" because of MOS:CREDENTIAL and improved a sentence. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:07, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Radiocarbon repaired

The article currently suggests the radio carbon dating is infallible. This is entirely false because covalent bonds form overtime is naturally. It has also been shown that many carbon compounds do not wash out with the standard Triple A cleaning that was used. In particular, frankincense does not come out.

The references are detailed in the essay located at T h e u b i e . C o m / k . h t m (See essay and executive summary) Wild vaporizer pirates have been persecuting appearance of this essay on the shroud of Turin, it does list formal research papers which prove this point.

2 Timothy 3 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.62.214.53 (talk) 22:33, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

WP:NOTDUMB: we are not persuaded by oratory. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:45, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
Wild vaporizer pirates? I kinda like it! JoJo Anthrax (talk) 00:08, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Clarification

Could someone clarify this part Also, the right arm and hand are abnormally elongated, allowing him to modestly cover his genital area, which is physically impossible for an ordinary dead body lying supine. As it stands, it doesn't make sense, because the right arm can easily cover the genital area, whether in a living or dead person lying supine. Nothing impossible about that and no "abnormally elongated" hand is needed. Brandmeistertalk 20:12, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Brandmeister, good catch. That's a bunch of nonsense added by an IP user in 2018, along with a fake citation that supports none of what they wrote. I've removed it. Feel free to WP:BE BOLD and remove stuff that is unsourced, or falsely sourced, but it's also reasonable to raise the point here on the Talk page if you're not sure. Either way, you did the right thing, and improved the article as a result. Thanks again. Mathglot (talk) 01:45, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Debate's still ongoing

Hello everyone -

The dating quest is still ongoing. In 2013, a new study by Giulio Fanti of the University of Padua in Italy used spectroscopic methods2 to test samples of the Shroud taken in the 1970s. Fanti’s results date the Shroud to between 300 BC and AD 400: a 700-year interval that nevertheless brackets the death of Christ. You can kindly check out: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330084766_Why_is_the_Turin_Shroud_Authentic https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264268339_The_Shroud_of_Turin_A_Historiographical_Approach https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/the-enduring-controversy-of-the-turin-shroud/6918.article https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/03/30/shroud-turin-display/2038295/.

So, the article clearly neglects entirely the most recent debate on the matter.

The 2nd issue is that references no 07 & 09 in the article are poorly cited and unverifiable. Reference no. 08 discusses methodological errors in the "repaired rewoven theory" but not the theory itself. I.e. he objected the peer review process and concluded that it "failed" the journal (Section: "Rogers' Analytical Methods: Deception and Illogic") or if the 2nd paper on the subject matter was published in a scientific journal or not; but he didn't discuss the theory per se.

185.12.222.54 (talk) 21:18, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

For mainstream scientists, debate is over. Fanti is WP:FRINGE. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:33, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
Has been over for about 40 years now too. --Hob Gadling (talk) 04:16, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Historical fabrics

  • In 1998, shroud researcher Joe Nickell wrote that no examples of herringbone weave are known from the time of Jesus. The few samples of burial cloths that are known from the era are made using plain weave. In 2000, fragments of a burial shroud from the 1st century were discovered in a tomb near Jerusalem, believed to have belonged to a Jewish high priest or member of the aristocracy. The shroud was composed of a simple two-way weave, unlike the complex herringbone twill of the Turin Shroud. Based on this discovery, the researchers concluded that the Turin Shroud did not originate from Jesus-era Jerusalem.

I don't understand their conclusions. What does the 2000 discovery prove, other than material of that type was known in the 1st century? Where does it say that ALL shrouds from that era, without exception, were of the type found in 2000? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 18:17, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Does anybody know what a "simple two-way weave" is, because as an honest to god textile technologist (retired) it isn't something I've come across as a descriptor for a weave in my career. I'd also note that "the complex herringbone twill" is pretty damn simple. - Roxy the English speaking dog 18:33, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
From context, I would say Nickell means plain weave, the most basic of three fundamental types of textile weaves - which sounds as if herringbone twill is more complex than it. He is an expert about lots of stuff, but it seems he is either not familiar with weaving terminology (neither am I; I had to look it up) or he wanted to use a term he hoped laypeople would understand. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:46, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Request for comment on lead

This discussion resulted in a clear consensus for the existing text over the proposed option. Arguments based on WP:Reliable sources were the most persuasive to participants. There was some side discussion about alternate proposals to improve the existing text. There was no consensus on these other options (e.g. SamuelRiv's proposal), and I encourage further discussion in a new section. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:38, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.



Should the article lead contain a statement that 1) "All hypotheses put forward to challenge the radiocarbon dating have been scientifically refuted", or should it contain a statement that 2) "The radiocarbon dating remains controversial, and a number of hypotheses have been put forward to refute it, mostly centering on the idea that the sample used in radiocarbon dating came from a medieval repair of the shroud or that the sample was otherwise contaminated. These hypotheses are themselves contested."? Instaurare (talk) 09:40, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

No real controversy exists. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 09:50, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
That is merely your opinion. Instaurare (talk) 06:25, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
The text of this article, suggesting there is no controversy and that all challenges to the C-14 testing have been refuted, is outright nonsense. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 19:46, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
Support second option or something like it As a Christian who is not a "shroudie" (whatever that is) the lead as written strikes me as very POV. Probably not an accident based on the interactions I just had with tgeorgescu and the other replies here. I'm not sure why a more neutral phrase ("Despite challenges, the current scientific consensus is that the radiocarbon dating is accurate") couldn't achieve the same effect. Especially since the research in question was conducted in 1988. You could get away from POV writing without falsely suggesting there is a major scientific disagreement. 173.79.55.180 (talk) 21:21, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
The current wording of the lead does not suggest that there is a major scientific disagreement - quite the opposite. Wdford (talk) 23:15, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
The Catholic Church says it's a relic, it does not say whose. The Pope is not a Shroudie. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:03, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
Yes, Catholicism is not a sufficient condition for being a Shroudie, but it is a necessary one. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:33, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
Besides being off topic, the above two comments are wrong. The Catholic Church does not claim the Shroud is a relic.The Catholic Church considers the shroud an icon, not a relic, meaning it has symbolic importance, but does not have status as a confirmed artifact. Many non-Catholic Christians consider the shroud to be real, such as evangelicals. I would argue that no study has shown that there zero non-Christians who believe the shroud to be real, and consequently it is irresponsible to get side-tracked by questions of the religious faith of the observer, other than making general sociological statements. kbachler (talk) 12:40, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
There are a lot more than two comments above yours, so I don't know which ones you mean. But a Shroudie is someone who publishes anti-fake-Shroud stuff (not someone who just buys what they say). Now I remember that you are right and there was a non-Catholic Shroudie: de:Dmitri Anatoljewitsch Kusnezow faked Shroud papers as well as creationist ones. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:39, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Support the existing text as the the scientific consensus is clear on the matter. The prolonged debate about the shroud's authenticity is not only interesting but also a big reason for why the object is so well known around the world so the article should definitely discus it in its body. But seeing how dissenting opinions are today represented by an increasingly small fringe, the "controversy" shouldn't be given too much credence in the lede, as it would be WP:UNDUE. PraiseVivec (talk) 09:49, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
  • Existing text is slightly incorrect: The statement "All hypotheses put forward to challenge the radiocarbon dating have been scientifically refuted" is poorly worded, because there have been several "challenges" to the original analysis that would adjust the mean and interval by about a century. See the final section and Ball's quote. Also, if "scientifically refuted" means a peer-reviewed paper discusses it, there's a lot of hypotheses in the linked article that were never refuted because they had no merit or attention or didn't change the operative conclusion. I think this can be helped a little by some rewording: "All serious hypotheses put forward to challenge the [general] validity of the 1988 radiocarbon dating [to estimate the age of the Shroud] have been refuted." [Parts in brackets optional]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SamuelRiv (talk • contribs) 18:23, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
    • Yes, and there's a newer article X-ray Dating of a Turin Shroud’s Linen Sample" from 11 April 2022, i.e. after those refutations, which states in particular: "We obtained one-dimensional integrated WAXS data profiles for the TS sample, which were fully compatible with the analogous measurements obtained on a linen sample whose dating, according to historical records, is 55–74 AD, Siege of Masada (Israel). The degree of natural aging of the cellulose that constitutes the linen of the investigated sample, obtained by X-ray analysis, showed that the TS fabric is much older than the seven centuries proposed by the 1988 radiocarbon dating. The experimental results are compatible with the hypothesis that the TS is a 2000-year-old relic". Brandmeistertalk 20:23, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
      • MDPI is not a top scientific publisher and even made it to Beall's List. About dating through WAXS, it seems the invention of the same authors, and it passed largely unnoticed by the scientific community. So, there is no scientific consensus that WAXS can be used for dating objects. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:44, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
        I agree that the existing text needs some adjustment. The comment (with options) by SamuelRiv is on point. I would also note that in his suggested wording, starting the sentence with "Most", "The [vast] majority", "Nearly all" etc., instead of "All" is more precise. Alternatively, any general rewording that indicates that accepted scientific evidence strongly favors the radiocarbon dating are on point.
        I also agree with Tgeorgescu response to Brandmeister acknowledgement of the x-ray dating. However, the X-ray Dating paper notes that the procedure was successfully tested on other samples first. There are currently no responses challenging this on a scientific basis. To ignore the paper and technique appears to be inappropriate. Further, the paper notes that the results need to be reproduced, and states several reasons why. It further notes that this test can be done blind, whereas C14 dating cannot be, because C14 requires a sample size that makes the sample identifiable due to the fabric weave.
        For this reason, I also suggest that this paper needs to be added to the overall article, along with both positive and negative commentary including that on the background of the paper.
        Other reputable encyclopedic sources note that there is controversy of the C14 dating. kbachler (talk) 13:19, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
        No need. Let's wait until it has been noticed by secondary sources, as is customary with primary sources that attempt to overthrow a long-standing consensus. There is no reason to assume that it is any better than previous excuses for ignoring the C14 evidence. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:43, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
    The fact is that the original C-14 testing has been significantly rejected -- but the devout skeptic community guards this page with arrogant and unfounded self-assuredness. This article is useless as written. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 21:03, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
    To be clear, I came here to find a summary of the number of times the Shroud has been analyzed for age. Like most people with an interest in this subject, I am well aware of the debate over the accuracy of the C-14 testing. It is a massive deception to claim there is no genuine debate when a number of peer-reviewed scholarly papers have raised questions over the C-14 testing, or even reached the contrary conclusion that the cloth dates to the First Century. And I've read a number of the rebuttals to the papers and the rebuttals are not convincing. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 23:50, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
    Inserting your unfounded opinion at several places of this RfC will not bolster your case as much as you seem to believe. --Hob Gadling (talk) 03:14, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
    The whole of this entry is unfounded opinion. The fact is that there is no scientific consensus that C14 testing is reliable. The number of peer-reviewed papers published since the C14 testing, rejecting the reliability of the C14 testing and -- after testing -- dating the Shroud to the First Century, establishes a lack of consensus, and does so conclusively. This is supposed to be a factual entry. The claim that there is a consensus is opinion, not fact, and not even well-founded opinion at that. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 23:27, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

