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Revisited: Argumentum ad Ignorantiam, mea natibus?
Barbara from Roanoke asks, “Someone wrote something about God betting we can’t figure out how the image was formed. Do you recall the words?”
Are the words from this pearl of wisdom by one of the many great philosophers of the shroud blog, daveb of wellington nz in a comment in Argumentum ad Ignorantiam, mea natibus?
I personally think that the Deity likes to have his little jokes with his creatures. He seems to have wanted to teach Russell & Whitehead an important lesson in humility, and have said to Einstein, “Don’t tell Me what to do with My dice!”. As far as the Shroud image is concerned, I think He may be saying, “Bet you can’t discover how I did it!”
Here is the full quote.
Barrie Schwortz: Isn’t it funny how God always picks a Jew to be the messenger
Here is a story from the National Catholic Reporter that dovetails with the video in the previous posting: Science still can’t explain Shroud of Turin, researcher says:
![clip_image001[5]](http://shroudofturin.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/clip_image0015.gif?w=481&h=71 "clip_image001[5]")
Barrie Schwortz . . .
Raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, "it took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I’m a Jew and involved with probably the most important relic of Christianity," Schwortz told Catholic News Service.
"Isn’t it funny how God always picks a Jew to be the messenger," he said.
Schwortz said he, along with the other members of the research team who came from various faith backgrounds, had to set aside personal beliefs and focus on the shroud itself rather than any religious implication it might carry.
Quote for Today: Better to be Proven a Fraud?
From a comment earlier today from looneytombs:
And this is the sad thing about the Shroud, that even if one day it is proven to be the death shroud of Jesus, Christians will still argue and debate over its significance and exploit it to prove their own religious dogmatic convictions. If this precious relic cannot unify us by its awesome existence then it would be better it be proven a fraud.
Quote for Today: An Unknown Known
Joe Marino writes:
I ran across a quote by Donald Rumsfeld talking about terrorism and politics, but it surely applies to the Shroud (and life in general):
"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know."
When and where did he say this? That’s one thing I know that I don’t know.
Joe, and now you shall know. According to Wikipedia:
The above statement was made by Rumsfeld on February 12, 2002 at a press briefing where he addressed the absence of evidence linking the government of Iraq with the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups.[1] It was criticised as an abuse of language by, among others, the Plain English Campaign.[2] However, linguist Geoffrey Pullum disagreed, saying the quotation was "completely straightforward" and "impeccable, syntactically, semantically, logically, and rhetorically."[3]
As for the substance of his statement, Rumsfeld’s defenders have included Canadian columnist Mark Steyn, who called it "in fact a brilliant distillation of quite a complex matter",[2] and Australian economist and blogger John Quiggin, who wrote, "Although the language may be tortured, the basic point is both valid and important … Having defended Rumsfeld, I’d point out that the considerations he refers to provide the case for being very cautious in going to war."[4] Moreover, one may criticize Rumsfeld’s statement for omitting the most dangerous type of unknown: the "unknown known". That is, as Josh Billings famously expressed it, "It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you think you know that just ain’t so". Indeed, Rumsfeld was really discussing an "unknown known" which provided faulty justification for the war—members of the Bush administration claimed that the Iraqi government possessed weapons of mass destruction (see Rationale for the Iraq War), but it just wasn’t so.
Now you know more than you want to know about that which was unknown to some and known to others, which is also a big problem with the Shroud of Turin.
Picture is from Jason Linkins blog in the Huffington Post:
Quote for Today: Lombatti’s head exploding all over the place.
Jim West*, blogger of Zwinglius Redivivus and outspoken Baptist pastor on Giulio Fanti’s new findings:
I would hate to be at Antonio Lombatti’s house today. His head must be exploding all over the place.
And wouldn’t we be disappointed if we didn’t hear from Antonio, super Shroud of Turin skeptic. He writes:
Typical Easter madness. Every year, around March or April, there’s always a new and amazing “discovery” to date back this medieval relic to the time of Jesus. However, this time I don’t even have to waste my time to reply to shroudologists: the Turin cardinal himself has declared that these latests tests are absolutely meaningless.
Typical Lombatti with just half the story.
*Dr. Jim West, pictured, is Adjunct Professor of Biblical Studies at the Quartz Hill School of Theology and Pastor of Petros Baptist Church, Petros, Tennessee. He has written a number of books and articles and serves as Language Editor for the Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament and Language Revision Editor for the Copenhagen International Seminar.
