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Carbon Dating & The Shroud of Turin

BlackTyranny writes "The Shroud of Turin, carbon dated in 1978 by a team of scientists, may be far older than originally thought. Raymond N. Rogers, a retired chemist from the University of California-operated Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, part of the original team, used samples given to him in 2003 from the Cardinal of Turin's scientific advisor. Roger's contends that the carbon dating might be faulty because "the people who cut the sample didn't do a very good job of characterizing the samples," that is, taking samples from many areas of the cloth." I think the shroud 'Patch' may be made of the big foot suit. ;)

13 of 1,019 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Damn! That means I have to accept the possibili by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...and there really isn't any proof on it having been the one that some guy 2000 years ago was in.

    relics were a big business, and still are.

    there were literally tons of wood that was supposedly from the cross that jesus was supposedly nailed to.

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    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  2. Religious View vs. Scientific View by reporter · · Score: 5, Insightful
    For the religiously inclined, click on this link to go to a relatively good (i.e. moderate) viewpoint on the Shroud, by an Epicopalian who thinks like John Shelby Spong (one of the very few Christians whom I respect).

    For those (like myself) who are secular, I wish to point out the single greatest problem in the religious view of the Shroud. The clerics simply assume that the shroud belongs to Jesus (assuming that he existed at all) and then direct their scientists to prove that the shroud belonged to Jesus. This type of reasoning is "Assume the conclusion to be true. Then prove the conclusion." I thought that scientific inquiry is "We don't know what to expect. Let's probe and collect the scientifically provable facts. Then, we draw a conclusion from the facts."

  3. Re:Damn! That means I have to accept the possibili by BeatlesForum.com · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Somehow I think bearing the Son of Man in your womb is a little different than coveting your neighbor.

    Christians hate unmarried mothers and adultery and women who have children with men who aren't their husbands otherwise

    Christians aren't supposed to hate anyone, but rather hate the sin. We're all sinners in this world. Becoming a Christian doesn't make one sinless - but hopefully makes them sin less. I'm sorry if your view of Christianity has been skewed by those who don't hold to true beliefs.

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    When millions disappear from earth, it's not aliens, it's the rapture.
  4. Geez by hey! · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Um, aren't you chastising Cmdr Taco's belief that he has a right to chastise Christian's beliefs?

    Uh, no. Taco is allowed to believe he has the right to chastise Christians' beliefs, he's just not allowed to actually do it.

    Of course, mainly it's just gauche. It's like a Jewish friend of mine who went out of her way to help a person who was having a spot of trouble at work. The person told my friend that it was "awfully Christian of her." Of course, my friend knew what she meant was something like "Your actions are in accord with ideals that I was taught by Christianity, and which are held by other religions such as Judaism." But it's rather like a segregationist telling W.E.B. DuBois that it was "awfully white of him."

    The downside of the death of the idea of propiety is that it has stripped our culture of language and tools to describe situations like this. There is a great gaping whole on the continuum that starts at "OK" and runs through "morally wrong", "should be illegal" ending up at "downright evil". Between "OK" and "morally wrong", there is a whole range of qualities, including: gauche, impolite, rude, and offensive.

    Mocking somebody's beliefs, depending on the context, falls somewhere in this range.

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  5. Re:Authenticity by hey! · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, I don't see it as a waste of money, if this is important to people.

    Science is not a set of conclusions, it is a set of procedures. As such if the original tests were worth doing, then questioning the results of the original test are potentially worth doing. If the original tests are not be questioned in principle then the conclusions of those test can't be regarded as scientific, can they?

    From a purely scientific standpoint, the scientific value of retesting this artifact lies in the basis for doubting the original conclusions. Naturally, if the basis for doubting that is religious faith, then there is no scientific value in doing so. But if there are technical reasons to believe that the original procedure was incorrect, then there is certainly merit in reexamining the conclusions.

    By way of analogy, there is no scientific merit in reexaming work done to trace the antiquity of our mitochondrial DNA heritage based on an extrapolation of the world's age in the Bible. But, doing so on the basis that the original work may have overestimated the rate of mutation is a totally different kettle of loaves and fishes.

    Naturally, the fact that this process would be of great interest to Young Earthers is, or at least should be, irrelevant.

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  6. Re:Bad for Science by Vellmont · · Score: 4, Insightful


    Faith and science are two totally different and incompatible methods of acquiring knowledge.

    Faith is not a method of aquiring knowledge, it's a method of retaining a belief.

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    AccountKiller
  7. Religious "Proof" by MajorBlunder · · Score: 4, Insightful

    First, let me say that I am a Christian, and I hold my faith to be a guiding and supporting influence in my life. As to the authenticity of Shroud of Turin, I personaly have doubts about its authenticity, but I refuse to pass final judgment on the matter as I doubt we will ever have all the facts. In the final analysis however no proof, scientific or other wise will matter.