    Creationists, climate change deniers, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, astrologers, homeopaths, covidiots, flat-earthers, holocaust deniers and many others agree with you. What you said is pretty much the same reasoning they use. According to them, their worldviews are also not rejected by Wikipedia because they are rejected by mainstream sources but because of all those biased Wikipedia editors. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:15, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

    Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 23:37, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
    That's a silly response. I am asserting that there is no consensus because scholarly, peer-reviewed articles written by highly respected persons of science, contend the C14 testing is not reliable. YOU are far more like "climate change deniers, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, astrologers, homeopaths, covidiots, flat-earthers, holocaust deniers" because you are insisting that there is a consensus -- when highly respected scientific journals routinely publish scholarly, peer-reviewed articles written by highly respected persons of science that plainly establish, at the very least, a lack of consensus. Why are you so afraid of science? 64.67.122.103 (talk) 00:00, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
    Just give us some examples of "when highly respected scientific journals routinely publish scholarly, peer-reviewed articles written by highly respected persons of science ..." and we'll all be rushing off to church to get babtised, or circumsised or whatever affirmation of choice we choose. I wont wait though. - Roxy the English speaking dog 00:13, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
    Here is the most recent from an Oxford University publication.
    Casabianca, T.; Marinelli, E.; Pernagallo, G.; Torrisi, B. (22 March 2019). "Radiocarbon Dating of the Turin Shroud: New Evidence from Raw Data". Archaeometry. Wiley. 61 (5): 1223–1231. doi:10.1111/arcm.12467. ISSN 0003-813X. S2CID 134747250.
    And then there's this paper from Raymond Rogers, which is significant because he was part of the team which took the samples in 1988: 64.67.122.103 (talk) 00:27, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
    64.67.122.103 (talk) 00:27, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
    Rogers, Raymond N. (20 January 2005). "Studies on the radiocarbon sample from the shroud of turin" (PDF). Thermochimica Acta
    So you will claim these papers have been "refuted," but that again is a matter of opinion, not fact. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 00:29, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
    IP, I'm very confused about what you are doing. For example, about the "Radiocarbon Dating of the Turin Shroud: New Evidence from Raw Data" paper. Not only that paper has already been brought up and thorouly discussed here [1], but it is in fact, already used in the article (reference number 87). And so is the Raymond Paper (ref 81). This means that you did not even bother to read the article while at the same time calling it biased. So, aside from wasting people's time, what are you doing here?. --McSly (talk) 04:24, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
    No, you didn't bother to read these articles. Casabianca and Rogers concluded that the testing was wholly unreliable, and neither support the claim "that the stated date range needs to be adjusted by up to 88 years in order to properly meet the requirement of '95% confidence.'" That's THE major problem with this article. These papers are grouped together in footnotes with other papers which claim (but don't really establish) that the test results merely need to be "modified" +/- 88 years. So the works of Casabianca and Rogers are completely misrepresented in this entry and now it is clear that the reason that this entry is so flawed is that no one here actually has read these articles and thus you guys really don't know what you are talking about. NOTE: the excellent, scholarly, peer-reviewed journals which published the Rogers and Casabianca articles STILL stand by them. The articles have neither been retracted by the journals, in view of subsequent work, nor have they modified due to subsequent comments. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 10:04, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
    That is establishes that there is no scientific consensus concerning the accuracy of the C14 testing. The opinion stated in this article is just flat-out not true. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 10:08, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
    Note, too, that Casabianca has not ruled out that the Shroud could be of medieval origin. It is just that the C14 process is not reliable and cannot be used to date the cloth with any accuracy. You guys take the first part of his conclusion to mean that Casabianca is merely advocating for a modification of plus/minus 88 years. That is a complete misreading his work. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 12:19, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
    You should read Talk:Shroud of Turin/Archive 18, which talks about Casabianca a lot. And you should stop peacocking. Nobody here is impressed, we are used to pseudoscience proponents doing that. the C14 process is not reliable is bullshit. Radiocarbon dating exists since 1939, and its weaknesses have been well-known for quite a while. This is not one of them. It is just grasping at straws by people who do not like the result, just as creationists do. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:12, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
    To anybody who posted under my comment who thinks a discrepancy of slightly under a century means that the C-14 dating could possibly have been off by 1000+ years, or is unreliable in general, you are wrong. SamuelRiv (talk) 00:54, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
    Addendum: the leads in both Radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin and Fringe theories about the Shroud of Turin are more accurate than option 1: Despite some technical concerns that have been raised about radiocarbon dating of the Shroud, no radiocarbon-dating expert has asserted that the dating is unreliable and the alternative theories challenging the radiocarbon dating have been disproved by scientists using actual shroud material respectively. We really shouldn't have inaccurate wording in the lead of such a popular article. Even if you think the discrepancy is trivial, or is being hijacked by shroudies, it's still published in major journals. Probably most scientific papers (that are actually replicable) would have about this amount of discrepancy if such a small portion were under this much scrutiny, but again, that's not relevant to the wording of the lead. Also not relevant is how the scientifically illiterate will deliberately misinterpret anything about science, no matter how unambiguously you say A is 100% B. So the best thing to do is report things as they actually are. SamuelRiv (talk) 14:46, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support the existing text, per reliable sources; there is no controversy. Mathglot (talk) 01:54, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Support the existing text as no real controversy exists, and I hadn't actually registered my thoughts on this matter before. -Roxy the English speaking dog 19:54, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
    Uncertainty by up to a century (several sd) is a "real" controversy, with three papers in reputable publications on the subject in the past decade, is it not? SamuelRiv (talk) 00:21, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
    That's small potatoes. Nothing in mainstream science suggests that the shroud is not medieval. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:48, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
    NO!!!! YOU DON'T SAY!!! It's still a significant discrepancy among the very small group of people who are researching this. Our article should report the facts as they actually are and not something inaccurate. SamuelRiv (talk) 00:51, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
    It's true. Even the extreme outlier 591 ± 30 is still in the Middle Ages. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:54, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
    Like, as if this site needs a sarcasm indicator template! SamuelRiv (talk) 00:58, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Continuing comments on previous RfC

It is disruptive to keep dragging this up again a week after an Rfc decided it; this page is not a forum for expounding one's views once consensus is already clear.

You should read this interview with Casabianca in which he explains his paper, in terms simple enough for the wannabe scientists here. It is clear that his peer-reviewed article, published in an Oxford University journal, is wholly mis-reprsented in this entry; in this discussion, and in the discussion you referenced above. https://www.ncregister.com/news/a-holy-week-interview-with-a-shroud-researcher-now-a-catholic-convert. "The article I co-authored with leading shroud expert Emanuela Marinelli and statisticians Giuseppe Pernagallo and Benedetto Torrisi explains why there is no conclusive evidence that the Turin shroud is medieval. The results of the carbon dating did not put the endpoint to the lengthy debate. They only added another chapter, a most revealing one of our modern prejudices and biases, to the controversy." It is completely inaccurate to claim, as this entry does repeatedly, that Casabianca's paper merely suggests that the range provided by the C14 testing needed to modified and enlarged. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.67.122.103 (talk) 00:00, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

So he's a Shroudie who does not want to accept relaity and is grasping at straws. That does not make his paper more worth quoting but less. He belongs in Fringe theories about the Shroud of Turin, not here. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:29, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
This is an interview with a person who converted to Catholicism because of the Shroud. It was conducted by, and published in, a Catholic religious "newspaper". It was published just days before the Shroud was due to be exhibited again, thereby generating money-spinning publicity for this exhibition. Ergo, this is not a reliable source.
Also, this self-serving interview contradicts the more measured and neutral statements in his earlier peer-reviewed science article. That is why peer-review is useful - it filters out this kind of wild POV fantasy-gushing.
Wdford (talk) 09:50, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
No, it doesn't contradict his peer-reviewed science article, which I again note was published in an Oxford University journal. It is you guys who have mis-represented the content of that paper. The prior discussion to which I was referenced included comments that the editors here did not read the Casabianca article, because it was behind a paywall. That's amusing in itself, because anyone editing this page should have an academia.edu account. Nonetheless, the editors here are actually on relying Philip Ball's response to the paper in "Nature," in which Ball wrote (correctly enough): "And Casabianca and colleagues don’t assert that their analysis shows the shroud to be much older ...." But even then, you take Ball's words, out of context, to mean that Casabianca was arguing merely that age range of the C14 testing was incorrect, but the dating of the cloth to the Middle Ages was not. To be clear, Casabianca's article concluded the C14 testing was wholly unreliable and his paper explains why the C14 testing provided "no conclusive evidence that the Turin shroud is medieval." This, again, was the conclusion of a 2019 peer-reviewed scholarly paper published by an Oxford University publication. In the end, the cloth may well be from the Middle Ages (or it may not). Observing that the C14 results are flawed does not mean the cloth is, in fact, 2000 years old. THAT was the point of the Casabianca paper, as well as the point of Ball's response to the paper.
So then, getting back to the top of this discussion, the latest word on the C14 testing, from a peer-reviewed article from a highly respected journal published by one of the world's most notably universities, is that it is not C14 test results are not reliable. I can't fathom how this entry can make the FACTUAL claim that there is scientific consensus that the C14 test results are accurate. That comment represents POV, not fact, and dubious opinion at that. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 14:38, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
LOL! No, "last man publishing wins" is not how science works. Let's just wait until his claims are confirmed by others, as we do with other extraordinary claims. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:52, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
It's not a matter of last man publishing. It's whether there is a "scientific consensus" that the C14 testing is accurate, as this Wikipedia entry (falsely) represents. Plainly the consensus asserted does not exist. The suggestion above that an Oxford University science journal is publishing some "fringe theory" is comical. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 16:18, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
To show that there is no consensus, you need significantly more than what you gave us. BTW, consensus is not the same as unanimity.
So you are convinced that Oxford University science journal never publishes bad material. But your personal opinion does not matter here. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:34, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
It seems there is always one more shroudie, desperately trying to "prove" that the C14 dates can somehow be disregarded so that his/her POV can continue to be believed.
In their 2019 paper published in "Archaeometry", Casabianca et al made the following admissions:
  • "Based on the statistical results, we question the level of confidence of 95% attributed to the AD 1260–1390 calendar age range."
  • "Several individual measurements below the 60% level combined with model and overall agreement indexes below 60% indicate the presence of at least one problem in the data, probably due to a flawed measurement or contamination."
  • "Our statistical results do not imply that the medieval hypothesis of the age of the tested sample should be ruled out."
  • "Each TS raw and published radiocarbon date indicates a medieval interval for the fabric."
And their final concluding paragraph reads as follows: "The measurements made by the three laboratories on the TS sample suffer from a lack of precision which seriously affects the reliability of the 95% AD 1260–1390 interval. The statistical analyses, supported by the foreign material found by the laboratories, show the necessity of a new radiocarbon dating to compute a new reliable interval. This new test requires, in an interdisciplinary research, a robust protocol. Without this re-analysis, it is not possible to affirm that the 1988 radiocarbon dating offers ‘conclusive evidence’ that the calendar age range is accurate and representative of the whole cloth."
QED. Seriously. Wdford (talk) 18:31, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
What part of that last quotation did you not understand? "It is not possible to affirm that the 1988 radiocarbon dating offers ‘conclusive evidence’ that the calendar age range is accurate AND representative of the whole cloth" (emphasis added). Geez. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 20:27, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
I understand the quotation perfectly. He is stating a concern that the calendar age range might not be accurate, as well as that the calendar age range might not be representative of the whole cloth. There is no mystery here. That is as far as statistics can take this argument without failing peer review.
Casabianca et al openly admit that the entire kerfuffle might easily be due to differences between the labs in the pre-testing cleaning methodology, and actual experts have also made this suggestion. The results from the three labs were not all that far apart actually.
You also need to take into account that Casabianca is an expert in theology and philosophy etc – he is NOT a scientist, far less a radiocarbon specialist. His "issue" is based purely on massaging statistics in a desperate attempt to find some thread of justification with which to refute the C14 results, but instead these statistical efforts have all been refuted by C14 experts and textile experts, using actual Shroud evidence rather than hypothetical statistical inferences. That is why Casabianca's hypothesis is not equal to the real science, and cannot be considered to overturn the real science.
Wdford (talk) 23:25, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
Ok, I get it. You are burying your head into the ground. THAT's not science. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 00:03, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
Again, your personal opinion does not matter here. There is still no reason to give Casabianca more space, and your clichés won't change that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:12, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
Science considers evidence, in order to establish facts. The evidence shows that the C14 dates are correct, and not one single C14 expert has stated otherwise. The evidence shows that the Shroud was never repaired in the sampled area, as even Shroudie scientists like Jackson confirmed after closely studying the Shroud itself. The evidence shows that the small differences in dating between the three labs could easily be explained by the differences in their pre-dating cleaning regimes, as even Casabianca acknowledged. The evidence shows that the so-called "gradient" in dating across the small sampled area is fictitious, because the Arizona samples were taken from both ends of the sampled area. The evidence shows that the Shroud is certainly of medieval manufacture. Anybody who chooses to ignore all the scientific evidence because they prefer a different outcome, is indeed burying their head in the ground. Shroudies can massage data all they want, but the actual evidence is solidly against them - and that is a FACT. Wdford (talk) 09:43, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
Irony is obviously not your strong suit. Neither is science. But you guys clearly have a stronghold on the content of this page, and you are using it as a forum to advance your personal (and baseless) opinion that there is some "scientific consensus" -- a loaded term which itself, in a context like this, reveals some form of political or social bias to anyone who is actually trained in science. Your opinion, as expressed on this page, is unfounded and factually inaccurate. That highly credentialed persons of science continue to test the shroud for age tells you all you need to know as to whether the accuracy of the C14 is settled -- or accepted within as a "consensus." You can continue to live in the fantasy world that is Wikipedia. I think I'll trust Oxford University. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 21:54, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
Well, if a random person on the internet says so, it must be true. Are we finally finished here? --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:06, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Collapsed. It's clear this discussion has come to an end, or at least, serves no useful purpose in continuing. Please WP:Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 07:05, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Is This Entry Rigorously and Properly Cited?