Yannick Clément Dedicates Revised Paper Thibault Heimburger and Colin Berry
He writes:
Recently, I have updated my recent paper about Rogers’ conclusions and observations concerning the body image of the Shroud. The most important thing I have done is to write the correct reference for each quote, so that my paper can be more “user friendly” for anyone who wants to use one quote for his own research and writing. I have also merged some quotes together since they were coming from the same part of Rogers’ book or paper and I have also add a few new quotes that I think are also relevant for the subject of the body image.
And the best news is the fact that my updated paper is now published online on 2 Shroud website, namely the site of the Holy Shroud Guild and the website of Paul Schumacher in New Mexico!
Here’s the links to them:
. . . I truly think that this version is much better than the one I gave you the other day, so I hope you will help me to diffuse it to a large audience!
And as a footnote, he writes
I dedicate my paper to Thibault Heimburger and Colin Berry who love to put into question all the conclusions of Rogers concerning the image!!!
Indeed this is a useful collection.
David Rolfe, some hip dude in England
Bailey Packard, who prepared this great 23 minute video, writes in Shroud of Turin: Faith, Science, & History Come Together on a Piece of Cloth:
Probably the newest and coolest Shroud website with lots of great videos – The Enigma of the Shroud of Turin done by some hip dudes in England.
Hat tip to Joe Marino for providing information about this video
Endowed by their maker with dim wits
Quotation:
How can I hold that all men are created equal when here standing before me stands stinking the moral carcass of the gentlemen from Ohio. Proof that some men are inferior. Endowed by their maker with dim wits, impermeable to reason, with cold pallet slime in their veins instead of hot red blood. You are more reptile than man, George, so low and flat that the foot of man is incapable of crushing you.
So said Congressman Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania to Congressman George Pendleton of Ohio on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in the movie Lincoln. We aren’t quite that bad in this blog. Nonetheless I have been fielding some complaints and some of them are justified.
With the one exception, M. le chanoine Ulysse Chevalier, pictured here, let’s try to avoid unnecessary characterizations of others. I don’t want to start editing. Enough said.
Is it absurd to think that the Shroud can show a physical trace of the Resurrection?
Yannick Clément, in an open letter to scientists, quotes French Catholic theologian Odile Celier from Qui a peur du Saint Suaire? (Who’s Afraid of the Holy Shroud?) by Brice Perrier (2011). I have taken the liberty of tweaking Yannick’s English (by guessing) but only in these quoted paragraphs and not in the full open letter, which follows:
Since science became involved (note: it is even truer since the failure of STURP to totally explain the image on the cloth, which doesn’t mean however that this image will never be naturally explained in the future), the devotion to the Shroud underwent a real mutation because it is no more [longer[ the memorial of the Lord’s Passion and death than [but] the material witness of his Resurrection and, by doing so, the providential object called to healed this modern decease which is the decline of the Christian faith.
Yannick goes on to say:
There’s no doubt that such a mutation is not seen with a good eye by the Vatican, because, as Jean-Michel Maldamé (a Dominican monk who’s also a member of the Pontifical Academy of Science) states in Perrier’s book, the idea that the Shroud can really show a physical trace of the Resurrection of Christ is absurd from a theological point of view. And Maldamé continue by saying this (personal translation):
The word “Resurrection” would lost [lose] his sense and would be deformed. This would be a materialization of the Resurrection and that’s contrary to the theology teaches [taught] by the Church. The only trace of the Resurrection that exist[s] can only been found in the Gospels and in the testimonies of the Apostles.
Yannick’s complete open letter is contained below. You may need to click on “Read more” to uncover it:
AN OPEN LETTER
TO ALL OF THE SCIENTISTS
WHO ARE HONEST AND SINCERE
IN THEIR QUEST FOR TRUTH CONCERNING THE SHROUD
After having read carefully the translation of M. Barberis comments provided by Dan (link: http://shroudstory.com/2012/12/13/barberis-fantis-conclusions-are-not-scientific/), I just want to say that I am VERY PLEASED by it! Some of you will remember that I was one of the first to elevate my voice against M. Fanti’s unscientific antics at the moment he published his “special edition” issue about the Shroud. At that time, I wrote an open letter that you can find here on the blog at this adress: http://shroudstory.com/2012/08/07/and-yannick-responds-to-giulios-comments/. I said roughly the same thing as M. Barberis but in a much longer and exhaustive way. What I love the most about M. Barberis comment is the fact that here, unlike myself, you got someone well-established and well-respected in the Shroud world who finally dare to critic M. Fanti’s way to do Shroud science (which is, in fact, unscientific to say the least). Such professional comment should have come much sooner but at least, it is there for anyone to read now!
