Susan Carmichael writes:
. . . As a scientist, it is a struggle to always balance the scientific method and religious faith; however, I have realized that science has only strengthened my faith and not hindered it. The best example that I can provide is from my chemistry teacher. Carbon dating was used in 1988 to date the Shroud of Turin. The age of the cloth was determined to be only 600-700 years old. Does that disprove that the cloth was not the authentic burial shroud of Jesus? No because only the outside corners of the cloth was tested. There is a story that the cloth was in a church fire around the dated timeframe and that it had been repaired. In this story, faith was questioned; however, even if the cloth is truly only 600-700 years old, that does not make people immediately disbelieve in their religious views.
Actually, Susan, it was only a small sample from one single outside corner. The evidence is overwhelming that this corner was mended. Ray Rogers, a Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow wrote in the peer-reviewed, scientific journal Thermochimica Acta:
The combined evidence from chemical kinetics, analytical chemistry, cotton content, and pyrolysis/ms proves that the material from the radiocarbon area of the shroud is significantly different from that of the main cloth. The radiocarbon sample was thus not part of the original cloth and is invalid for determining the age of the shroud.
Rogers’ findings have since been confirmed by the late John Brown at Georgia Tech and a team of nine scientists at LANL led by Bob Villarreal. The chemical kinetics analysis shows us that the cloth is at least 1300 years old; how much older cannot be determined from this.
Good posting at Looking through Different Lenses – SusanCarmichael