Antonio Lombatti’s latest attempt at rational skepticism boggles the mind:
Garlaschelli reproduced the shroud using materials and techniques that were available in the middle ages. . . . As for those who claim that under the microscope the [Garlaschelli-produced] image cannot be identical to the Turin Shroud, one must consider that even two coins minted in the very same mint aren’t identical under the microscope. . . .
Those who claimed that the image was painted claimed that the artist used materials and techniques that were available in the middle ages. Those who argued that images were proto-photographs did so, as well. Nathan Wilson, who tried to demonstrate that the images were created using sunlight for selective bleaching of raw linen made the same claim: the artist used materials and techniques that were available in the middle ages.
So what! If the shroud was created during the middle ages then of course the artists used materials and techniques that were available in the middle ages. So what is Lombatti trying to argue? That is is possible to create an image that looks like the shroud in the middle ages?
And his argument that “even two coins minted in the very same mint aren’t identical under the microscope” is ludicrous. Buy into this silliness and you can throw out half of all forensic medicine and crime scene testimony. So what if two molecular samples don’t match? “[Consider that even two coins minted in the very same mint aren’t identical under the microscope.”
The differences between the Shroud of Turin image and the Garlaschelli-produced image, under a microscope are as different as the surface of the moon and the Florida Everglades. Look at the picture. You tell me.
From a paper by Thibault Heimberger and Giulio Fanti: the lower image was created using the the Garlaschelli method. The top image is from the shroud. Write Heimberger and Fanti:
We conclude that most of the critical characteristics of the Turin Shroud image are very different from those of Garlaschelli’s image. As a consequence, it is unlikely a forger may have produced the body image or the Turin Shroud by this technique. We conclude the image is still not reproducible.
No one has created images that match the chemistry, peculiar superficiality and profoundly mysterious three-dimensional information content of the images on the Shroud.