I do hope everyone will carefully read your latest blog posting (April 18th), My response to Dan Porter. Certainly, that is what you want. You posted it.
I just want to make a couple of points.
You write:
My personal observation is that Porter has, over the years, drifted from a pro-authenticity to an anti-authenticity position, perhaps without realising it. On his blog Porter bent over backwards to be favourable towards anti-authenticists but was unfavourable towards unequivocal pro-authenticists like me.
I think of myself as open-minded. And I think the majority of people who participate on the Shroud Story blog are open-minded, as well. Some of us, like me, think the shroud is authentic; others do not. We may even be biased. But most of us, I think, are open to solid evidence. Can you offer any specifics to show how I favor certain people because they think the shroud may not be real?
You call yourself an “unequivocal pro-authenticist.” That almost sounds like the chap who goes about saying, “My mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with the facts.” Surely you don’t mean for us to think that.
“I have figured Porter out,” you write:
. . . He is not against the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud as "mediaeval … AD 1260-1390" per se. He is against any closure of any issue, pro- or anti-authenticity. That way he can have endless debate, maximising the views and comments to his blog, which he regularly boasts about.
Good statistical results are good news for all of us who want to see open-minded discussion about the shroud. This month, alone, in just the first 20 days , 49,419 people viewed 98,798 pages. There have been over a thousand comments. Frequent new content and quality back and forth comments makes for readership.
When I wrote, “Why absent fraud? Why not other possibilities?,” you responded:
Proving my point. Porter is not interested in converging on the truth, only in debating endless "possibilities".
But then you admitted that your hypothesis is “tentative.”
So, as Porter KNOWS, my claim has ALWAYS been TENTATIVE that . . . was the computer hacker, or one of the computer hackers, who according to my proposal duped the three radiocarbon dating laboratories at Arizona, Zurich and Oxford by modifying the program in each of the three AMS control console computers, so as to substitute the Shroud’s first or early century radiocarbon date, with bogus dates which, when calibrated, clustered around 1325, only ~25 years before the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history in the 1350s. And absent a "smoking gun," such as an admission or confession by someone in a position to know, my claims that: 1) there was a hacker (or hackers); and 2) that . . . was that hacker (or one of the hackers), might always have to remain tentative.
In the spirit of debating endless possibilities, I must ask (somewhat tongue in cheek, I must admit and apologize for): Did hackers also change the results of the Tuscon, Toronto and recent Madrid carbon dating of the Sudarium?
Stephen, I am not a pro-authenticists or an anti-authenticists; never have been and I hope I never will be. I was once skeptical of the shroud and changed my mind based on evidence. I may change my mind again but that seems unlikely. No one benefits more than me from this blog. That is why I do it. I mean think about it, why would I go to all this trouble if not to learn and give back in the process.
Stephen’s time would be better spent collecting evidence to support his theory than shadowboxing with you. I hope the Holy Spirit doesn’t mind me saying that.
Something is wrong here. This is an unjust accusation levelled at Dan and shroudstory. It becomes even more obvious when some Shroud websites and publications are taken into account. Yes, Shroudstory has sometimes reported some controversial papers,but it always followed by the blogmaster’s comments, he is not asking anyone to swallow anything, and that is the difference.
I am puzzled about the strange fact that happened in Italy.
Here the title :
“Man crushed by giant John Paul II crucifix in Italy.
The cross fell during a ceremony and killed the young man on the spot” …
Here the details :
>An Italian man was crushed to death on Wednesday,
April 23, by a giant crucifix honoring John Paul II that
collapsed during a ceremony ahead of the late pope’s canonization.
>A piece of the 30-meter (98-foot) high wooden cross
fell during the event near an Alpine village, killing the
young man on the spot, Italian media reported.
>The Jesus Christ statue on the cross is six meters
high and weighs 600 kg and the crucifix was curved
and fixed to the ground with cables, the reports said.
>The victim’s age was given at 20 or 21 years old.
>The cross was designed by sculptor Enrico Job
and was created for John Paul II’s visit to Brescia
in the Lombardy region in northern Italy in 1998.
>It was taken down, held in storage and then
installed in a picturesque spot near the village of Cevo in 2005.
>The unusual shape of the crucifix was intended
to represent the scars of World War II.
Link :
http://www.rappler.com/world/regions/europe/56318-man-crushed-giant-john-paul-ii-crucifix-italy?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rappler+%28Rappler%29
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In my opinion we have to improve our knowledges
in the field of Structural Mechanics because applying the
method of “AFM three-point bending test” we can obtain
some interesting informations (eleasticity modulus = Young’s modulus …)
about linen fibrils …
and then we can change our own minds
based on evidence (= see also : the scientific truth
obtained from the experiments).
We have a lot of work to do …
I want to see open-minded discussion
about that new “mechanical dating”
(based on AFM tests, see also : the question of indentation
= a nano-damaging technique …).
Is that another controversial dating ?