Rogers changing his mind in a big way
Yannick Clément, in an email, writes:
I have found an ancient quote from Ray Rogers that is incredible and says a lot about the high level of scientific honesty of that man !!!
This particular quotes comes from one section of a book written in 1999 by Bernard Ruffin about the Shroud that is entitled “Shroud of Turin: Up to date analysis of all the facts Regarding the Church’s Controversial Relic”.
Here’s the part of that book where we can find this awesome quote from Rogers: “In 1978, Ray Rogers of STURP was quoted in the Los Alamos Monitor: “I am forced to conclude that the image was formed by a burst of radiant energy –light if you will.”
Were you aware of this? Don’t you think like me that this is an extraordinary historical finding? This quote sounds pretty much like Jackson’s hypothesis, don’t you think? J For me, that particular quote (unfortunately, I don’t know if Rogers said that before or after the team went to Turin, but I think it was before) is one more proof that he was honest enough as a scientist to change his mind drastically on some issues if NEW CONTRADICTORY FACTS AND/OR OBSERVATIONS were coming his way!
In reality, this is the 4th important example I have found (I’m sure there are even more than that in reality!) where Rogers changed his mind drastically about some issue related to the Shroud and it is ALL IN HIS HONOR. The other three examples are :
1- When he realized that the chromophore of the image could not probably be an oxidation-dehydration of the linen fiber itself (as he thought when he wrote his STURP paper)
2- When he realized that Benford and Marino’s hypothesis of an invisible repair in the area of the C14 corner was most probably correct (even if, at first, he though they were a bunch of lunatic and their hypothesis was irrational).
3- When he realized that Vignon’s vaporographic hypothesis wasn’t so crazy after all when it is confronted to all the most solid data and observations about the Shroud (even if, at first, he though that this hypothesis was a non sense).
This quote offer also another important proof: Rogers was not the close-minded hyper rationalist that all his detractors have wanted us to believe! It’s important because it clearly showed that his naturalistic hypothesis concerning the Maillard reaction was not driven by a will to crush down at all cost every possible supernatural hypotheses that have been put forward over the years, like many anti-Rogers persons (like Rolfe for example) have supposed (even on your blog)! In sum, this particular quote from Rogers is a proof that all these anti-Rogers folks are dead wrong concerning his real motivation versus the Shroud… And for me, this particular quote gave even more credibility to a natural hypothesis concerning the image formation because it shows that it is NOT what Rogers was first thinking and he later had to change his mind when he came accross new facts and observations from Adler!
So, I really think YOU SHOULD PUT THIS QUOTE FROM RUFFIN’S BOOK ONLINE RIGHT NOW, so that people can understand how professional and honest a scientist Rogers was and how much he was humble enough to CHANGE HIS MIND on something related to the Shroud… As my friend Barrie Schwortz told me more than once, to his knowledge, Rogers was one of the only Shroud scientist who was ever able to do this kind of prouesse ! And it is totally unlike most of the modern Shroud researchers by the way who, once they had their minds made up, they did everything they could to stick to their personal conclusions about the Shroud. [ . . . ]
In the end, there’s no doubt about that: Personal egos are the ruin and the shame of Shroud research and it would be time that another honest and rigorous scientist like Rogers come into the Shroud world (would be great if it could be an expert in biochemistry)!
The Central Dilemma of the Shroud?
Stephen now (just a few hours ago) doing what he does best: finding the best quotes and putting them in context. Here, he quotes (and I re-quote) Ken Stevenson and Gary Habermas in his latest posting in his new series: The central dilemma of the Shroud
The bottom line then is that either the image is that of Jesus of Nazareth or it was intended by its creator to portray Jesus. Since we’ve virtually ruled out human artifice, are we crazy or unscholarly or unscientific to suggest the image is likely that of Jesus?
