Talk:Shroud of Turin/Archive 12

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Radiocarbon dating yet again

We have been around this circle many times before. Paragraph 2 of the lead explains that there is still some controversy, and paragraph 3 deals specifically with the radiocarbon dating process, which is probably the most well-known aspect of modern shroud research. These four sources - the Damon team, Jackson, Flury-Lemberg and Jull, all confirmed that the radiocarbon samples were not part of a repair, and that they represented original cloth. Jackson clearly supports authenticity, but he is enough of a scientist to admit that the STURP photographic evidence shows the samples were from original material. Flury-Lemberg handled the shroud more closely than anybody else after the dating was done, and she confirmed clearly and unambiguously that the samples were from original material. If you want to mention some studies contesting the samples - being papers written by psychic nurses and lapsed monks etc - then you need to also include the conclusions of actual scientists based on actual evidence, for balance. The work of Rogers, and more recently Fanti, was based on arbitrary threads which may not have been part of the shroud to begin with, and thus their conclusions do not stack up against real evidence, as Ramsey noted in very plain language. Wdford (talk) 19:16, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Let me just give you a quote from a peer-reviewed paper authored by Flury-Lemberg: "In 1988, the results of Carbon 14 analysis dated the Shroud to the medieval period, between 1260 and 1390. This result is extremely doubtful for a number of reasons, i.e. because we have a remarkable source for the existence of the linen as early as 1192/1195, based on the Pray Codex[...]" (Flury-Lemberg, "The image of a crucified man on the Turin Shroud: Measures taken for conservation of the legibility of the body image", ICCROM Conservation Studies 7, 2009, p. 45.). That's one of the reasons why the last sentence in paragraph 3 is clearly misleading. Do you agree with me?

Otherwise, I think you should stop ad hominem attacks on Benford (died...) and Marino. Take example on this peer-reviewed paper by Lorusso et al.: "The Shroud of Turin between history and science: an ongoing debate", Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage, 2011. Marino and Benford are mentioned but never as psychic nurse and lapsed monk... Thucyd (talk) 22:48, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedic resource that requires confirmation by reference. While I understand your statements that everyone thought the sample was representative of the cloth, they are not specifically referenced. Rogers for instance concluded otherwise and that statement is published. The statement that Jackson disagreed with Rogser is false. His own group say the following: The location from which the radiocarbon samples were taken has been judged as the “worst possible” location. Many scientists, after microscopic and chemical investigation, have concluded the area contains materials not representative of the rest of the Shroud and that it is contaminated. The area from which the carbon dating sample was cut is considered by many other Shroud researchers to be a rewoven or patched." Shroud science notes of Shroud center of Colorado. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Historical2013 (talk • contribs) 00:01, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

I did actually add the references, but another editor removed them. I have added them again.

To repeat what I said above, paragraph 3 deals specifically with the radiocarbon dating process, and the fact that some (not “many”) still cling to the hope that the samples may not have been representative. Rogers performed an examination of a random thread, which he believed may have come from the shroud, and found evidence of gum. Jull then examined a piece of cloth which was a genuine part of the actual C14 sample-material, and found no evidence of gum etc. One scientist examined an unprovenanced thread, another examined a proven piece of the cloth – if the first is to be mentioned, surely the second must as well?

Riani performed a statistical analysis, and argued that the margin for error should have been a few hundred years wider, which is probably correct, but it still lands in the Middle Ages and it is still nowhere near an “authentic” date. The Damon team stated right upfront that the results were not all identical, as was to be expected as a small amount of variation is inevitable.

Benford etc are not scientists – look them up (see their website here [1]). Benford apparently got her idea after the Shroud-Man appeared to her in a dream. She has furthermore proclaimed to have had yet another unprovenanced shroud-sample radiocarbon-dated by Caltech, with a 1st century outcome – although Caltech has denied doing any such test, and denies being able to do C14 testing at all – what does that say about Benford's credibility?

Jackson – a STURP scientist – is a big pro-authenticity supporter, but he was honest enough to admit that the STURP photos show that the sampled area is continuous with the rest of the shroud. He now posits some supernatural effect as the reason why the dating is inconsistent with his POV, but he does not claim the samples were non-representative.

Your Flury-Lemberg quote does not say the samples are unrepresentative, it merely mentions the Pray-codex, which is only a few decades earlier than the C14 date, and which has no bearing here anyway – the “poker-holes” are clearly decorations in the altar-cloth, while the shroud itself is shown wadded up in the center of the slab – quite clearly a separate article from the “herring-bone altar-cloth”, which itself does not show any image of a crucified man (surely the image itself was more significant than the poker-holes?) See here [2]. Flury-Lemberg is obviously entitled to her opinion on that point, but on THE POINT AT HAND – namely were the C14 samples representative - Flury-Lemberg is EMPHATIC that there is no repair at that location, that “invisible mending” is impossible in a weave that fine and that any people claiming there was an invisible repair are indulging in “wishful thinking”.

There is general agreement that the sampled site was far from ideal, but at the same time they couldn’t cut a chunk out of the center of the image, so they had to compromise with the Church. The Damon team knew exactly what they were doing, they were well aware of the risk of taking a non-representative sample so they choose their sample very carefully within the imposed limitation, and they were well aware of the risk of contamination so they cleaned the samples with every different technique they had available. The scientific evidence in favor of the C14 dating is overwhelming, and against it is the Rogers examination of some arbitrary unprovenanced threads, the Riani analysis which only widens the band by a few decades, and Benford. As Professor Christopher Ramsey says: "There are various hypotheses as to why the dates might not be correct, but none of them stack up." To mention the pro-authenticity papers, while suppressing the weight of scientific evidence against them, is blatant POV. Wdford (talk) 17:19, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Your comment belongs in the discussion section of the piece, not in the summary. You have a dispute between scientists and neither is conclusivie. A statement that this is a disputed area of science is appropriate. But you are trying to bias the summary. FYI, Jackson and his group believes the cloth to be authentic. So you misrepresent his opinion. He supports the fact that C14 is disputed. That's an opinon from a leading researcher and expert. The encylopedic resource should not be biased towards a non researcher's opinion if a leading expert is in disagreement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Historical2013 (talk • contribs) 17:28, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Historical2013. Thucyd (talk) 18:32, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

You continue to duck the issue. This paragraph is about the radiocarbon dating, and the claim that the samples might not have been representative. Jackson states clearly that the STURP photos show the sampled material was part of the original cloth. End Of Story. Jull, Flury-Lemberg and the Damon team are all specialists in their fields, as is Ramsay. Your POV attempts to suppress this evidence is clear and blatant. Wdford (talk) 17:58, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Again, this comment is an extensive, rather than summary comment. The area is in dispute, agreed. But yours in an expansive comment in a summary section. Does not belong, rather belongs in the discussion area of the article. Otherwise please list out every scientist (all 4 studies) that disagrees with your statement and place it in the summary. Historical2013 (talk) 18:05, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Good idea - I'll do that - at least then we will have a proper and balanced disclosure of all the facts. Wdford (talk) 18:12, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

As promised, I have hacked out two rough options to solve this dispute in a manner that is accurate, balanced and avoids POV and UNDUE. Please see below, and work with me to improve the paragraph.