Let's take a look at footnoted sources for the sentence: "All hypotheses put forward to challenge the radiocarbon dating have been scientifically refuted, including the medieval repair hypothesis, the bio-contamination hypothesis and the carbon monoxide hypothesis." And then read them. Do these sources actually support this statement?

Footnote 7 is to a highly reputable paper which does, in fact, question Rogers' conclusions, but it does so in a far more nuanced way than this sentence suggests, concluding: "We assume that there will be future studies on the Shroud of Turin. Any such future sampling should include another sample of the shroud away from the previous area sampled. In our opinion, such a study would be useful to confirm the previous results and should include both textile analysis and 14C measurements." Thus, the authors of the paper themselves are not claiming to establish "scientific consensus."
Footnote 8 is from a dead website/blog, not a scholarly paper, and the archived copy would reflect this website entry was from a personal blog of the author and not peer-reviewed. That's really not a worthy citation to rebut Rogers' peer-reviewed paper published in a scholarly U of Cal science journal. I don't have any problem with the credential of the author to write as he does. But he is plainly speaking personal opinion in this article, and not requesting peer-review -- in fact, he was being open and honest about that point.
Footnote 9 is to a Random House encyclopedia. Come on already. Try citing that in graduate school, see what happens. Although I have to admit that the citation -- vague as it is -- by one "encyclopedia" to another, has to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
Footnote 10. I don't have any issue with this citation, per se, but it was published in 1990 and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. To claim it rebuts an article written 15 years later, though, is purposefully deceptive and would be academically sanctionable in other contexts. Good thing this isn't a reputable graduate school.
Footnote 11 cites to a web article by a genuine giant in this field, Dr. Christopher Bronk Ramsey. But it doesn't support the claim for which it is cited. Dr. Ramsey expresses measured doubt over the contamination by carbon monoxide theory, advanced by John Jackson, but he does not dismiss it out-of-hand: "The only way to see if this sort of contamination is possible is to do experimental work on modern linen. The key question is whether carbon monoxide reacts to any significant extent with linen." Notably, Dr. Ramsey also writes: "There is a lot of other evidence that suggests to many that the Shroud is older than the radiocarbon dates allow and so further research is certainly needed. It is important that we continue to test the accuracy of the original radiocarbon tests as we are already doing. It is equally important that experts assess and reinterpret some of the other evidence. Only by doing this will people be able to arrive at a coherent history of the Shroud which takes into account and explains all of the available scientific and historical information."

Footnote 12 is to an on-line chemistry publication. Again, not really a worthy source to establish the claimed "scientific consensus." 64.67.122.103 (talk) 12:55, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

WP:PARITY. E.g. it is not proven impossible that bodily resurrections entail a high neutron radiation, but since no scientist has examined a genuine bodily resurrection, such mere possibility is moot. tgeorgescu (talk) 13:48, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
Too many attacks and failure to show good faith, I've blocked them. And they doubled down when I did. Doug Weller talk 14:44, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
From what I can see, the comments have all been in good faith and a review of the discussion shows that the person you blocked has actually been on the receiving end of the attacks. So you blocked the victim. The quotation that the blocked poster highlighted above, from Dr. Ramsey, makes it clear that the issue of the C14 testing is still wide open, and any reasonable person would see it that way. When one of the world's foremost experts in radiocarbon testing says that there is a lot of evidence to show that the shroud is older than dated, that merits attention. You have a noted C14 expert casting some doubt on the results. 157.254.225.188 (talk) 18:45, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Creationists, climate change deniers, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, astrologers, homeopaths, covidiots, flat-earthers, holocaust deniers and many others agree with you. What you said is pretty much the same reasoning they use. According to them, their worldviews are also not rejected by Wikipedia because they are rejected by mainstream sources but because of all those biased Wikipedia editors. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:15, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 20:22, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
You just included Dr. Christoper Ramsey among "creationists, climate change deniers, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, astrologers, homeopaths, covidiots, flat-earthers, holocaust deniers." Really, your comment is beyond ridiculous. 157.254.225.175 (talk) 20:32, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
You have conveniently forgotten that he also wrote It is important to realise, however, that only if some enriched contaminant can be identified does it become credible that the date is wrong by 1000 years. As yet there is no direct evidence for this - or indeed any direct evidence to suggest the original radiocarbon dates are not accurate. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:44, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
What he is saying is that there are substantial reasons to believe the C14 testing is accurate; but acknowledging indirect scientific evidence that impeaches that accuracy. But I now see the problem here. You think that anyone who questions the results of the 1988 testing is, by necessity, claiming that the cloth is 2000 years old. That you see those two issues as so necessarily intertwined actually reveals your bias. 157.254.225.175 (talk) 20:48, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
That there may be inaccuracies in the C14 testing from 1988 does not mean that the cloth is 2000 years old. It means that additional testing should be conducted. 157.254.225.175 (talk) 20:51, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

The source [2] given here [3] also says, There are also other possible types of contaminant, and it it could be that one, or some combination of these, might mean that the Shroud is somewhat older than the radiocarbon date suggests. It is important to realise, however, that only if some enriched contaminant can be identified does it become credible that the date is wrong by 1000 years. As yet there is no direct evidence for this - or indeed any direct evidence to suggest the original radiocarbon dates are not accurate.

Therefore the sentence quoted is highly misleading - it is just the usual "I could be wrong" disclaimer at the end. I am reverting that dishonest edit. --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:49, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

I support your removal. There was a clear cherry-picking problem, and I think even a neutral summary of Ramsey would be undue at that length in the lead. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:52, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
The "cherry picking" is all yours. Dr. Ramsey's article is completely miscited to support a factual claim in the introduction which, in fact, the article does not support. This comment is not a disclaimer. It is the nuanced observation of an expert in C14 testing, recognizing that there are curious other aspects of this shroud, which have been observed and documented by researchers and scientists specializing in the other fields, that at least indirectly contradict the C14 dating. The narrow focus on radiocarbon dating in this article overlooks some other research by some very highly credentialed researchers and scientists. 157.254.225.175 (talk) 21:01, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
There was nothing dishonest about the requested edit. It was a direct quote from an expert in C14. The article is dishonest and lacks balance the way you have "restored" it. 157.254.225.63 (talk) 21:07, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
WAXS is not a recognized way of dating objects. I mean: it could eventually become a way of dating, but as now it is not recognized as such by the scientific community. I don't dismiss it with prejudice, but it is very far from being widely recognized as reliable. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:51, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
I don't think Dr. Ramsey was referring to WAXS and some other alternative means of dating. I think he's thinking about his scientific peers in other fields, like pathology. The information that keeps getting mined by pathologists from the shroud has turned me at least 90 degrees on this. I used to credit the C14 testing, but the pathology of the shroud is baffling and then becomes even more baffling when it is compared to the The Sudarium of Oviedo, which can be documented to 570 AD. These cloths seem highly likely (possible, whatever) to have covered the same body. Digital imaging of the two cloths, superimposed, reportedly show they share 70 wound markings in common on the front, and 50 on the back. That's 120 common wounds. They share the same blood type; and the blood stains would support that the victim(s) died of asphyxiation. And how would a medieval artist have known so much about pathology to have included blood from an asphyxiation victim? 157.254.225.186 (talk) 04:12, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
I don't think it covered anyone. The imprint upon such a shroud is nothing like a portrait photo, but something much more like [4]. I know this is WP:OR, just saying what I think. Source: [5] and [6]. It is completely ridiculous to claim that the imprint would look anything like this: [7], i.e. like a frontal photo of a bearded man, with his hair hanging in the air, like gravity would pull his hair towards his feet. It's not rocket science, it's like when a child tells a lie and their parents immediately know they have been lied. You make it sound that it is incredibly complicated and that only scientists could tell, but in fact it is a childish lie, it is a naïve and unsophisticated web of lies. tgeorgescu (talk) 07:25, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Real talk on lead wording

Nobody actually engaged the wording on the lead in the RfC, which was two bad choices. I gave an alternative in the RfC referencing sources that got no engagement. The RfC closed without prejudice on whether the wording should be fixed in that manner. The unfortunate previous distraction above is beside the point.

