NEW 2005 SHROUD OF TURIN BROUHAHA: SCIENCE vs PAPAL CUSTODIAN
 1898: During a
public exhibition of the Shroud in Turin, Secondo Pia, an Italian
amateur photographer, took the first photograph of the Shroud.
While examining his large glass plate negative, before making a
print, he discovered the extraordinary phenomenon of the Shroud
images' negativity. His photograph was news around the world. It
ushered in an era of scientific research of the Shroud, which
continue today. 1902:
Sorbon professor Yves Delage, an agnostic, presented a paper on
the Shroud to the prestigious French Academy of Sciences in Paris
in which he argued that the Shroud's anatomical and other
scientific qualities convinced him that the Shroud had really
wrapped the "body of Christ" and that the image was probably a
natural phenomenon caused by chemical vapors. Marcelin Berthelot,
the secretary of the physics section of the Academy, the renowned
discoverer of thermo-chemistry principles, and a militant atheist,
ordered Delage to rewrite his paper so that it dealt only on the
the chemistry without mentioning the Shroud. It was foolish.
Newspaper reporters had the story and the Paris edition of New
York Herald carried the headline, "Photographs of Christ's Body
found by science."
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No one knows for sure
if the Shroud of Turin is genuine. But if we
focus only on what is published in peer-reviewed
scientific journals then we know certain facts. The
Shroud is certainly at least 1300 years old.
It could be older. The images are unexplained. As
Philip Ball wrote in Nature, in
commenting on a 2005 article in
Thermochimica Acta
that proved that previous carbon 14 dating was
invalid, "It is simply not known how the
ghostly image of a serene, bearded man was made" If
we turn to a 2003 article in
Melanoidins
we find that the images on
the Shroud of Turin are a chemical
caramel-like darkening of an otherwise clear starch
and polysaccharide coating on some of the shroud’s
fibers It is not paint.
There is the mystery
of the second face on the backside of the Shroud
as reported in 2004 in the Journal of Optics
published by the Institute of Physics. Other
peer-reviewed evidence is clear: The bloodstains are
human blood. The images have peculiar 3D
properties. The Shroud was bleached by
methods used in the first century and not later in
the medieval.
Add in some
history, and given what is known scientifically, and
there is ample reason to infer that the Shroud of
Turin is genuine. The thoughtful skeptical
inquirers aims not to achieve this or that
conclusion. Rather their aim is the process of
honest skeptical inquiry. There is ample room for
the thoughtful skeptical inquirer in Shroud
of Turin research. But the articles that appear now
and then in the Skeptical Inquirer
magazine are preposterously polemic, filled with
arguments refuted by peer-reviewed scientific
observation and lack proper historical
investigation.
The American
Chemical Society website quotes a thoughtful
skeptical inquirer, the late Raymond Rogers, the Los
Alamos scientist who showed that the carbon 14
dating was invalid: "The observations do not prove
how the image was formed or the "authenticity" of
the Shroud. There could be a nearly infinite number
of alternate hypotheses, and the search for new
hypotheses should continue." |
1931: Giuseppe Enrie photographed the Shroud. His
photographs confirmed Secondo Pia's findings. This was important
because some believed that Pia had made a mistake or even doctored
his photographs.
1973:
The Shroud was secretly examined by a group of experts, brought
together by Cardinal Pellegrino. Max Frei, a Swiss criminologist,
took samples of surface dust and other particulate material from
the Shroud's surface. Gilbert Raes took a small sample from the
area where samples for carbon 14 dating would be taken fifteen
years later. This sample, along with other material from the
carbon 14 snipping would prove instrumental, years later, in
proving that the carbon 14 samples were invalid.
1976:
At the Sandia Laboratories, John Jackson and Bill Mottern viewed,
for the first time, the Shroud's three-dimensional terrain mapping
characteristic on a VP8 Image Analyzer. It was significant because
this amazing optical quality brought together scientists with many
different disciplines into a group that would become the Shroud of
Turin Research Project (STURP).
1976: Report
of the Turin Scientific Commission (of 1973) with findings of Max
Frei, who reported that the Shroud's dust included pollens from
some plants that are exclusive to Israel and to Turkey, suggesting
that the Shroud must have been exposed to the air in these
countries.