OPTION A: A scientist who examined a few unprovenanced threads has since claimed that the C14 samples were not representative of the entire shroud. This was backed up by two non-scientists who claimed the C14 samples were part of an “invisible repair” – a process which a textile expert has confirmed is impossible. A statistical analysis determined that the date-range should be two centuries wider, although still medieval, and another paper claimed to prove that the shroud existed prior to the dating range. However the people who performed the dating process, a former STURP member who studied the radiographs and transmitted light images taken by STURP, a textile expert who handled the shroud during its 2002 restoration process and a carbon-dating expert who examined a surviving portion of the original radiocarbon sample have all individually confirmed that the radiocarbon sample was part of the original cloth, and was not part of any later repair. Professor Christopher Ramsey of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit observed in 2011 that "There are various hypotheses as to why the dates might not be correct, but none of them stack up."

OPTION B: A few claims have been made that the C14 samples were not representative of the entire shroud. These claims have been refuted by a range of experts based on a range of actual shroud evidence.

Wdford (talk) 18:33, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Come on Wdford... this is clear Pov-Pushing.

I think we should use a paragraph in Lorusso et al. peer-reviewed paper: "The scientific community today is still divided as regards the authenticity of the cloth and related sequence of events, and studies undertaken so far have not enabled the enigma surrounding the identity of the person whose image is imprinted on the cloth to be resolved. Not even the fairly accurate chronological range resulting from the radiocarbon 14C tests, dating it from around the thirteenth to fifteenth century, have been able to settle differences among scholars." Thucyd (talk) 18:48, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually, both my proposed options are a fair and balanced reflection of the facts. Thanks for the Lorusso paper - it is a good source for debunking the Frale etc squad who are seeing all manner of inscriptions, flowers and coins where none exist. I will add that material to that section when I have time. That conclusion you suggest is a good substitute for the Phillip Ball comment in the last para. It does not mention most of the evidence I have raised, but in discussing the various hypotheses put forward to counter the C14 dating, it does include at page 7 the wonderful line "It is evident that none of these hypotheses satisfies the scientific world." This is almost the exact wording used by Ramsay, is it not? Wdford (talk) 20:02, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

No, your proposed options aren't at all "a fair and balanced reflection of the facts". It's Pov-Pushing and cherry-picking ("wonderful line"!).

Unfortunately, it seems to me that you are not familiar with the most recent peer-review literature on the topic.

For example, you don't understand the importance of Riani's conclusions about the "egregious heterogeneity" and the longitudinal trend along the sample in the radiocarbon results.

You wrote: "Riani performed a statistical analysis, and argued that the margin for error should have been a few hundred years wider, which is probably correct, but it still lands in the Middle Ages and it is still nowhere near an “authentic” date."

Now let me quote you the conclusion of Riani et al.: "the statement of Damon et al.: the results provide conclusive evidence that the linen of Turin is medieval needs to be reconsidered in the light of the evidence produced by our use of robust statistical techniques." (Proceedings of the IWSAAI, ENEA, 2010). And according to Bevilacqua et al., "the results of radiocarbon research relevant to that time frame, however, are now considered invalid, having been affected by systematic errors" (Injury, 2013). Thucyd (talk) 08:27, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

It’s always funny when you of all people accuse me of cherry-picking. You cherry-picked the Lorusso paper because one line thereof seemed to support your POV, but seemingly you didn't notice that those authors openly admit that the majority of actual scientists have rejected that hypothesis. Let me clarify some issues here, in the interests of developing a better article:

The so-called “Riani paper” was co-authored by the Indefatigable Fanti – (he of the well-know POV) – who is not himself a statistician, and if you read the full paper – see here [3] – you will see that the so-called “longitudinal trend” is merely an assumption. Riani etc have no way of knowing where in the sampled strip each sample came from, so effectively they arranged each result in a line that creates a longitudinal trend and then assumed that the samples originated in that order. The results may well have been randomly different based purely on the different cleaning methods used on each sample, as was pointed out by the actual radiocarbon experts who performed and oversaw all the tests. However Riani et al, prompted no doubt by the Indefatigable Fanti – (he of the well-know POV) - claim that this MIGHT indicate a contamination trend that continues towards the center of the shroud. There is no ACTUAL EVIDENCE of a trend as such – just an assumption based on having deliberately arranged the results into that particular order to begin with. That is a good point which must be (and is) included, but it’s not enough to overturn the conclusions of all the different experts who made statements in support of the carbon dating based on ACTUAL EVIDENCE. Riani et al also concede that the total range from the lowest outlier to the uppermost outlier is only 200-odd years - not the 2000 years that would be needed to create a possibility of authenticity. "Needs to be reconsidered" does not mean the same as "we have proved that it's actually wrong".

The Bevilacqua paper was written by a group of medical specialists, and was once again co-authored by the Indefatigable Fanti – (he of the well-know POV) – who is not himself a medical specialist. They concluded that the wounds evident on the shroud-man are the same as those described in the Bible, and thus concluded that the shroud is a genuine relic. They don’t seem to have any actual EVIDENCE to overturn the carbon-dating.

All critics cling to the fact that the initial dating protocol was not followed to the letter, but that doesn’t mean the final protocol was wrong, far less that the result itself was wrong – it’s just an ever-shrinking group of shroudies clutching at an ever-shrinking selection of straws. So, which of my two options do you prefer – the long detailed version, or the short succinct version? Wdford (talk) 14:02, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Again and again: neither one nor the other. POV-pushing.

Sorry, but I'm not interested in your personal interpretation of research articles: "Wikipedians should never interpret the content of primary sources for themselves". Wikipedia:SCHOLARSHIP. Thucyd (talk) 17:15, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Actually, its all written there in the Riani/Fanti report, in plain English. Considering the well-known POV of the authors, one might reasonably conclude that they have forced the "data" into the best possible form to support their POV, and yet this is the best they can come up with? I also note with great interest the comment on page 14 that, within the sampled area, the shroud "becomes slightly more recent as we move away from the corner. One explanation is that of greater contamination towards the center of the cloth." Shroudies have long claimed that the repairs and contamination along the edges have skewed the dating to a younger date, and that this was the "worst possible" site from which to take a sample, but now Riani admits here that the corners are actually showing the oldest dates. Interesting, yes? Wdford (talk) 11:39, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Again! For your eyes only: "Wikipedians should never interpret the content of primary sources for themselves".Wikipedia:SCHOLARSHIP

The systematic effect just means that the 1989 results are invalid. And it's not my personal interpretation.

PierLuigi Conti, prof of Statistics at La Sapienza,finds another arithmetical mistake in the 1989 results:

"When you correct this mistake, says Conti, “you arrive the contrary conclusion: that means that the age of the Holy Shroud fragments dated by Arizona laboratory is different – 50, 60, 70 years – from the fragments of the other two laboratories”. Conti says categorically: “This invalidates completely the statistic results in the article published by Nature”. Prof. Riani, from Parma State university, using different calculation systems from Conti, arrived to the same conclusion.