Nothing anyone here says or does will make people who are fixed believers no longer want to be fixed believers. But we can still have more accurate wording without being too wordy. SamuelRiv (talk) 19:59, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

"But we can still have more accurate wording without being too wordy." Now that's the understatement of the year. 157.254.225.66 (talk) 22:07, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
The wording really is fine as it is. However we can consider to add a line that says "Shroudies have analyzed the data from every possible angle using statistical methods, and a few of them have made a case that the stated dating interval needs to be a few decades wider in order to allow for 95% confidence." That is probably excessive for the lede, but I could probably live with it? Wdford (talk) 15:39, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
Please read my post in the RfC. It's unfortunate that only a handful of reputable people care enough to look into this, and when they do so Nature or the like seems to all but have to publish it, and so with that formula nobody's incentivized to say "all is well", but that's what the "mainstream literature" (to the extent 4 or 5 papers can be considered a mainstream literature) looks like. So I don't know who's been "scientifically refuted", other than a different people opining, getting published by a major journal, and the subject still being largely ignored. Like it or not, that's not indicative of some scientific consensus that the original C-14 interpretation was perfect and flawless and every scientist who published against it is a crank, as the current lead implies. SamuelRiv (talk) 18:25, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
This has been dealt with so many times before. See [8] for full details. In a nutshell, multiple experts have studied the Shroud using microscopes etc and have found that the Shroud was never repaired or rewoven in that area. The Rogers test compared Shroud fibers against a few threads that he received in the mail, and there is no proof that these threads were from the C14 area as alleged. The contamination theory would require an enormous amount of foreign material to skew the result by so many centuries, whereas actually the samples were made as clean as could be achieved before the tests were conducted, and such a huge crust of foreign material would have been noticed. The radioactive smoke or radioactive candles or radioactive anything theories are contravening the known laws of physics. No C14 expert has spoken against the C14 results - challenges come only from non-C14-experts, ranging from coroners to historians to art experts to psychic nuns. Thus we have a clear line between hard scientific evidence vs unsupported supposition. When an unscientific theory is matched against hard scientific evidence, the hard scientific evidence wins. Hard science cannot yet confirm exactly how the image was formed, but hard science can confirm that the image was formed in the Middle Ages. Wdford (talk) 20:49, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Just wow

I guess any time the POV -- that all objections to the C14 testing have been "scientifically refuted" -- is demonstrated to be a flawed and false claim, that discussion gets archived. Pathetic. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 13:24, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

And you have no intention to test that guess by checking whether those "demonstrations" in the archive hold water, because the alternative is that you are wrong and the article is right?
Do you have any suggestions for improving the article? If not, you are in the wrong place. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:42, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
Funny. No matter how many times I show the article is flawed, you keep repeating the same things. But since you asked.
"All hypotheses put forward to challenge the radiocarbon dating have been scientifically refuted, including the medieval repair hypothesis, the bio-contamination hypothesis and the carbon monoxide hypothesis."

Let's review the "support" for this suggestion.

Footnote 7 is to a highly reputable paper which does, in fact, question Rogers' conclusions, but it does so in a far more nuanced way than this sentence suggests, concluding: "We assume that there will be future studies on the Shroud of Turin. Any such future sampling should include another sample of the shroud away from the previous area sampled. In our opinion, such a study would be useful to confirm the previous results and should include both textile analysis and 14C measurements." Thus, the authors of the paper themselves are not claiming to establish scientific consensus.
Footnote 8 is from a dead website/blog, not a scholarly paper, and the archived copy would reflect this website entry was from a personal blog of the author and not peer-reviewed. That's really not a worthy citation to rebut Rogers' peer-reviewed paper published in a scholarly U of Cal science journal. I don't have any problem with the credential of the author to write as he does. But he is plainly speaking personal opinion in this article, and not requesting peer-review -- in fact, he was being open and honest about that point.
Footnote 9 is to a Random House encyclopedia. Come on already. Try citing that in graduate school, see what happens. Although I have to admit that the citation -- vague as it is -- by one "encyclopedia" to another, has to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
Footnote 10. I don't have any issue with this citation, per se, but it was published in 1990 and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. To claim it rebuts an article written 15 years later, though, is purposefully deceptive and would be academically sanctionable in other contexts. Good thing this isn't a reputable graduate school.
Footnote 11 cites to a web article by a genuine giant in this field, Dr. Christopher Bronk Ramsey. But it doesn't support the claim for which it is cited. Dr. Ramsey expresses measured doubt over the contamination by carbon monoxide theory, advanced by John Jackson, but he does not dismiss it out-of-hand: "The only way to see if this sort of contamination is possible is to do experimental work on modern linen. The key question is whether carbon monoxide reacts to any significant extent with linen." Notably, Dr. Ramsey also writes: "There is a lot of other evidence that suggests to many that the Shroud is older than the radiocarbon dates allow and so further research is certainly needed. It is important that we continue to test the accuracy of the original radiocarbon tests as we are already doing. It is equally important that experts assess and reinterpret some of the other evidence. Only by doing this will people be able to arrive at a coherent history of the Shroud which takes into account and explains all of the available scientific and historical information."
Footnote 12 is to an on-line chemistry publication. Again, not really a worthy source of rebuttal. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 13:56, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
So my suggestion to improve the article is to delete this sentence, which is plainly POV, as the cited sources are obviously inadequate to support the claim made in the sentence. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 14:02, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
I checked your claims about footnote 7. The source writes, Rogers (2005) suggested that the fibers in his study, which came from the Raes fragments (e.g. Heimberger 2009), were coated with a Madder root dye (e.g. alizarin) and mordant. Linen does not readily accept dye, and any surface “coating” would be loosely adhered. We viewed a textile fragment dyed using traditional methods under UV light, and observed absolutely no similarity in UV fluorescence consistent with such a dye. That sounds very much like a refutation to me.
Your first claim is bullshit, and I see no reason to check the others because there is no reason to assume that they are any better. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:16, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
Your claim about footnote seven is bullshit. I don't even think you understand the subject matter. Keep in mind that Rogers was the head researcher on the project, and he was calling into question the results of testing on subjects collected under his supervision. In any other context, that the lead researcher has accepted that the material collected was not adequate for proper testing would essentially be conclusive. But in the end, all that the paper noted in footnote seven stated was: "We find no evidence to support the contention that the 14C samples actually used for measurements are dyed, treated, or otherwise manipulated. Hence, we find no reason to dispute the original 14 C measurements, since our sample is a fragment cut on the arrival of the Arizona 14C sample in Tucson on 24 April 1988 by coauthor Jull, and has been in his custody continuously." So this conclusion was based on one sample sent to one lab, when samples were sent to three separate labs. So they found "no evidence" based on analysis of a single sample, which is significant, but NOT dispositive. The authors stated their careful conclusion, as I quoted above, in a manner far more circumspect that you do. YOU run afoul of the maxim of Logic that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." The authors themselves do not fall into the logical fallacy that you do. They were careful to state their conclusion. You are not. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 14:44, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
IP 64etc seems to be making a good case here. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:56, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for the support, but nothing will change here. This page is in the hands of, and controlled by, fanatical skeptics. Soon enough this discussion will be archived and I will be banned again for being "disruptive." 64.67.122.103 (talk) 15:07, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
You don't seem disruptive, just seeking and arguing for just a bit more neutral point of view language. As a non-admin I'd think that archiving an ongoing discussion of sources and language should be done after a few days of no new additions but not before. No name calling though, civility reigns at Wikipedia, and all should assume good faith that other editors are providing situational context as they perceive and present it. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:14, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
Raymond Rogers was a renowned chemist who supervised the STURP research project 1978. The STURP researchers collected the samples later used for the C14 testing. Rogers came to the project as a skeptic. He accepted the C14 results without hesitancy. When questions started being raised about the C14 testing, he said that the advocates of this position were not scientists and their idea was "ridiculous." But he began testing their ideas, intending to disprove them, and was surprised by what he found. He authored his peer-reviewed article, questioning the C14 testing results, while suffering from terminal cancer. His paper is scholarly and science based, as you would expect. But he also gave a number of interviews in which this former skeptic made some completely unexpected and personal (not "scientific") observations about the shroud based on his experiences. You should google Raymond Rogers and see for yourself. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 15:33, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
Raymond Rogers has a Wikipedia page. Thanks, I'll read more about him and his work. Randy Kryn (talk) 20:44, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
The IP cozily forgot that WP:PARITY applies to fringe articles. Again, this is not a level playing field.

As for the page having two sets of rules, it doesn't: sources representing mainstream scientific thought have precedence over mysticism and fringe science. That should be a fairly simple rule to comprehend and abide by.
— User:Kww

I don't think it covered anyone. The imprint upon such a shroud is nothing like a portrait photo, but something much more like [9]. I know this is WP:OR, just saying what I think. Source: [10] and [11]. It is completely ridiculous to claim that the imprint would look anything like this: [12], i.e. like a frontal photo of a bearded man, with his hair hanging in the air, like gravity would pull his hair towards his feet. It's not rocket science, it's like when a child tells a lie and their parents immediately know they have been lied. You make it sound that it is incredibly complicated and that only scientists could tell, but in fact it is a childish lie, it is a naïve and unsophisticated web of lies. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:58, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
Actually, this discussion is about a detail on another front, which has nothing to do with the image but only with radiocarbon dating. But of course what you say is right: the context is important. The subculture which wants to sow doubt about the C12 results exists because people want to believe in the childish lie. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:15, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
Raymond E. Brown was by no means a fanatical skeptic. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:45, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
Too funny. It's pretty clear you have no idea who Raymond Rogers was. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 18:04, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
Is this for real? Ridiculous! Brown was a mainstream Bible scholar, a faithful Catholic priest, and a disbeliever in the authenticity of the shroud at the same time. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:48, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
Rogers <> Brown. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:14, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
Rogers came to the project as a skeptic Pretty common rhetorical method. "I was a skeptic too" is something you hear from people defending every pseudoscience. I don't know why anyone would think that it matters one bit. Disbelieving a specific claim does not make you a skeptic, and even if it did, skeptics make mistakes too. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:15, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
Another, even more common tactic is to impugn someone's motivations when you can't impugn their scholarly work. When Rogers was calling Joe Marino and Sue Benford "kooks" for all those years, that was all part of his scheme eventually to publish a paper down the road, acknowledging that they were right. Get a grip, pal. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 18:07, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

The STURP researchers DID NOT collect the samples later used for the C14 testing – those C14 samples were collected by the C14 team, which did not include STURP members.

Rogers compared his STURP samples against some threads he received in the post, which were claimed to be from the area "adjacent" to where the C14 samples were taken. The provenance of these threads cannot be tested or proven.

These threads were correctly found to differ from the STURP samples, so Rogers passed peer review. However since the provenance of these threads cannot be tested or proven, this "test" proves nothing about the C14 testing.

Since the person who mailed those threads was not entitled to gather unauthorised Shroud material, the most likely source was from a seam that was trimmed off and discarded by the C14 team specifically because it was seen to be contaminated.

All three of the labs studied their samples closely before they were burned, and the samples were carefully cleaned to remove contaminants. None of them reported the kind of contamination of the type identified by Rogers, thereby proving that these mysterious threads in the post were not representative of the C14 samples.

In addition, Arizona University had a piece of sample material left over, which was rechecked and found to have zero contamination of the type identified by Rogers, thereby further proving that these mysterious threads in the post were not representative of the C14 samples.

