New book claims (with no real evidence,) that Shroud of Turin is "real."

[Archae]

Even though all credible evidence shows it a fake made in the Middle Ages.

A viewing of the The Shroud of Turin, thought by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, will reportedly be televised Saturday on Italian State TV in what is said to be former Pope Benedict XVI’s parting gift to the Catholic Church.

The televised viewing of the shroud on Holy Saturday will be the first in 40 years, according to a report in the Guardian newspaper.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/03/shroud-of-turin-hits-airwaves-amid-new-claims-that-its-real/

[GeorgeGist]

1. How quickly they forget.

Losers that is.

Not surprising that.

[NV Whino]

2. So's the Easter Bunny.

[Mnemosyne]

4. I saw him once, as a child, he was

Invisible.

[SidDithers]

35. Check my sig...

Sid

[Mnemosyne]

40. You changed it! Can't remember what is said, but it wasn't him!

PS - this country does need a good enema!

[SidDithers]

41. It was this line from Julia Sweeney...

Sid

[Mnemosyne]

47. Oh yes, that's the one! Thanks Sid!

[former9thward]

3. Your headline is in direct contradiction with the story at the link.

It says there is new evidence. Do you think no one reads the links?

[Archae]

5. This "new evidence" is bogus.

Don't forget ABC news sent a reporter to South America to talk up all sorts of "miracles" from an obvious con artist.

[former9thward]

6. What does South America have to do with this?

Have you read the book? How do you know the evidence is "bogus"? Are you a scientist who is qualified to speak about their tests? The book was written by two Italian scientists who performed tests on the cloth. Your posts sound like a typical anti-science rants.

[Archae]

20. Because ABC talked up this "new evidence," while barely mentioning...

The fact that all *CREDIBLE* evidence says it 's a fake.

http://www.skepdic.com/shroud.html

[Union Scribe]

31. What else would they say?

Lol. People invested in either utter belief or utter denial make shitty analysts.

[former9thward]

37. Your definition of "credible" is anything that you think backs up your POV.

That why you have to shout it. Typical anti-science view.

[Major Nikon]

8. The "evidence" is quite interesting

Fanti (who appears to make his living off shroud research), claims...

Mr. Fanti said he thought the image could have been created by a “very intense burst of energy,” which could have mutated the percentage of carbon-14 in the linen, leading some scientists to wrongly date it to the 13th century.

So in other words, numerous independent labratories who used radiocarbon dating techniques accepted by scientists the world over, got it wrong because this mysterious burst of resurection energy skewed their results.

I've heard better "evidence" from the creationists.

[Apophis]

11. Where's his evidence for this burst of energy?

It's up his ass, I'm guessing, because that's where he pulled it out.

[Major Nikon]

16. Near as I can tell he's a professional shroud "researcher"

When (and if) he publishes his information in a peer reviewed journal, rather than self publishing it in a book for profit, then perhaps he'll be taken seriously.

[former9thward]

14. That is not what he said in his interview with ABC

I watched ABC News this evening and they had an interview. He said the scientists who dated it in the Middle Ages had tested fibers in areas of the shroud that were repaired in that time period. Many scientists have also made the claim. Interesting how people damn the evidence when they haven't even read the book.

[Major Nikon]

15. If he said that, it only goes against his credibility

The shroud was separated from the backing cloth along its bottom left-hand edge and a strip (~10 mm x 70 mm) was cut from just above the place where a sample was previously removed in 1973 for examination. The strip came from a single site on the main body of the shroud away from any patches or charred areas.

http://www.shroud.com/nature.htm

[Union Scribe]

32. Nah, they have skeptic websites

No need to consider anything for themselves

[Octafish]

33. + Infinity

[Major Nikon]

34. ...and peer reviewed evidence published in one of the most respected peer reviewed publications

http://www.shroud.com/nature.htm

This is countered with a self-published non-peer reviewed book.

Kinda makes you go hmmmmmm.

Just sayin'

[byeya]

42. Jeez:Louize - the Church even found the actual forger of the shroud not long after the shroud

appeared in public. The Church heretofore has never claimed it to be authentic in my understanding. The Church allows it to be an object of veneration but there's been no claim it's the burial shroud.

[CTyankee]

45. I remember George Will touting that line of "burst of energy." He was believing it...

and I thought that would surely be the end of him as a journalist, but...that didn't happen. Haven't heard Will talk about the Shroud lately, tho...