" "This is very important, because if you find in such a tiny fragment (few centimetres of tissue) such a strong not-homogeneity, when you come to consider the whole Holy Shroud – four meters of linen – “we might have variations of hundreds and even thousands of years”. Prof. Conti gives his verdict, that form a strictly scientific point of observation “there is not enough evidence in favour of the hypothesis that the Holy Shroud is medieval exhibit". article in Vatican Insider, 2012. Thucyd (talk) 13:53, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:SCHOLARSHIP says we can't put our own interpretations into an article, but it doesn't say we can't read the sources and think for ourselves. Conti is entitled to his opinion, of course, but this source seems to be a newspaper review of a sensationalist film which quoted Conti. Assuming Conti really said that, it stacks against the team of statisticians on the Damon team who were working from the primary data and whose work was reviewed and checked by other statisticians. The Damon team noted that there is always variability in any C14 testing, due to the short growth cycle of flax and the vastly different cleaning procedures used by the different labs to remove contamination. 70 years is not such a big deal in this context, so while Conti chooses to present it as a big deal (or so we are told), the many experts including Ramsey all thought the Damon results were quite defensible. Wdford (talk) 00:09, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I saw this really good and serious documentary, and I can confirm Conti really says this. Conti and de Giovanni's analysis was alrealdy published in Marco Tosatti, Inchiesta sulla sindone, 2009.

When you say, and unfortunately not for the very first time, "70 years is not such a big deal in this context", sorry, but it makes me smile. Do you know what is statistical significance?

Even Jull admits this: "This is a bad level. Normally, with such a result, I make the measures again. It's clear that there was a problem with the statistical treatment in 1988” (Jull quoted by Perrier, Qui a peur du saint suaire?, 2011, p. 131.) Thucyd (talk) 08:05, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Yup. At Statistical significance it states that “Statistical significance is the probability that an effect is not likely due to just chance alone.” We all know the variation is due to the use of a range of different cleaning methodologies, so this was never actually a mystery. It also clearly says that “Researchers focusing solely on whether their results are statistically significant might report findings that are not necessarily substantive.” In plain English, this means that the maths derives from the evidence, and where the derived maths and the substantive evidence don’t correlate perfectly, the evidence rules. On that critical point, we note from the actual data that: a) the total range from the oldest result to the latest result was only 200-odd years, and exactly the same range was noted in the three control samples for which there is no suggestion of a dating failure; b) the mid-point from the oldest date to the most recent date is 1257AD – a very long way from 33AD; and c) even the oldest result dated to no earlier than 1155AD, so substantively it’s still medieval. It’s true that this is not a statistically ideal outcome, but this is to be expected from such a small sample. Conti then rants on about how an extrapolation across the full shroud "could" result in dates of thousands of years difference, but as Riani pointed out the "trend" is toward a more recent date so this extrapolation will give a date of origin of about 3000AD – not very substantive at all, yes? Jull was very clear (and honest) in that the statistical process was sub-optimal, but he never said the dating itself was wrong - this only affects the determination of the range of the confidence interval around that 1250AD result. Certainly we would all prefer that the Vatican allow a further test using a range of samples drawn up as recommended by Riani and others, but I’m not holding my breath for that to happen. In the meanwhile, the Damon team and their statistics experts derived a consistently medieval result that was accepted by the oversight people, the Vatican and all but a very few outside scientists, and the Fanti/Conti voice is a tiny minority opinion that cannot be given undue weight in the article. As Ramsey said, none of it stacks up. Wdford (talk) 11:39, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

At the risk of repeating myself, "Wikipedians should never interpret the content of primary sources for themselves". Wikipedia:SCHOLARSHIP

Now could you please delete all your disputed sentences in the lead section? Thucyd (talk) 17:36, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

My sentences are not in dispute. The third paragraph deals with the C14 dating. A group of experts conducted approved tests and concluded that the shroud is medieval. A handful of people have produced theories that claim to undermine the dating. Four different groups of people who have personally handled the actual shroud material have refuted those claims, with very solid reasons backed by actual evidence. Ramsey (an actual expert) states the claims don't stack up. QED. That is referenced material from reliable sources, and cannot be deleted just because they make Fanti unhappy. The counter argument is notable and deserves to be mentioned, but must not be given undue weight. Wdford (talk) 22:48, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

If your sentences are "not in dispute", then you are not in denial. Thucyd (talk) 11:22, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

And around we go yet again. The carbon dating was done by a large team of experts, and is accepted by scientists, the Vatican and most everyone else. A small band of shroudies still cling to the faint hope, and people like Fanti are desperately scratching up any hint of a straw to clutch at, but all the “challenges” against the dating have been refuted.

• Specifically you continue to insert in the lead the “Rogers claim”. This is based on the testing of a few threads of uncertain provenance, which Rogers claims he got from Gonella, which if true means Gonella stole them, as pointed out by Schafersman and Freeman among others. Rogers claims there must have been a repair, and claims that the dating is thus irrelevant. Against this we have Jull (a radiocarbon specialist) who went back to examine an ACTUAL piece of the shroud and found no dyes or gums, and Flury-Lemberg (a textile specialist) who studied the ACTUAL shroud in person and confirmed there was no repair in that area, and Jackson (a STURP leader) who studied the ACTUAL STURP photos anew and declared there was no sign of any repair. Rogers is thus refuted, but you refuse to allow this key info in the lead alongside your “challengers” – is that really NPOV?
• Benford came up with the “repair theory” when Jesus appeared to her in a series of dreams and tipped her off – see here [4]. (There are no page numbers – search for the word “repaired”.) See above from Jackson and Flury-Lemberg re the ACTUAL evidence on the so-called repair. Also Benford claimed to have sent a “mystery thread” to Caltech who dated it for her to the time of Christ, but Caltech denies everything and calls Benford a liar. Benford is thus refuted, but you refuse to allow this key info in the lead alongside your “challengers” – is that really NPOV?
• Riani etc did a statistical analysis which was aimed at finding some sort of pattern, and after much manipulation they found that by “assuming” a certain order of sampling they could claim to have found a problem. Damon etc knew about the scatter from the beginning, and ascribed it to the different cleaning methods having removed known contamination to slightly different degrees. They got the same degree of scatter in the three control samples too. No sample yielded any result anywhere near 33AD, and the Damon statisticians, plus the oversight team, plus the Vatican, accepted that the C14 results were close enough to answer the question re authenticity - but you refuse to let this key info be published? Is that really NPOV?

The Lorusso report – which you kindly introduced – states clearly that “It is evident that none of these hypotheses satisfies the scientific world.” Perhaps you have an objection to including that statement in the lead as well? Wdford (talk) 13:17, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

I eliminated the Ramsey comment in the summary paragraph that implied everyone else's evidence does not stack up. Fact is, Ramsey is not a chemist, nor historian, nor statistician. He has not demonstrated why alternative forms of age evidence are invalid. As such, the opinion is invalid unless substantiated in detail.Historical2013 (talk) 17:10, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

This paragraph is about radiocarbon dating, so a radiocarbon dating expert would be the most qualified person to make comments of this nature on this topic. Prof Ramsey is in fact a radiocarbon dating expert. I will also now add a comment from Prof Salvatore Lorusso and his team. Prof Lorusso is a professor in the Department of Cultural Heritage at the University of Bologna. Wdford (talk) 17:27, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

The the Ramsey comment references other evidence, other than Radiocarbon, and states it doesn't stack up, even though his opinion is unsubstatiated by evidence about other methods. Further, the paragraph is about the age of the cloth. Not just evidence about Radiocarbon.Historical2013 (talk) 17:32, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Ramsey doesn't have to justify himself to you, he is an expert in the relevant field and that's what counts. Rogers' various opinions are not substantiated by the evidence either, and Benford doesn't even have any evidence, yet you persist in including them - why the double standard? Wdford (talk) 17:37, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with Historical2013 on Ramsey's sentence.