Conclusion - the unprovenanced postal threads tested by Rogers were indeed not representative of the Shroud, but they were not representative of the C14 samples either, so they are irrelevant. Wdford (talk) 21:51, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

And the IP will later claim that their objections were "demonstrations" that the "claims" in the article were "false", and that This page is in the hands of, and controlled by, fanatical skeptics because that is how pseudoscience works: either listen only to what you yourself say, or invent excuses why what the other people said does not count. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:15, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
PARITY of sources? The number of peer-reviewed works published in notable scientific journals, casting doubt on the accuracy of the C14 testing, exceeds the number of such articles supporting the C14 testing. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 11:42, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
If you don't read WP:PARITY, then you don't know what it says. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:42, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
I never said the STURP researchers collected the sample. And who is the "C14 team"? The actual sample was collected by technicians, not scientists. The 1978 STURP paper recommended C14 testing of the shroud and recommended that samples be taken from the same area as the Raes sample taken by the team in 1978. Damon reported in 1989 that the C14 samples were taken from the spot next to, and just above, the Raes sample. So you have it completely backwards. It wasn't Rogers who claimed his sample came from the area adjacent to the area where the C14 samples were taken. It was Damon who claimed that the technicians took their samples, as directed as per their protocol, from the same area that the STURP team took the Raes samples -- and this was done as per the direction of the STURP paper and recommended protocols. Everything else you have stated thereafter is speculation, which of course isn't scientific at all. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 13:22, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
Your exact words were: "The STURP researchers collected the samples later used for the C14 testing". This is totally false. Bingo.
"The "C14 team" was the large Damon team, consisting of a range of experts in different relevant disciplines. Read their report, and see for yourself.
The C14 team studied the entire Shroud minutely, and chose their sample area based on various criteria – one of which was to not damage the image. There were no STURP members on the C14 team telling them where to sample from.
Rogers was told (without any proof) that the threads he was comparing against were taken from the area adjacent to the area where the C14 samples were taken. He made his conclusions based on that assumption. Because the provenance of these threads cannot be tested or proven, the findings of Rogers' tests can tell us nothing about the C14 testing. On the other hand, the sampled material was studied carefully by the C14 experts to identify contamination, and the scientists found no contamination of the type described by Rogers.
No C14 expert has ever spoken against the validity of those C14 results. Some other non-C14 scientists who don't like the C14 result have written papers – and even invented new "tests" - to support their POV. An unverified new methodology – frequently incorporating huge arbitrary "margins for error" - does not stack against three expert C14 tests. The proposed bases for objection have all been tested, and proven to be false. Ergo, the C14 results still stand. Wdford (talk) 20:46, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
Exactly: people who seek to refute the C14 tests are not using evidence, but merely their imagination. And the reality-based community has been invited to play whack-a-mole with their imaginary refutations of hard evidence. As Steven Dutch stated, even if it were a 1st century burial shroud there is no evidence that such person was Jesus, and no evidence that that person got resurrected. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:55, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
Ok, in that one instance, I didn't get my words right. Still, the results of the C14 testing have been questioned and continue to be questioned by scientists who have published numerous peer-reviewed articles. Period/end of story. This article on its face contains a verifiable falsehood. You guys pick and choose what "science" you want to follow. The verifiable forensic pathology of the shroud and the sudarium of Oviedo, when compared, establish with near certainty that the cloths were in contact with each other at the time the bloodstains were created. Since the Sudarium's existence can be established as far back as at least to 570 AD, the C14 testing of the shroud to a point in time 600 years later than that has no rational explanation. Which is why a number of C14 experts, including Dr. Christopher Bronk Ramsey, have urged caution about the C14 results. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 02:03, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
You're using https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quote_mining
We certainly don't allow WP:GEVAL between the side which has evidence and the side which has only fantasies. I mean: just because these are fantasies it does not follow that these would be false, but these are certainly not supported by evidence. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:08, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
This is your typical nonsensical response. You don't get it. You guys are the crazy kooks who are holding onto to some fantasy that all objections to the C14 testing have been "scientifically refuted." In the next year, yet another paper will be published in a highly respected scientific journal; and you still insist that some article from 1990 (see fn 10) refutes it. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 10:51, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
There is zero "verifiable forensic pathology" to prove that the Shroud and the sudarium of Oviedo were ever in contact with each other, far less "at the time the bloodstains were created". That is fantasy, not science. If you have any science to "prove" this assertion, please start a new thread, and we can discuss it. However until then, it is a fringe statement at best, and will be treated as such. The only science that will overturn the C14 dating, is a new C14 test using state of the art technology. The old tech has been proven many times, so it is highly unlikely that the new tech will overturn the old dating. However, time will tell. Wdford (talk) 10:59, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
You just deny facts. Zero forensic evidence? You are either so uninformed, or intentionally misleading. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 12:54, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
Hello 64etc. You've made some good points. But please adhere to WP:Five pillars and be a bit more civil and assume good faith (i.e. you can personally assume that the other editor, in this case, may be misinformed but then shouldn't say publicly they may be "intentionally misleading" because that is a serious accusation). Wikipedia has some good rules and pillars, fine life lessons in fact. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:06, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
This guy accused me of "fantasies." As usual, I get the warning after they go off the tracks. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 13:13, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
Then that's his problem, not yours. Seriously, this stuff seems to trigger many people and would best be discussed without name calling from anybody (and I don't always practice what I preach of course). Even with today's tech nobody knows what caused this image, and it is not listed as an artwork, so it is one of the nice mysteries (and an actual mystery) that the human race has found for itself to argue over and Wikipedia should be one of the main places to do so. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:23, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
it is not listed as an artwork What does that mean? Listed where? It looks like an artwork, it contains pigments used in artworks, we have documents from the time it as made saying it is an artwork. The people who did not "list it as an artwork" seem to not have done their job. There is nothing more "mysterious" about it than about other medieval art. Hob Gadling (talk) --13:58, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
Hello Hob Gadling. Right here on Wikipedia, see the page categories where many art-related categories would be added if this were recognized as an artwork. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:13, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
Firstly, WP is not a reliable source and its categorical schemes should probably not be considered as definitive "recognition" of anything. Secondly, sources for considering the Shroud a work of art include art historian Andrew Casper's book "An Artful Relic" (see here), this ("particularly significant for art"), this, this, and I assume many more. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 15:29, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
As JoJo said. I never heard anyone use that specific ultra-weak line of reasoning before, not even breatharians or flat-earthers. Trying to use Wikipedia as a source, yes. But lack of categorization, never. Maybe you want to add that there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy? --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:12, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
Again, one side has evidence and the tests were done by proper experts, the other side just has guessiology (their own imagination of what went wrong with the tests performed by experts). tgeorgescu (talk) 11:01, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
No sides here, just information. What I'd like to know is why Rodgers made a 180 in his assessments. He doesn't seem like someone who'd be easily fooled. Hopefully new tests will be done at some point, I would imagine by 2028 as that 50th anniversary of the major testing, and 40th anniversary of the carbon dating tests, nears. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:11, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
The C14 testing has been decisively questioned in numerous peer-reviewed scientific papers published by some of the most notable professional journals. That's just a fact. You have no credentials to question these papers, or dismiss them. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 13:45, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
In papers published by professional journals for subjects other than C14 testing, by experts on things other than C14 testing. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:04, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
C14 testing is a corroborative tool but also yields to other scientific evidence, as any archeologist would tell you. This is why Dr. Ramsey cautions that other scientific fields, relevant to the shroud, must be considered. You refuse to do that. The claim that all challenges to C14 testing has been "scientifically refuted" is a completely non-scientific assessment, made by people who have no credentials in science. That claim isn't accurate and is POV anyway. It should be deleted from this article. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 14:23, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Rogers tested his STURP samples against the threads he received in the post, and found that they did not match. All fine with that. The problem was that he assumed that these mystery threads were indeed representative of the C14 samples, because he was assured of this by the person who (illegally) sent them out. However the contamination on the mystery threads was substantial, and very obvious. The C14 experts who did the sampling found no such contamination on the actual C14 samples. Therefore, the mystery threads used by Rogers were not representative of the C14 samples. It not rocket science. The curiosity is why Rogers blindly accepted the mystery threads as authentic, without checking the provenance thereof, even though the C14 team had gone to huge trouble to select representative samples. Perhaps his looming death had something to do with it - we will never know. Wdford (talk) 17:45, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

That's an incredibly inaccurate characterization. For the record, Rogers' article was peer-reviewed and published. Obviously it would not have survived peer review if your recitation of events were accurate. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 17:52, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
There are thousands and thousands of peer-reviewed papers written by top scientists, which are wrong.
Also, a "skeptic" does not mean "disbeliever in everything", but "believer in the strongest evidence". tgeorgescu (talk) 01:57, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
Right. Obviously it would not have survived peer review if your recitation of events were accurate is an incredibly naive view of the scientific process. Find a scientist, tell them your view to their face, and watch them laugh at you. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:34, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
Stop pretending you know anything about science. You are embarrassing yourself. Look at what you wrote. You claimed that Rogers failed to establish the provenance of the threads he tested -- but somehow his article was still peer-reviewed (if only they had you, I suppose, you have straightened them out!) and then published in a U-Cal Berkeley science journal. Scientists are laughing in your face. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 10:53, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
You claimed that Rogers failed to establish the provenance of the threads he tested No, I did not. If you cannot even tell one user from another, it is no wonder that you are so confused about studies. Can we stop this? --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:53, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
I wasn't responding to you. Stop the drama. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 15:00, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
If you were not responding to me, then you should learn how to WP:INDENT. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:26, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
In this case, "skeptic" means picking and choosing what science you want to believe. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 10:48, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
What I wrote all came from Rogers' own paper. Read it.
He passed peer review because his science was good - the only weakness was that he assumed that the threads he received in the post were genuine, and he stated that assumption openly in the paper, so no foul. The fact that Rogers had been a founding member of that very journal, and had been an editor thereof for decades, may have helped the reviewers to navigate that small grey area as well.
On the other side, numerous experts who actually studied the Shroud itself, have confirmed that there was no repair work done at the sampled area. This included Rogers' own STURP colleagues, such as Jackson, who studied the Shroud under magnification etc at that very spot.
Rogers correctly confirmed that the postal threads were not the same as the verified STURP samples of the Shroud, and concluded that the C14 samples were therefore contaminated by later repairs. The many actual Shroud inspections proved that there had never been any later repairs in that area of the fabric. The only way to resolve this apparent contradiction is to accept that the unprovenanced postal threads were not actually from the C14 sampled area.
Since the C14 samples were taken with a huge amount of attention to ensuring that they were representative of the entire Shroud, and since the postal threads were completely unprovenanced - except for the word of a single clergyman who was not authorized to possess and distribute actual Shroud material - the weight of science lies heavily in favor of the C14 dating being correct.
Wdford (talk) 11:31, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
All this brilliance being wasted on the comments section on Wikipedia. And to think Rogers got published by a University of California-Berkeley science journal. Where is the justice in this world? 64.67.122.103 (talk) 15:02, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
Reputable archaeologists knee-jerk reject any unprovenanced object. Not only that would amount to shoddy science, but it also breaches scientific ethics. Yup, this is archaeological Omertà, and any archaeologist who breaks it lands in hot water. tgeorgescu (talk) 11:53, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