[RC]

7. The weave of the fabric had not been invented/developed till several hundred years after Christ died

[dsc]

13. that isn't necessarily compelling

in that things got reinvented in the Middle ages all the time. The weave could have been existed for the shroud, been forgotten, and then reinvented. The carbon dating on the other hand seems pretty hard to dismiss.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

22. And The Fact That They Were Able To Date The Coins On The Deceased's Eyes To That Same Time Period?

I saw a PBS special on the Shroud of Turin years ago. Using technology, they were able to not only determine that the corpse underneath the shroud had coins on his eyes, but they were actually able to see some of the images and script of the coins and place them in the same time period that the carbon dating proved the shroud was from.

Science kicks religion's ass again.

[RC]

30. You are saying three reputable laboratories were wrong?

Official announcement

On September 28, 1988, British Museum director and coordinator of the study Michael Tite communicated the official results to the Diocese of Turin and to the Holy See. In a well-attended press conference on October 13, Cardinal Ballastrero announced the official results, i.e. that radio-carbon testing dated the shroud to a date of 1260-1390 CE, with 95% confidence. The official and complete report on the experiment was published in Nature.[35] The uncalibrated dates from the individual laboratories, with 1-sigma errors (68% confidence), were as follows:

Tucson: 646 ± 31 years;
Oxford: 750 ± 30 years,
Zurich: 676 ± 24 years old
the weighted mean was 689 ± 16 years, which corresponds to calibrated ages of CE 1273-1288 with 68% confidence, and CE 1262-1384 with 95% confidence.

As reported in Nature, Professor Bray of the Instituto di Metrologia 'G. Colonetti', Turin, "confirmed that the results of the three laboratories were mutually compatible, and that, on the evidence submitted, none of the mean results was questionable."[35]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_14_dating_of_the_Shroud_of_Turin

[dsc]

36. I said the carbon dating is a different matter

ie it is compelling. The weave thing isn't though.

[UTUSN]

9. Well, Diane SAWYER has been "buying" and "pushing" it all week... n/t

[msongs]

10. old book claims (with no real evidence) jesus is "real". nt

[former9thward]

18. If you are suggesting Jesus never existed then you have no credibility.

No serious historian of the period says that.

[Archae]

21. You can't even get his name right.

[Logical]

38. The baptism of Jesus and his crucifixion are all most scholars agree on. The rest is pure hogwash.

[former9thward]

39. The poster does not agree Jesus existed.

When your religion is atheism you must put your faith in denial.

[Archae]

46. Atheism is not "religion."

Any more than being bald is having hair.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

27. As real as Mithras.

[Apophis]

12. It's been shown time and time again the shroud is fake.

Yet why do people still hold onto their faith that it's real?

Stupid!

[Major Nikon]

17. Because faith requires the suspension of reason to work

[Apophis]

19. Touché.

[sakabatou]

23. Again?

[Ikonoklast]

24. It's real. It's just a fake, but it does exist.

It also shows a body that is bleeding after it supposedly expired.

Corpses do not bleed; they have no blood pressure. Blood pools at the lowest point of the body.

The Shroud shows bleeding from the wounds in the hands of the 'corpse', hands which are located at the front of the 'body', positioned at the highest point.

Any mortician, medical student, doctor or coroner can tell you that.

[byeya]

44. So can a cop. If the subject were alive and was bleeding from the scalp, the blood would clot in the

hair.

[Bigmack]

25. IT'S REAL I TELL YA!...

And so is the piece of the True Cross that I picked up in Istanbul a few years ago. Certificate of Authenticity in three languages, too.

[defacto7]

26. Oh please....

People believe anything they want to believe. Drop belief... and all you have left are the facts. How boring.

[longship]

28. Joe Nickell put this to bed long ago.

Listen to his interview on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe -- Episode 17, where he talks about the Shroud and his investigation.

Here: http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=17

Sorry, folks. The Shroud of Turin is a well documented fraud from the time it first "miraculously" appeared, as are nearly all religious artifacts.

Pius fraud, but nevertheless, fraud.

[DetlefK]

29. First, infra-red spectra are almost useless for determining the age of a substance.

The tell of atomic bondings within a substance. By adding up the amounts of different bondings, one can make an educated guess (depending on how ambiguous data is) about the molecule you are looking at. This could be used to look at the decay-rate of molecules, but (according to wikipedia) the decay-rate of molecules is not very reliable when determining age.
The other spectra he mentioned are probably XPS-spectra: They can be used to identify atom-species, but it would be difficult to tell apart isotopic features and bonding-features. (And he would have to destroy his sample to get REALLY reliable results.)

Second: How do we know it's human blood? Did they test the blood-cells for human blood-types?

Third: Please note the silence of the Catholic Church.
Counterfeiting relics was a huge market during the Middle Ages. And the Catholic Church never took steps to root those fake relics out. What if they fear that the Shroud of Turin is one of those "sanctioned" fake relics from back then?

[spanone]

43. i almost fell off my unicorn when i read that