Otherwise, Wdford, you know that personal interpretations and deductions are not welcome on wikipedia. Wikipedia:No Original Research. Thucyd (talk) 19:38, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

2004: Thermal Chemist, Dr. Raymond Rogers, retired Fellow with the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory proves using samples from the area cut for carbon 14 dating and samples from the main body of the Shroud that the sample cut in 1988 for C-14 dating was in fact a medieval reweave confirming Marino and Benford's hypothesis presented in 2000. Rogers also determined the evidence of a madder root dye used to blend in the color of newer threads with the more yellowed threads of the original Shroud. He also found cotton in the C-14 sample but not from the main body of the Shroud indicating both cotton and flax were used in the repair. Lastly and most importantly, he found that 37% of the vanillin remained intact in the lignon from the C-14 fibers whereas the vanillin content from the main body of the Shroud had decayed to 0%, similar to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Not only does this new evidence show that the carbon dating tests were severely flawed by dating an erroneous sample, but that the evidence also shows the main body of the Shroud is much older as indicated by the lack of vanillin. This critical research is precisely the kind of micro-chemical analysis the carbon dating labs were supposed to do in 1988, prior to taking the sample according to the original protocol, but failed to follow.

The carbon dating tests of 1988 have been thoroughly and completely invalidated by good science rather than the shoddy and arrogant effort demonstrated by the carbon labs in 1988. The cloud has been lifted. Why is that Wikipedia still has a Lie on there top paragraph saying Radiocarbon date is origins in the Medieval period ?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Merilturock (talk • contribs) 17:28, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Quoted from the article Radiocarbon 14 dating of the Shroud of Turin: "Rogers' conclusions are however based on a study of a few threads that Rogers believed were taken from the C14 shroud sample, but there is no evidence to support their provenance or that they are indeed representative of the C14 sample.[43] The official report of the dating process, written by the people who performed the sampling, states that the sample "came from a single site on the main body of the shroud away from any patches or charred areas. Since John Calvin conclusively refuted the claims about the shroud in 1543, it is amazing how tenaciously people hold on to their beliefs. Rick Norwood (talk) 22:08, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

1997: Noted Israeli Botanist and a professor at Hebrew University, Avinoam Danin confirmed Dr. Alan Whanger's discovery of flower images on the Shroud. He also verified that several pollen were from plants that grow only around Jerusalem.. The findings conflict with other studies of the shroud, which some believe was the burial cloth of Jesus. In 1988, a team of scientists used carbon-14 dating tests and concluded the shroud dates to the Middle Ages. But Danin believes the shroud is much older because of links made between pollen grains and blood stains on both the shroud and the Sudarium of Oviedo, which some believe is the burial face cloth of Jesus. That cloth has been in the Cathedral of Oviedo in Spain since the eighth century.

"There's no possibility that this cloth in Oviedo and the shroud would have both the same blood stains and these pollen grains unless they were covering the same body," Danin told Religion News Service. "And being resident of that church in Oviedo since at least 760, there's no way that it could be a fake of the 14th century."

Danin said pollen grains of the thistle Gundelia tournefortii were found on both the shroud and the cloth housed in Oviedo. He called them "very hard evidence."

"This plant is growing only in the near East," he said. "It is not growing in Spain. It is not growing in Europe. It is from Middle Eastern origin." The plant, which continues to bloom to this day, blossoms at a certain time of year. "The time of the formulation of the image and the position of pollen on the shroud due to the indicator plants is March/April," he said. "This is a physical and biological indicator, not biblical."

A New Port Richey, Fla. writer who has studied the shroud says the two specific months named in Danin's research are "very significant." John C. Iannone, author of "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence" (Alba House, NY 1998) said the finding makes the shroud "consistent with the time of the Passover and the Crucifixion." He added that "those flowers would be fresh in the fields around Jerusalem" and "readily available for a burial."

Iannone also is president of the St. Louis-based Holy Shroud Task Force, a group of doctors, scientists, writers and historians interested in furthering research on the shroud. Danin is a member of the group's advisory board. "It moves the date back considerably," Iannone said of Danin's findings. "What it does is it substantially increases the case for authenticity, or certainly antiquity. It gives us one more instrument to debate the carbon-14 dating."

How can you confirm that's the perfect Radiocarbon date when it has faced so many problem's so wikipedia should have at least said that there is so many problem in the Radiocarbon dating of 1988 has so many critics you cant just like that confirm that 1988 Radiocarbon date is perfect while it has lot of troubles in confirming. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Merilturock (talk • contribs) 07:16, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Pollen grains are unrelated to the topic of this thread, which is radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon dating is not "perfect", it always has a range of dates. All of the radiocarbon dating so far has a range of dates that includes the date which the first stories of the shroud began to circulate. You are welcome to believe what you like as a matter of faith. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:53, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Firstly, re the flower images – nobody else can see them. Since their “discovery”, others have studied the same photos and seen nothing at all. More recent digital photos of the actual shroud, using more modern equipment and technology, show nothing. The flower images are thus considered to be imaginary, and certainly do not have the scientific credibility to over-rule the C14 test results. Consider also that some people (the Wangers?) have seen images of coins, hammers, nails, cups, sandals, crowns etc etc as well, and Frale claims to be able to see an entire dissertation printed in the weave of the cloth – again, nobody else can see anything at all.

Re the pollen, there are numerous arguments. Firstly, nobody else ever found pollen on the shroud. The STURP people checked specifically, and found nothing - only Frei ever found pollen. Fanti did various tests on the dust and fluff vacuumed up by Riggi during the STURP tests and the C14 tests years later, and makes no mention of pollens at all. Second, per the Frei results, the amount of pollen from the Middle East outweighed the pollen from France and Italy, despite the shroud having been washed many times in the Middle Ages to test for fraud, and despite the shroud thereafter being exhibited outdoors many times in Europe. Suspicious, to say the least. The pollen samples therefore also do not have the scientific credibility to over-rule the C14 test results.

However, assuming the pollen was real, the simplest explanation that accounts for Middle Eastern pollen from the time of Easter as well as the fact that the Middle Eastern pollen grains outnumber the European grains, would be that a more recent owner took his most valuable relic with him on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The most logical time for a pious Catholic to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem would be to celebrate Easter Mass, when those very flowers would be blooming once again.

Wdford (talk) 22:59, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

piezo-fission

I suspect this will become more popular soon in this context.

There is skepticism about piezo-fission for example here http://www.nature.com/news/italian-scientists-win-battle-to-halt-controversial-research-1.10823

When I showed the articles that I submitted here about the about piezo-fission to a chemistry professor he told me that macro-mechanical forces can't really affect strong nuclear force reactions. Fission during an implosion bomb's detonation depends on an increase in the macro fission cross section of the Plutonium or Oralloy from the increase in density at pressures of hundreds of kilobars, equivalent to depths in the earth roughly at the mantle-outer core boundary. So postulating fission during an earthquake is only remotely plausible for a very deep earthquake and the resulting neutrons wouldn't reach the surface.