It goes back to the great quote by John Walsh:
Only this much is certain: The Shroud of Turin is either the most awesome and instructive relic of Jesus Christ in existence-showing us in its dark simplicity how He appeared to men-or it is one of the most ingenious, most unbelievably clever, products of the human mind and hand on record. It is one or the other; there is no middle ground. (emphasis Jones)
Is it the central dilemma? Or is this notion subsumed in the greater mystery of the image? Authenticity through science? Plausible history?
Canticle to the Holy Face by St. Therese
Yesterday, August 28, 2012, Carmel, Garden of God blog reprinted “Canticle to the Holy Face” – poem by St. Therese based on the Shroud of Turin. Go have a look:
The Holy Face of Jesus
(after the Holy Shroud of Turin)
This image is a reproduction of the drawing by Sr. Genevieve of the Holy Face
(Celine Martin) sister of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face
Canticle to the Holy Face
Dear Jesus! ‘tis Thy Holy Face
Is here the start that guides my way;
They countenance, so full of grace,
Is heaven on earth, for me, to-day.
. . .
Reconstructing the face of Jesus from the Shroud of Turin?
Joe Marino writes:
Just got the Kindle edition of the above book, by Craig A. Evans (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012).
Craig A. Evans is Payzant Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Acadia Divinity College, Acadia University, in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada. The author or editor of more than fifty books and hundreds of articles, Evans is a regular guest on many national media outlets, including Dateline NBC, The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, and BBC. He is an internationally distinguished authority and lecturer on the historical Jesus. For more information, visit craigaevans.com.
In Appendix 2: What did Jesus look like? he writes:
WHAT ABOUT THE FACE OF JESUS IN THE SHROUD OF TURIN OR ON SIXTH- AND SEVENTH-CENTURY CE BYZANTINE COINS? The image of the face in the Shroud of Turin and its resemblance to the face of Jesus stamped on the Byzantine Coins are interesting observations. But the science and authenticity of the Shroud are much disputed and the Byzantine coins are late. Reconstructing the face of Jesus on the basis of these items is not recommended.
Amazing how the Shroud is so perfunctorily dismissed in these books!
Argumentum ad Ignorantiam, mea natibus
A reader writes:
Every student of philosophy should know that an appeal to lack of evidence, argumentum ad ignorantiam, is proof of nothing. So I was told recently when I claimed that the shroud must be real because no one had figured out how the image was created.
There is something compelling, however, about mystery that speaks to our higher faculties; those faculties which ignore the limitations of mere rationality. One would think, really, that after so many years someone would have figured it out. There is nothing like it in the world of art from any period in history. That includes photography.
Fifty years ago John Walsh wrote these words. They are no less meaningful today.
The Shroud of Turin is either the most awesome and instructive relic of Christ in existence or it is one of the most ingenious, most unbelievably clever products of the human mind and hand on record. It is one or the other, there is no middle ground.
Argumentum ad ignorantiam? Mea natibus (but mea asinum sounds better).
Quote for Today: Peter Bosco on de Wesselow’s Book
The Rev. Peter Bosco, Chaplain at Christ’s College, Canterbury (New Zealand), an Anglican secondary school for boys, shroudie and publisher of a popular blog on liturgy, commenting on de Wesselow’s, “The Sign”:
Someone would hold up the shroud with its image, and people would go, “No… I don’t see anything… Oh, yes… I see… that’s Jesus… look – that’s his head… see?!… yep, I’ll die for that!”
Read The Shroud IS the resurrection? | Liturgy. You will enjoy this posting.
Hat tip: We picked up on this quote from the blog of The Rt. Rev. David Hamid, a suffragan bishop serving European Anglican parishes that are not in Great Britain.
Quote for today on the Shroud of Turin
Christopher Macfarlane at The Protest Station writes a posting called Thank Shroud Almighty:
In case you don’t know what the Shroud of Turin is, it is allegedly the burial cloth in which Jesus was wrapped. I’ve seen documentaries about it, and at least from what I’ve seen, it is definitely an interesting artifact that I’m not entirely convinced should be thrown out.
Actually, it is part of a full article dealing with de Wesselow’s book. I recommend reading it.
What’s in a Word: The Shroud of Turin was Restored or Conserved?
Jonathan Foyle weighs in in the Financial Times:
I mean to restore the meaning of “restore”, before it becomes confusing. In 2010, CNN proclaimed: “The shroud of Turin, which some Christians believe is Jesus Christ’s burial cloth, went on public display Saturday for the first time since it was restored.” It was actually conserved, meaning it was cleaned, neutralising the agents of decay. If it were really restored or returned to its primary condition, it should have had the ghostly face scrubbed off and its original inhabitant rematerialised within it. Now, that would have been worth reporting.