I believe it is time to stop this. 64.67.122.103, you have made something like 25 edits to this section, repeating the same points multiple times and not achieving consensus in support of your claims/views/opinions/desired edits. Continuing to repeat the same points here would likely qualify as disruptive editing. Furthermore, comments like You have no credentials to question these papers, or dismiss them, You are either so uninformed, or intentionally misleading, and You guys are the crazy kooks who are holding onto to some fantasy, among others, indicate that you have inappropriately personalized the dispute. Before these personal attacks escalate and perhaps lead to a block or other sanction(s), I ask that you please drop the stick and move on to something else. If, however, you absolutely must continue with this dispute, I suggest that you pursue a mechanism of dispute resolution. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 15:45, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Take a look at the exchanges. I'm merely paraphrasing the language they have directed to me. It's hard to assume "good faith" when it is clear they have none. But I'll take your advice. I'm done, largely because any rational review of these discussions show how remarkably narrowly informed and rigid the editors on this wiki page are. 64.67.122.103 (talk) 15:59, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
Agree. Since the IP believes that peer review makes a publication infallible (but probably only if the IP likes the result) und therefore refuses to accept WP:RS, which disagrees with that, there is no point. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:14, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
I have to give credit to IP for hanging in there tough despite the personal abuse heaped upon him. Like most people who watch this "factual" page with interest, I have never bothered to dig in and challenge the myths espoused here. But I just can't.
Your cites in support of the challenged sentence are to (i) a peer-reviewed article, the content of which is misrepresented (fn7); (ii) a dead and inactive personal blog (fn8); (iii) an encyclopedia (fn9); (iv) a scholarly article from 1990 which is (falsely) said to refute conclusions of papers published 15-30 years later (fn10); (v) another scholarly article with content that is again misrepresented (fn11); and (vi) an on-line chemistry website (fn12).
You mock the IP for citing (accurately) scholarly, peer-reviewed papers published by a Berkeley science journal and an Oxford science journal.
And yet any hint of your unintended irony eludes you when you proclaim the superiority of your "sources." This page is badly in need of a responsible and balanced re-write. It is non-factual as presently written, 69.119.138.232 (talk) 17:52, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
This is not a level playing field. When both sides will have evidence, we will give them equal validity. But not when one side has evidence and C14 tests, while the other side has wild guesses why the C14 could be wrong. And the weakest link in Rogers' argument is that he trusted a priest on their word of honor, committing a capital sin for archaeologists, namely accepting unprovenanced objects for study and public discussion. That's it: Rogers' conclusion stands or fails if that priest told the truth or he lied. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:00, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
You're right. It's not a level=playing field. All the recent scientific inquiry and analysis questions the C14 results. And your opinion about what Rogers did or did not do is not even remotely material. 69.119.138.232 (talk) 18:31, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
questions the C14 results—if they don't have any real, i.e. provenanced evidence, those questions are just wild guesses.
The researchers who question the C14 results were never trusted. I don't mean trusted by the skeptics, but they were never trusted by the Vatican to test the shroud. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:50, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

WAXS dating

We cannot dismiss WAXS dating with prejudice. But as of 2022, it is not mainstream science. We don't know if it will ever be, see WP:BALL. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:38, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Google has 7 hits for "waxs dating" at the moment, and all of them are about that one study by Fanti and colleagues, except one which is about a person called Wax, probably Wax (rapper) or Wax (singer), and who they are dating.
So, it seems that method was specifically invented in order to date the Shroud and to get an age of 2000 years, exactly like "vanillin dating" a few years back. It definitely does not belong in the article.
WP:NOTDUMB applies, to the Wikipedia community as well as to the scientific one. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:31, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Image properties

Apologies for the mess I made trying to add a new section. I tried to be faithful to the sources so to be as much precise as possible (as it is a bit technical). It was too faithful... :) I didn't grasp the the Copyright issues. Now I got it.

I still would like to add a new section regarding the image properties without plagiarism, with the same points:

- Superficiality

- Areal Density and its 3-dimensionality

- Image under the bloodstains


The content is the same I already posted but I will rephrase with my own words. I will stick to the content documented in the scientific articles of Fanti, Rogers, Jackson and Adler without external links on photographic image (Is that the POVy part with dubious sources?).

What do you think? Should I post the content here before?

Thanks

Prismak (talk)

Yes, please post your proposed content here, with the sources. Thank you :) Wdford (talk) 11:15, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Ok these is a draft of my proposed modification, a chapter "Image properties" after "Image and text analysis". Please let me know what you think. Prismak (talk)
=== Image properties ===
==== Superficiality ====
The Shroud cloth is composed of threads of a nominal diameter of 0.15 mm, woven with fibers of linen with a diameter of about 10-20 µm. [1] [2]
The Shroud image is a faint [1] and superficial image caused by a translucent and discontinuous yellow discoloration of the fibers. [1] [2] In the points where the image is present, the discoloration affects only 2 or 3 fibers on the topmost part of the threads of the cloth. [1] [2]
In each fiber, the yellow discoloration penetrates only for 200nm in the external cell layer.[2]
Under the crossing threads of the weave, the image is not present.[2]
A fiber is not necessarily colored for all its length, but, in the parts where it is, it has the property of being colored all around its cylindrical surface. [2]
==== Areal density and 3d properties ====
The image of the Shroud is an areal density image, in the sense that the levels of darkness are not given by variations of the color, which instead is approximately constant all over the image, but by a variation of the number of yellowed fibers per unit area. [2][3] Therefore, it can be considered a halftone image. [1] Furthermore, there is no difference in terms of distribution of fiber coloration and maximum densities between the front and the rear of the image. [1]
The image density has the property of varying inversely with the distance between the body and the cloth [1][3], thus in this way encoding 3-dimensional information of the body, which can be analyzed and visually reproduced with the VP-8 image analyzer. [1] [4]
==== Image under bloodstains ====
Regardless the fact that the blood is real or not, the image doesn't seem to be present under the blood stains, when these are removed with a chemical process. [2][3]
According to Alan D. Adler, this would demonstrate that the blood stains have formed before the image, and somehow protected their areas from the image formation process. [3] If we accept this thesis, any proposed mechanism for explaining the image formation should describe a procedure in which the blood is laid down beforehand and then the image is painted or projected later. The blood couldn't have been painted afterward over the image. [3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Schwalbe, L.A.; Rogers, R.N. (1982). "Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of Turin, A Summary of the 1978 Investigation" (PDF). Analytica Chimica Acta. 135. Elsevier BV: 3–49.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Fanti, G.; Botella, J. A.; Di Lazzaro, P.; Heimburger, T.; Schneider, R.; Svensson, N. (2010). "Microscopic and Macroscopic Characteristics of the Shroud of Turin Image Superficiality". Journal of Imaging Science and Technology. 54 (4): 040201. doi:10.2352/J.ImagingSci.Technol.2010.54.4.040201.
  3. ^ a b c d e Adler, Alan D. (1999). "The Nature of the Body Images on the Shroud of Turin" (PDF). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. ^ Jackson, John P.; Jumper, Eric J.; Ercoline, William R. (October 1982). "Three Dimensional Characteristic of the Shroud Image" (PDF). IEEE 1982 Proceedings of the International Conference on Cybernetics and Society: 559–575.

Prismak (talk) 14:33, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Thank you Prismak, what a wonderful presentation and surprising sourced details (seems some of your references reside at the bottom of this page). The laying down of the "blood" images, riding on top of the cloth but coming before the body image existed, a body image which, although very faint and slight, wraps around each top thread but doesn't go deeper, baffles. How can such a thing be explained in professional scientific terms or in layman's terms? Nice work, thanks again. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:03, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
This page of the Shroud of Turin already is saying at the beginning that " A variety of methods have been proposed for the formation of the image, but the actual method used has not yet been conclusively identified". The reason for that is the image properties I mentioned. The discussion on the image formation is around those properties. I don't have an idea myself.
Honestly I start to think that this could be a real medieval man in some kind of fanatic reproduction of the Passion (the fact that it's quite faithful to the Gospels confirms that) with some kind of natural process for the formation of the image to be better investigated. It's weird but reasonable for me. But I didn't find any investigation on that! It seems that people think that it's either a miracle (with carbon dating somehow wrong) or a very sophisticated artifact.
By the way I was thinking if it's worth mentioning also the "challenge" of David Rolfe to the British museum: https://greekcitytimes.com/2022/04/18/1-million-to-british-museum-to-duplicate-jesus-shroud-of-turin-since-it-calls-it-forgery/ where you can see that he requires the properties above (not the blood one though).
Anyway please let me know if you think I can update the main page with this proposal.
Prismak (talk) Prismak (talk) 15:43, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
I would remove the content cited to Adler, which is not a peer-reviewed article. Maybe some of the content can be supported by Heller & Adler 1980? The 1982 conference paper has the same issue. The line "Regardless the fact that the blood is real or not, the image doesn't seem to be present under the blood stains, when these are removed with a chemical process" is unclear. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:45, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
Adler (see obituary) seems a reasonable reputable source for this topic (his very well-sourced paper was written as "Dr. Alan D. Adler, Emeritus Professor, Department of Chemistry, Western Connecticut University"), although of course his results could be challenged by other reputable sources. If Adler left the University under a cloud, and/or if his credentials have been questioned or removed, then I can see questioning his work. But if his reputation is intact and he has been cited elsewhere in his field of endeavor then the source should probably stand as cited. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:52, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
You're arguing for a WP:SELFPUB exception to the normal rule about reliable sources. That's possible, but it would be better to find a reliable source that has the same information. If such a source can't be found, one has to question whether the information is actually reliable. There might be a good reason why it has not been picked up elsewhere.--Srleffler (talk) 21:18, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
Judging solely on his obituary Adler seems to have acquired subject matter expert status, which is necessary for a self-publication exemption. Adler's paper is extremely well-sourced, and he seems to have been a well-regarded scholar on the subject. Yes, it would be nice if others have used his findings, but I don't know the field, perhaps they have done so (does the interesting challenge linked by Prismak above use Adler's findings and criteria?) Randy Kryn (talk) 21:38, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
The line "Regardless the fact that the blood is real or not, the image doesn't seem to be present under the blood stains, when these are removed with a chemical process." could be rephrased simply "The image does not appear to be present under the blood stains, when these are removed with a chemical process." The article already talks about the question of whether the blood stains are actually blood.--Srleffler (talk) 21:25, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
Ok thanks Prismak (talk) 09:13, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
The unclear phrase will be replaced as suggested by Srleffler below.
I can simply replace the 1982 Conference with this other paper of Jackson already in the main page sources (which is the same content):
"Correlation of image intensity on the Turin Shroud with the 3-D structure of a human body shape"
https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/Correlation%20of%20Image%20Intensity%20Jackson%20Jumper%20Ercoline%201984%20OCRsm.pdf
I can remove Adler from the second property (areal density), it's not needed. In the third property (image under the blood stains) I could replace Adler with this one, cited in the Adler pdf:
"A Comprehensive Examination of the Various Stains and Images on the Shroud of Turin,"
https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/Comprehensive%20Exam%20of%20Stains%20Jumper%20et%20al%201984%20OCR.pdf
Hereafter some excerpts:
", the "yellow-coated" fibrils found in the blood-image areas are yellowed by a distinctly different cause, that is, serum proteins "
"This absence of body image on the wound image margins suggests that the blood images were present on the cloth before the body image was "placed," "appeared," or perhaps 'developed'."
"This conclusion is supported by microscopic examination of the fibrils from the blood areas after removing the serum coating by protease digestion. Fibrils, so treated, more closely resemble those from the off-image clear areas than those from the body-only image areas when viewed by phase contrast microscopy"
But it's much more technical, I would keep the conference paper as additional source as it explains in layman's terms and I can cite his interpretation of the results.
What do you think?
Thanks Prismak (talk) 09:35, 10 October 2022 (UTC)