I have no source for this, so I dare not put it in but someone here maybe able to do something with this BernardZ (talk) 10:10, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand. In the case of a nuclear bomb, such as a plutonium implosion bomb, the material is nearly pure plutonium. Some gallium is added to improve the properties of plutonium so that machining the pieces becomes easier. Oralloy? That is enriched uranium. Then you talk about an earthquake. I assume you are relating to the post below this about neutrons emitted and an image of Jesus forms. Does not compute. Are you suggesting there is pure plutonium inside the earth? Where? How exactly is a stream of neutrons suppose to reach the surface from deep within the Earth? How can it form an image? Scientists have worked with GPa range pressures using a diamond anvil and no nuclear reactions have taken place. That's the pressure range inside Saturn and Jupiter. 1 kilobar is 10 MPa, which is about 100 times lower. Who comes up with this neutron none sense? Is it Ken Ham or that Ray Comfort? Vmelkon (talk) 21:49, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

The Claim That The Source mentioned Rinaldi's Criticism of The Radiocarbon Test Which Was Conducted In 2013 Is Very Inaccurate

These edits are not neutral in any reasonable way. It was alleged that Gian Marco Rinaldi's criticism of Giulio Fanti's testing was mentioned in this source abstract The source is an article written by Fanti and his colleague Pierandrea Malfi and makes no reference to either Rinaldi or his criticism of how the 2013 test was conducted. While it is okay to mention Rinaldi's criticism, it is not okay to do so by using a false reference. It is also not okay to only include the 1988 radiocarbon test in the article's introduction without mentioning the 2013 test as well. These edits are not compliant with either the Wikipedia:Neutral Point of View or the Wikipedia:Assume good faith policies and are clear Wikipedia:Vandalism.75.72.33.166 (talk) 13:01, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

"L" shape or L shape or L-shape

I have seen a few discussions on various websites about the 4 holes on the shroud which look like burn holes. They say that some Bulgarian book has a similar image with Jesus. Has this been talked about in the archives? Why isn't this on the wikipedia page? Actually, there are 2 L shape patterns (4 holes) and also 2 l shape pattern (3 holes) and a few other holes as well. You can find an poor image here http://www.newgeology.us/presentation24.html. There is a better image here http://www.shroud-enigma.com/resources/Paper_1.pdf. Vmelkon (talk) 22:53, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi there. What you are referring to is called the Hungarian Pray Codex. If you look closely you will see that the holes are not on the shroud itself - which is wadded up on the altar - but on the altar-cloth. There are many other holes in the picture, as you point out above, which appear to be decorative, as they are used on other garments etc as well as the altar-cloth. The altar-cloth does not show a herring-bone pattern, and it does not show the image of Christ, which is by far the most important element of the shroud. All in all, its a non-event, a straw clutched by the desperate believers. Wdford (talk) 15:27, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry if I wasn't clear. When I said there are 2 L shape patterns (4 holes) and also 2 l shape pattern (3 holes), I was talking about this Shroud of Turin. The Hungarian Pray Codex has 1 L shape pattern and there is another cloth or something with crosses and holes. Anyway, why not make a section about it since everything else is being talked about as well. Vmelkon (talk) 12:02, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Seriously friend, your links are referencing the so-called Hungarian Pray Codex. Read them again carefully. You are quite correct that the relationship between the two items is illusory, but such is the desperate straw-clutching world of the shroudie. Wdford (talk) 16:46, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

"[T]he desperate straw-clutching world of the shroudie?" For someone who has been very active in controlling the content of this page, that sounds extremely POV. I'm sure you believe you can put your bias aside in this matter, but pardon me if I don't quite buy it. Jororo05 (talk) 15:08, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Actually, this is about cold facts. Any reasonably impartial person would look at the photos of the Pray Codex – see e.g. here [5] – and would notice the following:

• The “L-shaped holes” are not on the shroud – the actual shroud is wadded up on the altar in front of the angel’s hand.
• The “L-shaped holes” are actually in the altar cloth.
• The altar-cloth containing the “L-shaped holes” does not have a herring-bone pattern, and the weave in the cloth would not be visible to any observer unless they looked up close – it certainly would not be visible at the distance the viewer is allowed by the artist.
• The altar-cloth is not the only object with these “holes” – the other altar cloth, the 2nd lady’s clothing, the angel’s belt and the angel’s wings all have them – are these really “holes” or are they just random decorative circles?
• The altar-cloth containing the “L-shaped holes” does not have any image of a body, which would surely be the main point of interest if the Shroud of Turin were being depicted here.

Any impartial editor would thus realize at once that the Pray Codex is not depicting the Shroud of Turin. I am impartial here – are you? Wdford (talk) 16:15, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Queryonline.it and Rinaldi source:

Not a reliable source. Personal blog/site. Sources used for this article should be high quality sources. This article is a bit of a mix of history and science, so I'm not 100% sure which WP:RS guidelines to use. I guess we'd use Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (history) for history sections and Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (natural sciences) for scientific sections.

In any case, the source does not fit either of them. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 15:03, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Quote in 3rd paragraph of lede

I have removed the following quote. "According to professor Christopher Ramsey of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit in 2011, "There are various hypotheses as to why the dates might not be correct, but none of them stack up." The previous sentence before this one refers to the disagreement of the 1988 carbon 14 dating (different people in different fields). Then the next sentence says none of them stack up, as quoted by some random professor? Who is he to say they don't stack up? Talk about pov pushing. Fine for the body of the article, but not the lede.2601:4:1500:C90:FCF0:9CE6:E055:F549 (talk) 03:37, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, these "disagreements" have been debunked by real experts in their respective fields, as is described in the body of the article. This comment summarizes the fact that these disagreements have been debunked - previous versions of the lead listed all the debunking individually. To exclude the fact that these disagreements have been debunked by experts would be seriously POV. Secondly, Professor Christopher Ramsey is an expert on carbon-dating, and his Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit was one of the three labs involved in the carbon-dating project itself. Ramsey is thus one of the best persons possible to comment on this topic. In conclusion, the experts agree that the carbon-dating results were indeed valid, and it would be seriously POV to have a contrived lead section which creates the impression that the carbon-dating is potentially invalid. Wdford (talk) 16:22, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with the IP: this quote should not be in the lead, it is just a sentence from an interview in a popular journal (not a peer-review source) of a scientist involved in the dating process (not impartial), who never published a peer-reviewed article on the shroud after 1989. Moreover, the quote is already outdated: Ramsey doesn't deal with Riani's statistical refutation.

And I am not a huge fan of quotes in intro! Thucyd (talk) 17:26, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

I recall that you have been trying for years to have the lead say that the carbon dating results are unreliable. However, as we have discussed many times before, the reality is that the results are valid. First, on your point of impartiality, we cannot consider a psychic healer who gets tip-off's from Jesus in visions as impartial, can we? Nor is the Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique impartial here - it is a church publication. The Riani statistical analyses were co-authored by G Fanti - who is not an expert in statistics but who is a noted expert in shroud-defending. The Rogers' tests were conducted on threads of unknown provenance sent to Rogers by a senior clergyman who was not actually in a position to collect genuine shroud threads. Not very scientific, and not very impartial. Second, all of these "challenges" have since been refuted by proper scientists working with actual shroud evidence, so the challenges themselves are very out of date. Third, Ramsay is a specialist in the field, and doesn't have to publish a peer-reviewed paper to state an expert opinion. Finally, and most important, is that the lead is supposed to summarize the content of the article. There is a wealth of material in the article that debunks these challenges. The lead doesn't need to quote Ramsay here, but it does need to accurately reflect that these challenges have been thoroughly refuted by experts using actual shroud material. To leave the lead reading as though the carbon-dating is invalid, is extreme POV. Wdford (talk) 21:06, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry but I don't want to play with your cherry picking, ad hominem, straw man, etc. I think we have a good lead, here and now, not excellent but good.