The Financial Times, with more than two million daily readers, the nicknamed "stockbroker’s Bible", the “Pink Un”, has been printed on salmon colored newsprint since 1893.
Is rematerialised (or with a z on this side of the pond) the right word? Picky, picky, picky. In stock market terms, as the editors of FT might understand it, rematerialization means issuing actual paper stock certificates where only electronic (book) records existed before.
But then again, Russell Kirk, John A. T. Robinson and a whole bunch of shroudies did popularize dematerialization.
Quote for today on why the shroud image is not a scorch
It is this, taken from a comment by Daveb of Wellington NZ to a posting, The image on the Shroud of Turin is not a scorch:
The Shroud is unique in all of relic history. Forgers typically imitate. They seldom create originals or other unique objects, even when there is a lucrative trade in the genre, whether art, artifacts or relics. Their copies are usually quickly discovered as forgeries.
Or maybe this should be the quote for today taken from the very same comment by Daveb. I can’t decide which one I like most.
My objections to the statue thermal imprinting proposition come from its unlikelihood. It beggars belief that anyone, even an enthusiastic relic forger, would commission such an object. (a) There was insufficient anatomical knowledge to create the accuracy of detail; (b) Any such lifesize statue would in fact be more impressive than its mere image on a cloth; (c) There is no historical record of any such statue, and there is no contemporary tradition of making such statues with all the realism required. (d) It defies any contemporary art forms. (e) It contravenes conventional belief about the crucifixion, e.g. wrist nailing, and consequent thumb flexure.
Picture is of “Christ of the Abyss.” A bronze statue of Jesus, it was installed underwater in the Mediterranean Sea off San Fruttuoso, Italy in 1954.
Quote for today by Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer in Studies in Pessimism:
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
It seems so fitting for so much of what we discuss about the shroud.
Quote for today: “When someone wants badly enough to not know something . . .”
The Deuce by way of a comment to Badder Still: Bad Archaeology at Bad Archaeology, writes:
[Sciencebod is] actually extremely interested in not understanding. Between sciencebod, Bad Archeology, and the reader Dan mentioned who denied there was any image at all, I’m reminded of that story about Galileo’s scientific contemporaries who refused to look in the telescope, or did look and claimed to have seen nothing but smudges. When someone wants badly enough to not know something, their will can overcome their very senses.
Cartoon by Chris Madden. Used with permission.
Is the Shroud real? Probably.
The Shroud of Turin may be the real burial cloth of Jesus. The carbon dating, once seemingly proving it was a medieval fake, is now widely thought of as suspect and meaningless. Even the famous Atheist Richard Dawkins admits it is controversial. Christopher Ramsey, the director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Laboratory, thinks more testing is needed. So do many other scientists and archeologists. This is because there are significant scientific and non-religious reasons to doubt the validity of the tests. Chemical analysis, all nicely peer-reviewed in scientific journals and subsequently confirmed by numerous chemists, shows that samples tested are chemically unlike the whole cloth. It was probably a mixture of older threads and newer threads woven into the cloth as part of a medieval repair. Recent robust statistical studies add weight to this theory. Philip Ball, the former physical science editor for Nature when the carbon dating results were published, recently wrote: “It’s fair to say that, despite the seemingly definitive tests in 1988, the status of the Shroud of Turin is murkier than ever.” If we wish to be scientific we must admit we do not know how old the cloth is. But if the newer thread is about half of what was tested – and some evidence suggests that – it is possible that the cloth is from the time of Christ.
No one has a good idea how front and back images of a crucified man came to be on the cloth. Yes, it is possible to create images that look similar. But no one has created images that match the chemistry, peculiar superficiality and profoundly mysterious three-dimensional information content of the images on the Shroud. Again, this is all published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
We simply do not have enough reliable information to arrive at a scientifically rigorous conclusion. Years ago, as a skeptic of the Shroud, I came to realize that while I might believe it was a fake, I could not know so from the facts. Now, as someone who believes it is the real burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth, I similarly realize that a leap of faith over unanswered questions is essential.
My name is Dan Porter. Please email me at DanielRobertPorter@gmail.com
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