1978:
STURP conducted a five-day period of examination of the Shroud
that included technical photography and the taking of particulate
samples. At the same time, Max Frei, Giovanni Riggi, Pierluigi
Baima-Bollone and others carried out independent research
programs. The Shroud was photographed with visible light,
narrow-band ultraviolet light, an low-power x-ray. A side edge was
unstitched from the backing cloth and an apparatus inserted
between the Shroud and its backing cloth to examine the underside.
Baima Bollone obtained samples of Shroud bloodstain by
mechanically disentangling some warp and weft threads.
Ray Rogers stopped off in Chicago to hand-deliver hirty-two of the sticky tape samples taken
from the Shroud to Walter McCrone.
1979:
STURP conducted a workshop to analyze some of the data obtained
the previous year. Preliminary findings were that the image
showed no evidence of the hand of an artist; the body image did
not appear to be any form of scorch; and the bloodstains were
probably present before the body image. But Walter McCrone claimed
he has found evidence of an artist. STURP scientists could
not agree with McCrone's views.
1988:
After Giovanni Riggi and Luigi Gonella argue for two hours about
where to cut the sample, Riggi cuts a sample from the Shroud to be
divided and tested by three radiocarbon dating laboratories. Riggi
also took blood samples from the lower part of the crown-of-thorns
bloodstains on the Shroud's dorsal image and takes away a portion
of the Shroud he cut away that was not needed carbon 14 dating
laboratories. These samples were placed in a bank vault.
1989:
The prestigious scientific journal Nature, published the
official results of the Shroud radiocarbon dating. It declares
that the results "provide conclusive evidence that the linen of
the Shroud of Turin is medieval."
2000: Joseph G. Marino And M. Sue Benford
publish a paper, "Evidence For The Skewing Of The C-14 Dating Of
The Shroud Of Turin Due To Repairs."
2002:
Textile experts, headed by Mechtild Fleury-Lemberg, undertook a
radical "restoration" of the Shroud under the auspices of the
Archbishop of Turin. Some scientists think that the restoration,
conducted in secret for security reasons following 9/11, was
reckless and perhaps dangerous to the long term preservation of
the cloth. Thirty patches sewn to the cloth by Poor Clare
Nuns in 1534 to repair burn holes from the 1532 fire are removed.
The backing cloth, also sewn on in 1534 is also removed and
replaced with a new backing cloth. Carbonized material near the
burn holes was scraped clean. Weights attached to the edges, along
with steam, are used to flatten many creases in the cloth and
steam is used where necessary. Scientific experts who understand
the nature of the images on the cloth are not consulted. Because
the images are formed by microscopically thin coatings of starch
fractions and sugars that adhere to some of the Shroud's fibers,
there is a real possibility that the stretching and the use of
steam could loosen some of the image bearing material. According
to Barrie Schwortz, "They set off a firestorm of controversy,
criticism, debate and recrimination that ultimately engulfs,
polarizes and divides the Shroud research community. See:
Comments
On The Restoration
2002: The shroud.com website
published a paper, "Scientific Method Applied To The Shroud Of
Turin: A Review," by Raymond N. Rogers, University of California,
Los Alamos National Laboratory and Anna Arnoldi, Department of
Agrifood Molecular Sciences, University of Milan University of
Milan. The paper explains the chemical nature of the images and
explains why the carbon 14 samples were invalid. It supports the
earlier arguments of Marino and Benford.
2003: The peer-reviewed
scientific journal, Melanoidins (vol. 4, Ames J.M. ed.,
Office for Official
Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 2003,
pp.106-113) published an article,
"The Shroud Of Turin: An Amino-Carbonyl Reaction (Maillard
Reaction) May Explain The Image Formation," by Raymond N. Rogers,
University of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Anna
Arnoldi, Department of Agrifood Molecular Sciences, University of
Milan University of Milan. The article further explained the
chemical nature of the images and proposed a natural image
formation process.
2004: The peer-reviewed
journal of the Institute of Physics in London, on April 14, 2004,
announced that Giulio Fanti and Roberto Maggiolo, both of the
University of Padua, Italy, have found a second face image on the
back of the Shroud of Turin. This image corresponds to the front
image but is much fainter. And this image, like the front image,
is completely superficial to the topmost crown fibers of the
cloth. Because both images are superficial (meaning there is no
image or colorant of any kind between the two image layers on the
extreme outer faces of the cloth) and because the images are in
registry with each other, all so-far-proposed fakery proposals are
moot. The images are not paintings and not some form of medieval
proto-photography.
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