By the way, if you are not convinced by a robust statistical analysis, made by two leading scholars (Riani and Atkinson) published in a first class peer-reviewed journal, because one of the secondary authors is only professor of mechanical and thermic measurements and a shroud expert, it's your problem, not mine. Thucyd (talk) 08:43, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree – best we leave the lead section alone – it has been stable for a long time.

The main reason why I am not convinced by this robust statistical analysis is because they conclude that the "heterogeneity of the data" is due to the samples not representing a "single unknown quantity", whereas Flury-Lemberg and Jackson etc have all concluded BEYOND DOUBT that the sampled area is part of the original shroud and is not a repaired area. Since Riani et al are basing their conclusions on a range of assumptions, and since Lemberg et al are basing their conclusions on actual shroud evidence, scientific logic suggests that we should consider an alternative explanation for the heterogeneity of the data. The explanation of Damon et al that ascribes the heterogeneity of the data to differences in the cleaning methods employed by the different labs, seems far more likely to be correct in light of the other scientific evidence.

It's revealing that Riani et al had to assume that the Arizona lab tested only one piece of their sample, because if they tested both pieces then the "trend" no longer exists. Mmmmmm

It's also interesting to me that Riani et al conclude that the trend they have teased out of the data indicates more contamination away from the corner toward the center of the shroud, whereas Rogers concluded that the corners were the most contaminated zones.

Finally, the fact that the authors of this statistical paper decided to include among their number a co-author who is not a statistician but who is a well-known defender of the authenticity of the shroud, is certainly telling. One wonders what contribution Fanti made to this study, and what influence he had on the wording of the final report???

Wdford (talk) 10:51, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Ok for the status quo.

Just for fun, I don't want to be too harsh, but when you say: "Riani et al had to assume that the Arizona lab tested only one piece of their sample". Never heard of Timothy Jull? Because if you call this article an assumption, well, I can understand why you firmly believe the 1989 carbon dating is still valid. Thucyd (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

I am actually familiar with the Jull paper – it has been included for a while already in the article.

Nowhere in this short paper do I see any indication that supports the assumptions of Riani and Fanti. On the contrary, I see in the second-last paragraph that "our sample is a fragment cut on the arrival of the Arizona 14C sample in Tucson on 24 April 1988 by co-author Jull", which would seem to indicate that the surviving fragment was cut from one of the Turin fragments by Jull, and is thus not the entire smaller fragment cut originally in Turin. That would mean that Arizona did include both Turin fragments in their tests, i.e. from opposite ends of the sampled strip, which means that Riani’s "trend" is illusory, and that the carbon-dating result is indeed valid as almost everybody has long-since agreed. This is exactly what I have been saying all along. Or am I missing your point? Wdford (talk) 13:01, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, you are. From Riani et al., in Statistics and Computing: "After we had completed our analysis, we received a personal communication from Prof. Jull of the University of Arizona confirming that they did indeed only analyse A1. This finding provides a nice vindication of our methodology."Thucyd (talk) 14:41, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Ah yes, I see your point now. My concerns however remain, and just for interest I offer the following:

• Number One: Jull’s own paper states clearly that "our sample is a fragment cut on the arrival of the Arizona 14C sample in Tucson on 24 April 1988 by co-author Jull". First, this comment is unequivocal that there is ONE surviving sample fragment, not two or more, so either the surviving sample is A2 alone or A2 was processed in the test. Second, Jull published photos of the surviving fragment, and Rinaldi has remarked that it is too big to have been part of A2, so it must be part of A1. The paper also says unequivocally that Jull CUT the surviving fragment, so again the surviving fragment must be part of the larger A1 – thus where is A2 now? If this much of A1 still survives, and if A2 was never processed at all, then Arizona could not have processed enough shroud material to do a proper test in the first place. This is not impossible, but it implies a huge deception and/or incredible incompetence on the part of the entire Arizona team, consisting of many people. Is that really likely? On the other hand, Fanti is known to be as non-impartial as a human could be on this topic, doesn’t write in English, and would be prone to misinterpret any ambiguity in a very specific direction. We have no direct communication from Jull on this point, so in light of the above, how likely is this assertion from Fanti to be accurate?
• Number Two: Assuming only A1 material was tested (unlikely as that seems), then based on a few more assumptions Riani seemingly has identified a trend. What does this trend tell us? Riani’s paper – co-authored by Fanti – claims that this indicates the carbon-dating to be unreliable, and the shroudies in turn claim this means the dates are completely invalid and the shroud may therefore indeed be 1st Century. However on the other side the statisticians of the Damon team were confident that this variation merely indicates that the different labs cleaned off contamination to varying degrees of completeness with their varying methods, and that short-lived plants like flax are more inherently variable than trees to begin with. We see similar variation in the dating of the control samples as well. However did all three labs all mess this up, equally and in concert? That is beyond credulity. Far more likely that the “trend” is co-incidence, and that if the samples had simply been sent to different labs the “trend” would have been scrambled.
• Number Three: In what way would the cause of such a trend indicate that the dates are unreliable? Riani didn’t elaborate on that. Contamination has been ruled out by experts, as the amount of modern cotton or mould etc needed to produce this result would have been immense. Oxford found three minute cotton fibres, and extracted them before processing the linen, so how would a huge volume of intrusive material have evaded that thorough a filter? A later repair has also been ruled out by experts, including Jackson who studied the STURP photos, and Lemberg who studied the shroud itself specifically, along with others. Rogers on the other hand was studying a few threads sent to him with no proven provenance, and unless Catholic clergy are allowed to cut bits off the shroud as personal souvenirs, the threads could only have come from the edge that was discarded in 1988 for being excessively contaminated with foreign threads. (No surprise then that Rogers found foreign threads?)

Per all the above, it would require a huge POV to assume that this apparent trend of unknown cause based on a variety of unproven assumptions, could outweigh the work of three separate scientific institutions backed by the evidence of experts such as Lemberg. So yes, I continue to accept the conclusions that the dating is reliable to within 100 years, not 1300 years. Wdford (talk) 15:39, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

!!! Words, words, words... Very nice example of confirmation bias when some beliefs are discredited. Please, a talk page on wikipedia is not a forum. Thucyd (talk) 17:39, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

All these facts are already part of the article, so the forum-issue isn't a problem. And yes, I'm afraid Fanti (and other shroudies) does suffer from a strong confirmation bias. Their desperate attempts to find any straw to clutch at, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, are actually quite sad. Wdford (talk) 17:31, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Ruello again

Italian experimental photographer Vincenzo Giovanni Ruello has discovered a second shroud image in the Vatican Veronica Veil. he claims this proves that there was no explosion of light,corona discharge,radiation or bodily emmissions at death which created the image on the Shroud of turin. I realise his work has been disregarded to this point but recent developements accoding to his facebook site state his filming technique has recently been used by the Australian police in helping to solve a homicide case. The Shroud Guild Society of the USA the oldest in America is now promoting the second shroud image from the Veronica Veil and I believe his work should be included in the article concerning the evidence that no light radiation or emissions created the Shroud image — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.161.78.176 (talk) 11:08, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Are any reliable sources reporting it? If it's just his Facebook site, there's still no reason to add this to the article. —C.Fred (talk) 14:00, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Ruello has just released the book on Amazon Kindle The Second Shroud Discovered http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00TQWS4WO?%2aVersion%2a=1&%2aentries%2a=0 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.216.130.136 (talk) 08:00, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

This looks self-published? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:51, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't see any indication of a publishing house involved. —C.Fred (talk) 16:11, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Whanger source

Here. If it's reliable, the cite should be updated. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:32, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Very Tardy with the facts!