    "For those who do not believe no proof is sufficient. For those who do believe no proof is necessary." -- Unknown source

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    "I'm making perfect sense, you're just not keeping up."

  8. Re:MOD PARENT UP by Vellmont · · Score: 5, Insightful


    I'd remind the readers that science is fallible.

    Of course. But you sound like you're using the fallibility of science to justify what you already believe. In other words "it MUST be the real Jesus shrowd, not that I have any evidence it is.. but eventually science will show the counter-evidence is wrong because.. well it MUST be". That's not how science works. Sure, it's possible the science is faulty.. but you don't just assume it is because the evidence doesn't back up your own, unsubstatiated beliefs. That's just patently dishonest.

    In science you take all the evidence and make a conclusion based on that with the understanding that it's not the final word on the matter. In other words, you don't get to use science only when it backs up what you want to believe, but claim faulty science when it doesn't.

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    AccountKiller
  9. Re:A Lament by Attaturk · · Score: 4, Insightful


    It's a pity that this sort of uninteresting pseudo-science keeps cropping up on /.

    I'm not a scientist, but surely there are more interesting things going in the world than this?


    I couldn't agree more. And I'm pretty confident that Jesus would also agree wholeheartedly if he were alive today. I suspect he'd be dumbfounded as to why God's children still seem to be mesmerised by idols and symbols when they should really be focussing on all the death, torture, war and oppression in the world. We'll spend money on investigating a dirty old piece of cloth but we're not prepared to stop all the prejudices and greed-fuelled, self-interested warmongers in the world. I'm not a Christian btw (far from it in fact) - but I have zero time for anyone claiming to be a Christian that actually has no idea what Jesus Christ's own ideals were.

    Please excuse the rant but really - even Jesus himself would mod this story down.

  10. Re:Actually, that would be a sin. by Catbeller · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Most of the religious justification for hating gays comes from Leviticus, but damn few people ever read the whole text. The people who wrote it were freaking nuts. It's like a read from Rev. Moon's writings -- control for its own sake. Superstition and common sense mixed together with a massive dash of fanaticism.

  11. Take your own advice! by Tau+Zero · · Score: 4, Insightful
    the british museum's dating was patheticly incompetent
    Scientifically or religiously?
    failing to account for the role of accumulating bioplastic coating on the fibers
    Which makes the Shroud unique among all ancient textiles? (If you can't properly date the Shroud, how could you date anything else? Do you think that scientists don't test their methods for reliability before using them for any work of importance?)
    the preservation of the shroud in oil during the late renaissance
    Are you saying that cellulose cannot be purified from the material? If you cannot obtain guaranteed-original material for radiocarbon dating, you can't get it for any other analysis either. That includes the vanillin that Rogers is using for his claims... claims which are highly suspect because they make assumptions about rates of chemical reactions under the uncontrolled storage conditions.
    and now, as has been demonstrated by use of other dating methods, the selection of repair materials for the dating.
    You're not making sense here. Are you telling me that
    • The very people who maintain the Shroud as a holy artifact
    • Who by definition believe in its authenticity
    • Who have every reason to want it to be proven authentic
    • Who control access to it, and
    • Who only permitted research on it after a long and difficult negotiation with the scientists involved,
    didn't allow anyone to have the proper things to test?

    Isn't it easier just to believe that the claims of authenticity are false, and that people are clinging to it because of what they want to be true?

    Rogers looks like someone who will believe regardless of the evidence, and is thus someone whose "scientific" results are not trustworthy. The McPaper article quotes Rogers saying " the blood spots on it are real blood", when the actual material of the "blood stains" has been proven to be red ochre. Am I also being asked to believe that Jesus bled red ochre?

    given that it is the only proposed physical artifact of a pivotal event in human history, with profound import, compentent pursuit of an accurate and factual account of its characteristics is a very worthwhile endeavour, and entirely undeserving of the deceitful mockery of the poster.
    Refusing to accept the reality that the "artifact" is a 14th-century creation says nothing about the dating process, and everything about your prejudices. It's not what its keepers think it is. Get over it.
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    Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
  12. Re:Actually, that would be a sin. by EnronHaliburton2004 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed. Neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen com upon thee.

    a nation that managed to thrive and grow to eventually produce movements which now dominate most of the world.

    I'm really confused by the "mingled seed" comment.

    Civilizations which planted multiple crops on one field, used crop rotation and cross-bred plants were very successful in agriculture, and I don't see how that would be unsanitary.

  13. Re:Actually, that would be a sin. by MutantHamster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I thought it was the word of God. Are you trying to tell me that God had a lacking scientific understanding? I thought he was omniscient.

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