There are good science reasons why the blood issue is down-played in serious discussions. The real issue is not whether the "bloodstains" were actual blood - any medieval forger could have daubed the shroud with human blood. The issue is the claim that the "image" was apparently not found underneath the blood, after the blood was removed from a sample. On this matter, the big outstanding questions are the following:
  • What size sample of imaged thread was tested by Adler to arrive at this conclusion?
  • How many such samples were actually tested, to see if the result was representative of the entire image?
  • If the blood was applied over the image, could the blood itself have eliminated the image, or prevented it from surviving in the present form of the rest of the image? (Adler himself wrote that "the image fibers are very brittle and show “corroded” surfaces (as would be expected for dehydratively oxidized material)." Soaking it in a sticky moisture shortly after its creation, would presumably have affected the dehydration process in some way?)
  • If the blood was applied over the image, could the chemical process which removed the blood, also have removed the image at the same time? (The image is only a brittle "crust" on the surface of each fibre, and it is fading away over time - has it become delicate enough to crumble off if handled roughly?)
None of this was answered by Adler, and so his findings - while obsessively interesting to the shroudies - are of uncertain scientific value in this particular regard. This is not a general criticism of Adler, who was an expert in his field, nor a general criticism of his work on the shroud, but rather a criticism of one of the conclusions drawn from his specific tests on the shroud.
In the sources cited on this talk page, Fanti states that "No image is found formed under the blood stains." He attributes this finding to Schwalbe and Rogers, rather than Adler, but I can find no such conclusion in the cited paper by Schwalbe and Rogers?
If we look at Jackson and Jumper et al from 1984 (at A Comprehensive Examination of the Various Stains and Images (shroud.com)), then we can add the following quotes/points:
  • " The Shroud's mapping relationship, however, poses the strongest objection to a contact mechanism. Contact mechanisms have not been able to produce a convincing cloth-body distance relationship. In fact, taken alone, this mapping function seems to suggest some kind of a ""projection'" mechanism, because there seems to be image present even where it does not appear to have been possible that the cloth was in contact with the body. We are left to identify what kind of "projection" mechanism, and this we have been unable to do." Pg 470. In other words, the blood must have come from contact but the image could not have come from contact.
  • "Whatever the body-image production mechanism, it appears that it was prevented from acting by the presence of the blood/serum. This observation is suggested by both the presence of the "halo" around the heavy blood areas and the less degraded nature of the linen fibrils in the blood and serum areas." Pg 470. In other words, adding fluid (fresh blood) to the fresh image minimised the dehydration process which created the image – so maybe the blood came before the image, or maybe the blood was added afterward.
Any wording which cherry-picks from a source to support a fringe POV, would be unacceptable.
Wdford (talk) 15:51, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
First, thanks for your answer.
I quote the part from Schwalbe and Rogers to which probably Fanti is referring:
"It was mentioned earlier that yellow fibrils were observed on tape samples from both "blood"- and pure-image areas. It is important to reiterate here that the respective yellow discolorations differ in several respects. First, those from "blood" areas exhibit a deeper yellow discoloration. (It is probable but not entirely certain that this corresponds to the "shiny honey-yellow" color that Frache et al. [59] reported for the interior fibers of the "blood" threads.) Second, the yellow color in the "blood" areas is clearly a coating that yields positive tests for protein whereas the yellow body-image fibrils do not. The evidence would imply different origins for the two yellow discolorations. It would seem that the yellow material in the "blood" areas derives from blood serum directly."
Which is the same of what Adler says. Then if you read further the paper of Schwalbe and Rogers, it is more cautious to draw conclusions than Adler, but in any case this result is absolutely not a fringe POV, but one of the conclusions of the STURP. And a very important one. We know how the work of the STURP has been subject to criticisms, but we can't ignore their results.
I don't know why you want to discuss the scientific work of Adler here. I am not going to do it and we should not worry too much about that. I am simply reporting important scientific tests that has been done on the argument by an important expert in the field, which of course can be subject to criticism, like any test. Please note that I wrote that "the image doesn't seem to be present under the blood stains" not that "it has been proven that the image is not present under the blood stains". Do you think we could add also something like "according to some tests of Adler etc etc." ?
Then for example you or someone else can modify the page as well adding other sources that criticizes the work of Adler regarding this particular question, so to have a balanced overview of the matter. So I don't see the problem of adding the STURP results meantime. Prismak (talk) 17:40, 10 October 2022 (UTC)


OK then. My opinion – your proposed Superficiality section is fine, although a bit technical – but we should also mention that there is seemingly a consensus that the image was caused by a kind of dehydrative oxidation process, which has discoloured and "corroded" the surfaces of certain surface fibrils. (The Nature of the Body Images on the Shroud of Turin; Dr. Alan D. Adler, pgs 2-3 and A Comprehensive Examination of the Various Stains and Images on the Shroud of Turin, Jumper et al, pg 456)) I have seen this in other sources as well. The density material can be merged into this paragraph as well. We should also mention that the blood definitely came from a contact process (per Adler) but that the image came from an undetermined projection process, such that the "body images are out of stereoregister with the blood images and therefore have gotten onto the cloth by a non-contact information projective process." (Adler pgs 2&3)

However there is a problem with the 3D story. The VP-8 machine was designed to base its imaging on the distance to the undulating surface from a fixed point (the camera). This actually doesn't work on the shroud photos. To make it work, the researchers had to vary the assumed distance from the purported body to the purported cloth over the length of the image, and they then created a "correction factor" to force the overall image into a 3D result. (See PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY OF THE SHROUD OF TURIN A Summary of the 1978 Investigations, L. A. SCHWALBE* and R. N. ROGERS; pgs 7-9). The "correctness" of the 3D depends on how much you choose to "correct" the image at each point. Also, it is possible to make virtually any image into a 3D form using modern software, so the old shroud photos are not so special after all. If you have the right technology, you can pull any image into 3D if you try hard enough.

Re the Image under bloodstains material, this comes from Adler (page 2) – only one fibril was tested (apparently a fragment one millimetre long and half the diameter of a human hair.) From this. Adler (who from these bloodstains believes that the C14 dating is wrong) draws big conclusions, which are not universally supported. This part is thus still fringe.

Also, STURP is long ago, and even Adler's later stuff is quite long ago. STURP is no longer the benchmark. Wdford (talk) 21:27, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Ok fine with that.
Let's skip the 3D part, it's already mentioned in the main page and in the spin-off pages anyway.
I can create a single section of image properties with superficiality and area density plus your suggested additions. Let's work on putting on the main page this. Shall I modify directly the main page and you review or do you want to see the preview of the modifications here before?
By the way, do we want to mention also the "challenge" of David Rolfe?
https://greekcitytimes.com/2022/04/18/1-million-to-british-museum-to-duplicate-jesus-shroud-of-turin-since-it-calls-it-forgery/
It's not necessary, it's just bonus. It's interesting because he talks specifically of the image properties I described.
Then, as a second step, maybe we can put the bloodstains part into the fringe section at the end of the page (and update also the related spin-off page), where there are already corona discharge, pollens etc. Prismak (talk) 08:24, 12 October 2022 (UTC)


Go ahead with the various items as agreed above, and I will copy-edit later if needed. There is already a section on "Image analysis", so maybe put it in there?
Leave out David Rolfe - this was just a publicity stunt. The main clue comes in the paragraph which reads: "In accepting the Challenge, the Museum will also grant the Producers the exclusive right to film for both record and dissemination the planning and execution of the process from start to finish." Rolfe seems to have been trying to concoct a business opportunity.
In addition, all scientists know that the shroud has faded and "matured" since the first recorded descriptions, and there is no way that any replication attempt could understand, far less duplicate, the precise retting and bleaching of the medieval threads, or the precise impacts of the many washings and bakings etc that the shroud has endured over centuries, or the aging effects of the smoke and sunlight etc of the hundreds of indoor and outdoor displays, or even just the fading due to sheer aging. The museum would be correct to simply ignore him.
On the other hand, they could just challenge Rolfe to find a way to make the C14 dating seem incorrect, since it has been conclusively proven that the material originally tested was genuine shroud material. :)
Wdford (talk) 10:44, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
@Wdford OK I will append my content in the "Image Analysis" paragraph. Thanks. Prismak (talk) 12:28, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
Just added now if you want to check them Prismak (talk) 13:57, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Herringbone IS NOT a complex weave

So I made perhaps my first ever Bold edit on wikipedia on the subsection of Historical fabrics, so please “don’t kill me” for this. As much as I respect Joe Nickell’s work on the shroud, to put it bluntly he is a idiot when it comes to “complex” weaves. Anyone who has studied textiles knows that herringbone is not a “complex” weave, it is incredibly simple. Nickells ignorance to the subject of weaves is embarrassing, is also very misleading. My edit doesn’t denounce any findings and I still kept the reference, but I just removed the part that is obvious misinformation. Wolfquack (talk) 18:43, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

WAXS Study Dates Shroud to Time of Christ

A new scientific method revealed that the Shroud of Turin may truly originate from the 1st Century, around the time of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Italian scientist Liberato De Caro told the National Catholic Register (NCR) in April 2022 that his fabric test shows the Shroud is roughly 2,000 years old. De Caro and his colleagues made the discovery by utilizing a technique called "Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering" (WAXS). Why can’t a reference to this study be added to Wikipedia?? Do you edit out truth?? 2601:681:5782:A00:11F7:2BD:B3CF:BDBE (talk) 23:49, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Can you provide a reference to a reliable source for those claims? Please and thanks? Dumuzid (talk) 23:51, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Is there any independent evidence whatsoever (i.e., not De Caro or their group) that Wide-angle X-ray scattering can be used as a technique for dating samples? If it was such a useful and powerful technique, I would have expected my on-line search to reveal all sorts of information along those lines. But no. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 00:06, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
The closest my search came to anything useful was this, which does feature an "accelerator." JoJo Anthrax (talk) 00:13, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

X-ray Dating of a Turin Shroud’s Linen Sample April 2022Heritage 5(2):860-870 DOI:10.3390/heritage5020047 LicenseCC BY 4.0 Truth in Erda (talk) 00:14, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

X-Ray Dating of Ancient Linen Fabrics November 2019Heritage 2(4):2763-2783 DOI:10.3390/heritage2040171 LicenseCC BY Authors: Liberato De Caro at Italian National Research Council Liberato De Caro Italian National Research Council Cinzia Giannini at National Resarch Council CNR Cinzia Giannini National Resarch Council CNR R. Lassandro at Italian National Research Council R. Lassandro Italian National Research Council Francesco Scattarella at Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro Francesco Scattarella Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro 

Truth in Erda (talk) 00:19, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
See Talk:Shroud of Turin/Archive 19. Why do we have to repeat the same discussion? --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:23, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
This talk page probably needs a FAQ subpage to be written, and then transcluded above using {{FAQ}}. Mathglot (talk) 09:54, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Pray Codex

I fail to see what File:Hungarianpraymanuscript1192-1195.jpg has to do with the Shroud of Turin in particular, rather then a shroud for Jesus in general. I.e. why it has to be this shroud instead of any other shroud. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:41, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Fans of this image assert that the L-shaped pattern of four small circles on the rectangle with the stepped shapes looks like a pattern of holes on the Shroud. The idea seems to be that there was some tradition that remembered the existence of that pattern of holes which informed the 12th century artist, but that the information that there was an image of the Christ on the shroud was somehow not remembered as well as those four little holes.--Srleffler (talk) 21:11, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
I think I see your point. The paragraph on the pray codex doesn't really meet the mandate of the History section, as noted in the edit comment there. I have removed it. Removed text below, for reference.--Srleffler (talk) 21:24, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