This is very incomplete and full of nonsense PROVEN WRONG. What's the matter with Wikipedia editors? It lacks the results of the first and second Carbon-14 dating. The first one was faulty and many mocked and criticized those finding fault and calling for a second test. This continued for some time until Ray Rogers wrote an additional peer-reviewed paper showing why the first tests were faulty. He died from cancer before the second carbon-14 tests proved that him right.

This is the stuff of great suspense movies.

Interestingly, Rogers only did the tests that provided the foundation for his final peer-reviewed paper that brought about the new carbon-14 tests because he was angry at the temerity of Joe Marino and Sue Benford to challenge the carbon-14 test results! (How dare common, uneducated non-scientists challenge the work of educated scientists on the basis of nothing but suspicion!) LOL He was amazed to find out they were right! No significant person has written about the foundation of the confidence of those claiming the original carbon-14 dating was faulty EVEN though they were ABSOLUTELY CORRECT!

Numerous people speculated that the faulty carbon-14 tests were based on a conspiracy to make the shroud appear to be a fake or a forgery. That also would make an interesting mystery and suspense movie even though I think it wrong.

When Ray Rogers found about the complaints of Benford and Marino, he fussed to Barrie Schwartz that "I can prove them wrong in five minutes!" To which, Barry said, "Well, Ray, go ahead and do it." Ray got out the pieces of the shroud fragments that he had left and started examining them and called Barrie back the same afternoon and said, "They were right!"

That got the ball rolling for the new Carbon-14 tests that proved that the Shroud of Turin was indeed from the time of Jesus.

Now, why doesn't this article accurately represent the work of the STURP team and the true scientific results of their work which can be found on the official pages of the STURP team under the aegis of Barrie Schwartz? And here: theshroudofturin.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html

And why aren't the many other Wikipedia pages that don't have the final results on them ALSO corrected? This information is several years old.

Because the bulk of the editors on Wikipedia don't like the finding?71.2.183.232 (talk) 11:45, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

The second carbon dating proved that the sample did not come from the time of Jesus. Of course, people who want the shroud to be from the time of Jesus claim that for a second time the sample chosen was not typical of the entire shroud. That claim could continue to be repeated no matter how many samples were dated. It remains that the shroud in the sample is not the same as the shroud described in the New Testament, so if the shroud is the shroud of Jesus, the New Testament is wrong. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:11, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

There has been one single C14 dating in 1988. If you have heard about another one you need to provide us with reliable and published sources about this new dating if you want your claim to appear credible. --Lebob (talk) 14:06, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Of course the use of CAPITAL LETTERS is the BEST way to show that you are not UNHINGED.137.205.183.70 (talk) 15:02, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Let us admit...

Let us admit that this Talk page is not for this sort of speculation. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 05:26, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Let us admit that the Shroud of Turin is not "repeat NOT" an hoax. What would it prove ? Whatsoever would be the origin of it or the way it was made, the image is of A DEAD MAN. If the shroud is authentic, it can be used as an evidence AGAINTS RESURRECTION. Q.E.D. D. M. BENOLIEL , retired barrister, writer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.124.68.74 (talk) 17:10, 29 June 2015 (UTC) Nowhere in this article does Wikipedia call the Shroud of Turin a "hoax". The facts would not support us calling it "not a hoax", though. If the shroud were authentic, it could be used as evidence that Jesus was flat, because its front and back head images touch like an unfolded paper doll: )( (One of many reasons it's obviously not authentic.) ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 18:24, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Hair

Perhaps it's worth mentioning that Jesus did almost certainly did not have long hair. 1 Corinthians 11:14, “Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him?” So this guy is likely not Jesus on that basis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 36.37.140.28 (talk) 05:48, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

One more thing about the hair. If the shroud was laid down, the body placed on it, then the rest of the shroud folded over the top of the body, there would be a five- or six-inch image of the top of the head between the images of the front and back of the head. The images of the front and back of the head would not be "nearly touching." Everyone, including all those eminent scholars, seems to have overlooked the absence of a three dimensional representation in the image. DreamersRose (talk) 02:27, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

But the images of the front and back of the head don't nearly touch. Take a closer look. There is a water stain between the images of the front and back. The image of the back of the head seems to fade near the water stain. SlowJog (talk) 08:56, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

The lede is a mess

I've returned to this article after a few years and see that the lede is an absolute mess. The opening few sentences do a poor job of explaining exactly what it is and why it is notable, before launching into the minutae of the debate over its authenticity. I'm going to start trying to clean it up. Please comment here if you have any problem with my edits, and I find these sorts of article fire up strong opinions. Ashmoo (talk) 15:19, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Recent Events section

The presence of a Recent Events sections is a bad idea. All the content in that section should just be merged into the section it applied to. Ashmoo (talk) 08:10, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Digitally altered image

The "Digitally processed" image is nice, but it appears to be original research and the image comes with some wildly inaccurate statements like "Digital filters are mathematical functions that do not add any information to the image". Of course digital filters add lots of information, particularly they add all the information the user provides through various parameters. 83.248.135.244 (talk) 17:19, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Riani statistics

This 2013 paper is not a "more recent analysis", it is the same analysis that was presented at the 2010 workshop, just polished up for formal publication. They have however toned down their conclusion - they now conclude merely that "Our results indicate that, for whatever reasons, the structure of the TS is more complicated than that of the three fabrics with which it was compared." They do not use words like "questionable", and they do not presume to dispute the carbon dating results. In the paper presented to the workshop in 2010 they were more confrontational and stated that the Damon result "needs to be reconsidered". See the 2010 paper here [6] and the 2013 paper here [7]. Compare the detail, and notice that they both report the same study. Wdford (talk) 15:46, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

How scientists have proved conclusively that the claims of the radiocarbon dating being invalid are baseless

There are three main hypotheses put forward by the pro-authenticity people to question the validity of the radiocarbon dating results. These are a) that the tested material was not shroud material but was part of a more-recent repair; b) that biological contaminants had skewed the dating; and c) that extra carbon had somehow bonded into the sampled material during a fire.

A: That the tested material was not shroud material but was part of a more-recent repair.

• The official report of the dating process, written by the people who actually performed the sampling, states that the sample "came from a single site on the main body of the shroud away from any patches or charred areas." See http://www.shroud.com/nature.htm
• Jackson – who has himself spent a career trying to prove that the shroud is authentic – concedes that "One hypothesis is that the linen sample used in the radiocarbon dating actually came from a medieval "re-weave". While this hypothesis has been argued on the basis of indirect chemistry, it can be discounted on the basis of evident bandings in the 1978 radiographs and transmitted light images of STURP. These data photographs show clearly that the banding structures (which are in the Shroud) propagate in an uninterrupted fashion through the region that would, ten years later, be where the sample was taken for radiocarbon dating." See https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/jackson.pdf
• Mechthild Flury-Lemberg is an expert in the restoration of textiles, and she headed the restoration and conservation of the Turin Shroud in 2002. She has written that it’s never possible to repair a fine fabric in a way which would be truly invisible, as the repair will always be "unequivocally visible on the reverse of the fabric." She criticized the theory that the C14 tests were done on an invisible patch as "wishful thinking", and stated that "neither on the front nor on the back of the whole cloth is the slightest hint of a mending operation, a patch or some kind of reinforcing darning, to be found." See http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/n65part5.pdf
• Prof H E Gove, who helped to invent radiocarbon dating and was personally present at the actual dating process at the University of Arizona, has stated that: "Even modern so-called invisible weaving can readily be detected under a microscope, so this possibility seems unlikely. It seems very convincing that what was measured in the laboratories was genuine cloth from the shroud after it had been subjected to rigorous cleaning procedures.” See https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/viewFile/1254/1259
• Professor Timothy Jull], a radiocarbon-dating expert, along with some other experts examined a portion of the radiocarbon sample that was left over from the section used by the University of Arizona in 1988 for the carbon dating exercise. They used various types of microscope, and concluded that the radiocarbon dating had been performed on a sample of the original shroud material. See R.A. Freer-Waters, A.J.T. Jull, Investigating a Dated piece of the Shroud of Turin, Radiocarbon, 52, 2010, pp. 1521-1527, at https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/view/3419

We can therefore state with some confidence that the invisible repair hypothesis has been refuted by experts, using actual scientific evidence.

B: That biological contaminants had skewed the dating.

• Jackson has discounted the hypothesis on the basis that the samples were carefully cleaned first to eliminate this kind of contamination, and that the quantity of microbial mass required to skew the results would be significantly greater than the mass of the linen itself. See http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/jackson.pdf.
• Rodger Sparks, a radiocarbon expert, has stated that an error of thirteen centuries would have required a layer approximately doubling the sample weight, and that this much contamination would not have escaped notice. See http://www.shroud.com/c14debat.htm Other analyses by the National Science Foundation Mass Spectrometry Center of Excellence at the University of Nebraska, and at Instruments SA, Inc. in Metuchen, New Jersey, apparently also failed to detect any bioplastic polymer on shroud fibers.
• Professor Harry Gove has acknowledged that the samples had been carefully cleaned before testing, and that about two thirds of the sample would need to consist of modern material to swing the result away from a 1st Century date to a Medieval date. He inspected the Arizona sample material before it was cleaned, and determined that "no such gross amount of contamination was present even before the cleaning commenced". See https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/viewFile/1254/1259

We can therefore state with some confidence that the bacterial contamination hypothesis has been refuted by experts, using actual scientific evidence.

C: That extra carbon had somehow bonded into the sampled material during a fire.

• This was based largely on the work of the Russian Dmitri Kouznetsov, who was later arrested for manufacturing evidence and false reports.
• Jull, Donahue and Damon of the NSF Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometer Facility attempted to replicate the Kouznetsov experiment, and concluded that the proposed carbon-enriching heat treatments were not capable of producing the claimed changes in the measured radiocarbon age of the linen, and that the "other aspects of the experiment are unverifiable and irreproducible." See http://sindone.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/2/0/1220953/damon_vs._kouz.pdf
• Jackson then proposed a similar hypothesis involving enrichment by carbon monoxide saturation. Professor Christopher Ramsey, the director of the Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, worked with Jackson to test this theory. He subsequently reported that the initial tests showed no significant reaction, and that carbon monoxide does not undergo significant reactions with linen which could result in an incorporation of a significant number of CO molecules into the cellulose structure. He concluded that: "As yet there is no direct evidence for this - or indeed any direct evidence to suggest the original radiocarbon dates are not accurate." See http://c14.arch.ox.ac.uk/embed.php?File=shroud.html
• Professor Harry Gove has stated that: "In any case, if the contamination were carbon that was contemporary in 1532, the mixture would have to be 86% carbon dating from the year 1532 to only 14% dating to the year zero. One does not have to be a molecular biologist to recognize the absurdity of this "topping up" notion." See https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/viewFile/1254/1259

We can therefore state with some confidence that the burnt residue hypothesis has been refuted by experts, using actual scientific evidence.

All in all, I think we can safely state that: "A few people have put forward hypotheses to contest the validity of the radiocarbon dating, but their arguments have all been refuted by various experts based on solid evidence." Wdford (talk) 12:29, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Burnt residue

I am a bit concerned about the prominence which these amendments give to the burnt residue theory. This idea is based on Kouznetsov's “experiments”, which have since been completely debunked. Meacham wrote these comments a long time ago, and has been overtaken by subsequent events. The quite-recent ORAU tests proved yet again that this carbon-absorption theory doesn’t work in real life, and their top expert made it clear that this theory depends on the future discovery of some previously-unknown contaminating process. He used the words “possible, though not at all likely”, so to say that “contamination remains a concern” is really stretching the source to serious lengths.

I am particularly concerned about the last sentence of that lede paragraph, which reads “…many experts reject claims that the radiocarbon dating is unreliable.” This seems to place the rejection by the experts on the same level as the wild theories of Benford and Kouznetsov and Garza-Valdes. The reality is that Meacham, Garza-Valdes et al have produced speculative theories, while Ramsay, Lemberg, Jull and Gove etc are working with real scientific evidence – their conclusions do not deserve to be given equal weight. Wdford (talk) 18:50, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I hear you. I made some changes to the text, trying to accommodate the diversity of opinions and views, and, also, moving some citations that were not in their appropriate places (several of those). In my opinion, the last sentence of a given paragraph is kind of pole position, a punch-line, if you will, so I wouldn't necessarily say that consensus opinion appearing at the end is necessarily inappropriate. Bottom line: I'm trying to move this forward, and if you (or anybody else) can help move it forward as well, then please do. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 19:06, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Sure thing. I reworded the punch-line of that para slightly to improve accuracy, and to give proper weight to the scientific conclusions as opposed to the speculations. Obviously the pro-authenticity editors will not like it, and will probably edit war again to have the paragraph weaselled down a bit, but solid evidence is solid evidence. Wild speculation which has been thoroughly debunked since, does not really qualify at the same level. Wdford (talk) 20:00, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

The sources you are citing are not supporting the conclusion you seem to favor. Note that I spent time this morning straightening these out. Please have a close look, give a balanced summary of the sources, and if you feel the "burnt residue" issue needs a different spin or balance, then please give it. But, again, according to what the sources actually say. For example, some are putting forward new hypotheses, some are debates (not one sided), etc.Isambard Kingdom (talk) 20:15, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Wdford, I made some adjustments that might address your legitimate concerns. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 21:17, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

I am wondering whether the sentence "In 1988, a radiocarbon dating test dated the shroud from the Middle Ages, between the years 1260 and 1390" in the lede should not be completed with a sentence saying that the C14 datation fits with the first proven historical records of the shroud. --Lebob (talk) 18:15, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. Can you put this in, along with a citation to one or two suitably broad and authoritative sources? Isambard Kingdom (talk) 18:35, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

 Done Isambard Kingdom (talk) 14:29, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

OK, fair enough. The original references seem to have been substituted during the various edit wars - my bad. All this info is already in the daughter article Radiocarbon 14 dating of the Shroud of Turin – I’m sure you saw it there already. I have detailed the relevant material in a separate section below, with full and verified references, so that it can be readily seen and read going forward by any other editor who is concerned about this point. Happy New Year, and all the best for 2016. Wdford (talk) 12:32, 2 January 2016 (UTC)