An image in the medieval manuscript of the Pray Codex (c. 1192-1195) has generated a debate among some believers since 1978.[1] Although the Pray Codex predates the Shroud of Turin, some of the assumed features of the drawing, including the four L-shaped holes on the coffin lid, have pointed some people towards a possible attempted representation of the linen cloth. However the image on the Pray Codex has crosses on what may be one side of the supposed shroud, an interlocking step pyramid pattern on the other, and no image of Jesus. Critics point out that it may not be a shroud at all, but rather a rectangular tombstone, as seen on other sacred images.[2] A crumpled cloth can be seen discarded on the coffin, and the text of the codex fails to mention any miraculous image on the codex shroud.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b Casabianca, Tristan (September 2021). "The Ongoing Historical Debate About the Shroud of Turin: The Case of the Pray Codex". The Heythrop Journal. 62 (5): 789–802. doi:10.1111/heyj.13929. ISSN 0018-1196.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference 36naL was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

Fringe theories

The C14 tests are definitive, and no scientific evidence has been produced to refute those results. If you have any such Actual Scientific Evidence, then please discuss it on Talk first. PS: A wishful straw-clutching press interview does not count as Actual Scientific Evidence, and neither does a money-spinning "documentary" or a novel made-to-prove new measurement test which has never been replicated far less authenticated. Wdford (talk) 13:08, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Addition to lead paragraph

I'd added at the end of the lead paragraph "No one has been able to explain exactly how it was made nor duplicated it." This was reverted for being original research in Wikipedia's voice. Yet it accurately summarizes the remainder of the article and should be returned. The page gives no explanation of how the shroud was made, guesswork yes, but since it has not been duplicated it seems accurate and encyclopedically necessary to include this information in the lead paragraph. This is not original research but a factual summarized statement of article content. Nobody has been able to duplicate the thing. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:26, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Edit addition: change to the suggested summary language to the lead paragraph, "The photographic positive property of the shroud has never been explained nor duplicated". Randy Kryn (talk) 01:51, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
Nobody has duplicated the Mona Lisa either, but that does not mean we think it was miraculously created. The section "Hypotheses on image origin" describes several experiments with plausible techniques for producing a similar image. The statement you added seems aimed to make this object's origin seem much more mysterious than it actually is.--Srleffler (talk) 04:45, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
The article even has a nice photograph of a duplicate. This is not the Shroud of Turin:
Replica of the Shroud of Turin, found in the Real Santuario del Cristo de La Laguna in Tenerife (Spain).
--Srleffler (talk) 04:48, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Hello Srleffler. A Mona Lisa replica can be painted by a good forger (and the original can be scientifically explained - da Vinci painted it), and of course a facsimile of the shroud as seen with the naked eye and not photographed, such as the replica you've pictured, can be made using modern techniques. This only shows that my edit needs a bit of tweaking. Yet it remains valid that the first paragraph should summarize the page information that "The photographic positive property of the shroud has never been explained nor duplicated" (maybe in those words). This important fact seems first-paragraph worthy as an article summary, especially since the second paragraph leads off with a claim of fakery made in the 14th century and has nothing to do with the unexplained photographic effect, the major source of the object's notoriety since 1898. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:53, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
This is very problematic. As I said in the my comment at the end of the previous section in this talk page, I was under the impression until very recently that we didn't know how the image on the Shroud was produced. This is certainly what one would gather from the coverage in the popular press. But, in fact, in 2000 the American Chemical Society gave its highest prize in analytical chemistry to Walter McCrone (in his lifetime, the world's leading expert on microscopic analysis of ancient documents and artworks) for work showing that the Shroud is simply painted in a dilute red ochre tempera, with the "bloodstains" highlighted in vermilion paint. That conclusion is also currently cited as a straightforward fact in standard textbooks of forensic chemistry. - Eb.hoop2 (talk) 12:07, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Although some of the blood being painted has nothing to do with the overall lead-paragraph extension and is a side-issue to my proposed language addition, McCrone's work has been disproven if I recall correctly, and was more of a claim than a proven fact. There is actually no evidence of the shroud being painted, one main retort is that paint would have soaked into the fibers. I'm not an expert on the paint evidence, of course, but would like other opinions on this. But even presenting and assuming that some of the blood was paint, which I believe has been disproven, that does not explain how the overall image was made in order to include the photographic positive effect of the shroud's image discovered in 1898 and not duplicated in any replication (although not for lack of trying). Randy Kryn (talk) 12:28, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Like you, I was under the impression (from apparently reliable sources like the BBC or National Geographic), that McCrone's work on the Turin Shroud had been refuted, or at least that it was controversial among experts. But that's just not the case if one looks at the actual scientific literature in analytical chemistry and forensics. I repeat, the American Chemical Society actually gave McCrone its highest award for analytical chemistry in 2000 specifically for his work on the Turin Shroud, twenty years after he first published his results and long after the other STURP members had published their various critiques of McCrone's work. How is it possible that the press never mentions this when they bring up the "mystery" about the Shroud? I also suggest that you look at the references in McCrone's bio here on Wikipedia (I've been working in improving that article recently), which include standard modern textbooks on forensic chemistry in which his results on the Shroud as simply presented as factual. There's clearly a problem in terms of who's talking to journalists about this subject.
If you're interested in delving into the matter, I suggest starting from the 2014 lecture by Joel Bernstein that I'd already linked to in the previous section of this talk page. You will see there that McCrone simply identified, first under the optical microscope and then with chemical and other methods, the particles of red ochre and vermillion pigments that make up the image on the Shroud. He then showed that they were bound to the linen fibers and to each other with collagen (indicating the use of a gelatin tempera medium), and also that there's no blood in any of the samples that he was able to test. Only after all that rigorously factual work does he go on to argue that this is fully consistent with painting techniques well known in 14th-century Europe. - Eb.hoop2 (talk) 13:32, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks Eb.hoop2, will check out your research and page. Did McCrone say that the entire image was done with pigment or just some of the blood indications? For me the award is neither here nor there (I don't think I've ever used that term before), have seen enough experts and awards revolve around non-facts and conspiracies. The image provided above, I left a note on the church's talk page wondering what occurs when it is photographed. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:39, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Here is another medieval artefact called the "shroud of Arquata del Tronto", which is a copy of the Shroud of Turin. Like the body images on the Turin Shroud, this shroud was also made "without the use of drawing or painting", and the shroud of Arquata is considered to be the copy of the Turin Shroud that is most similar to the original.[13] Seems the Turin Shroud was not so exceptional after all? Wdford (talk) 17:11, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. The article on the shroud of Arquata includes no photographs and, more importantly, no photograph of the copy showing what its positive image looks like. The negative image of the Turin cloth shows a detailed figure of an adult human being, fully tortured and seen as if looking at a positive image. It is a remarkable "found" object as an aspect of an already known historically recorded cloth. Has that negative image ever been duplicated by any of the copies? It's the most important thing about the shroud of Turin. Without that effect the cloth is a very interesting artifact, with questions if it is an artwork or not, but not something unduplicatable with modern technology. The negative image, first taken in 1898, that's what my suggested lead paragraph addition would address and provide as a key descriptor to adequately summarize the page. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:35, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
According to McCrone, the whole image was painted with red ochre pigment in a gelatin tempera, making something akin to a very dilute watercolor. This now looks brownish-yellow, partly because of the yellowing of the gelatin with age. The "bloodstains" are vermillion pigment, also in a gelatin tempera, and now look bright red (which, incidentally, is not how blood on cloth actually looks). Vermillion is made from mercury sulfide and could only have come from a painter's brush.
My point about the ACS award is that it'd never have been given for work that the relevant scientific experts regarded as controversial. The notion (which I've seen asserted in various journalistic media) that McCrone's work on the Shroud is discredited or even seriously debated (outside of the small circle of researchers associated with STURP) is demonstrably false. See also the refs. in McCrone's bio to, e.g., the Forensic Chemistry Handbook (Wiley, 2012), or to Suzanne Bell's history of forensic science. And please bear in mind that the purpose of Wikipedia is to reflect the scholarly (informed) consensus on a subject. -Eb.hoop2 (talk) 21:22, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
I'll delve into the research you've provided, thanks. But maybe we can get back to the topic of my lead paragraph suggestion, adding "The photographic positive property of the shroud has never been explained nor duplicated", which would add a necessary summary descriptor of the cloth's most notable feature to the article's introduction. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:42, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
It still seems to me that your desired phrase is WP:SYNTH/WP:OR. What independent, secondary sources in the article actually provide specific and explicit claims directly related to never been explained nor duplicated? Or are there new, reliable sources that can be cited? I am unable to find them, and without them the desired content is not a "necessary summary descriptor," but is, at best, an editor's synthesis of content. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 15:19, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
I too must object to the phrase that you want to add to the lead. As I've explained above, I believe that the scientific (as opposed to the journalistic) consensus on this subject is that the image on the Shroud is adequately explained as a medieval painting. Even if some authors disagree with that conclusion, the statement that it has "never been explained" is far too strong. Also, the question of what constitutes "duplication" of the Shroud is a problem. In his book (Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin), McCrone explains that he had an artist friend of his (Walter Sanford) paint copies of the image of Jesus's head from the Shroud, using the technique that McCrone believes was used by the 14th-century painter. The results (in both positive and negative) look reasonably convincing to me, and he claims that the resulting cloth has similar properties under the microscope to the Shroud. Of course it's not identical to the actual Shroud of Turin, but, as Srleffler has noted above, it'd be very difficult to make an absolutely convincing reproduction of the Mona Lisa, even if one used exactly the same materials and techniques as Leonardo da Vinci. - Eb.hoop2 (talk) 21:56, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
Returning to what seems to be your main point: I'm not sure where you get the strange idea that there is anything at all special about the Shroud's photographic positive property. Negative images are not that hard to make. There is nothing magical about what a camera does to make a negative image—it just inverts light and dark. If an artist paints a good duplicate of the Shroud, it will have the same negative image effect. --Srleffler (talk) 03:55, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

With the right equipment, any photograph of any object can be made to look like anything. As mentioned above, to make an exact duplication would require hundreds of years of heating and washing and baking and weathering and natural aging, at unknown temperatures for unknown periods of time. That doesn't mean that it cannot be done, merely that nobody has bothered to test every one of the hundreds of possible combinations of variables because the "mystery" has been so much diminished by the C14 test results. Wdford (talk) 10:07, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Here are photos of the Shroud of Arquata. [14] Wdford (talk) 10:11, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the images Wdford. As you and others can see there is no duplication or anything even close to the negative/positive image that has made the Turin shroud as notable as it has become. If the positive image cannot be duplicated (or even closely matched) then my lead suggestion still stands as an accuracy-edit option. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:43, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
I can happily accept the line that "The photographic positive property of the shroud has never been explained". However we cannot say that it has never been duplicated, because such things can be easily done using modern digital equipment, and maybe it has been done lots of times by people who have never heard of the shroud. I think that would be going a bit far? Wdford (talk) 14:51, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
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