The comments about the coin-on-eye issue have gotten rather testy, For instance when Max Patrick Hamon writes:
Spy details on ancient coin types “behave” like fingerprints. Body images (resolution limit 0.5cm) should not be mistaken with blood images (resolution limit 0.5mm). Many Shroud researchers (including Barrie Scwortz) makes repeatedly the same confusion. He also totally ignore the thread count per square centimetres. The only snag with Barrie Schwortz’s faulty opinions is that thousands of his website viewers are all too ready to believe him.
And when Hamon writes: “On the contrary Barrie’s arguement is very weak and his opinion not qualified,” followed by “Remember: when there are two Jews, there are three opinions!”
I must remind him that he is wrong. He must have been thinking about Episcopalians.
It sort of started on August 29, when I wrote a posting entitled, “Pareidolia and the Shroud of Turin: Yes and No.” I was expanding on some points I had made in an earlier posting when I wrote, “I Don’t See Flowers and Coins and Teeth on the Shroud of Turin.” I had staked out a skeptical position on coins, flowers, lettering and all manner of things and shapes that people think they see on the shroud:
[I]t is fair to be skeptical, as in the case of the flowers, teeth, coins and lettering because there is identifiable noise such as the banding, wrinkles and crinkles and whatnots.
"’I see’ said the blind man as he picked up his hammer and saw," so goes the excruciatingly ridiculous old English ditty. "I see flowers, I see teeth . . ." You get the idea.
I would like to see the flowers. I see something that looks like two flowers. I’m not convinced they are flowers. I’m not trained enough in botany to know many other types of flowers to look for. I’ve read the books. Studied the charts and diagrams. Looked at pictures through gadgets. I don’t see the flowers. I want to see. Show me. Show me that these images are not pareidolias or apophenias or phantasms or I-think-I-sees. Show me that the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t New Jersey.
The posting received little or no attention. Maybe it was the title. Maybe the New Jersey-ites didn’t like it.
Then, recently, I stated that I thought it would be nice if the HAL9000 HD images of the shroud were made public. The reaction was strong. To my surprise not everyone agreed. This resulted in a series of posts with numerous, initially thoughtful comments by many people. They were: 1) “Value of Putting HAL 9000 Shroud of Turin Images Online,” 2) “Free the HAL 9000,” 3) “More on Freeing the HAL 9000: Yes, what is the Archdiocese of Turin afraid of?,” 4) “Comment Promoted: Of Coins and Flowers and More on the Shroud of Turin,” 5) “There is an Image of a Flying Saucer on the Shroud of Turin” and 6) “Paper Chase: Max Patrick Hamon on the Coin-on-Eye Issue.”
To this last posting, the most important one to read, now viewed more than 3700 times and now having some 32 highly-charged comments, Max Patrick Hamon, who presented at Frascati, Italy, and Torun, Poland, offered this comment:
Dan, I wish you had asked me how much credence I give 1979-2008 Filas et al’s coin image extractions. In spite of my deep respect for Filas’, Whanger’s and Moroni’s pioneering work, my answer would have been NONE!
I might even have added: I am convinced “THEIR COIN IMAGES” are not there. Both optically and numismatically speaking I CAN PROVE IT.
However, the whole irony of it is I myself detected and identified incomplete Pilate coin impressions… on the suspected areas. Both optically and numimactically, I do hope it will be convincing even to the uninitiated eye.
When can all of us with our uninitiated eyes see the evidence? The statement is too bold to go unsubstantiated. Will this new evidence overcome the primary objections to “Filas’, Whanger’s and Moroni’s pioneering work,” namely the weave of the cloth, the visual noise (what photographs are being analyzed?) and cultural/religious objections?
We are having quite an argument about unpublished material. Did readers of this blog or anyone from the Shroud Science Group attend a talk by Hamon at Frascati or Torun?
Max, I’ll let your comments fly even when you write: “Yannick, you’re REALLY THICK.” But I would like to see substance beyond the abstract you offered which touts your qualifications while diminishing the rest of us.
If it’s so true Max, then explain to me why Miller and Pellicori in their STURP paper about the analysis of the UV photos of the Shroud have not said a word about possible blood stains (or any word about a possible image of a coin) in the eye region ??? Yet, they were able to detect minute stains of serum and minute scratch-like marks in the scourge marks !!!
In a previous post, regarding the release of HAL9000 images someone asked was what the Archidiocesis of Turin afraid of. I think the Archidicocesis and the Chuch are afraid of exactly the type of discussions we are seeing these days in this blog. A lot of discussion on 40 years-old evidences, a lot of personal remarks…….They must have reached the conclusion that no matter how solid the new evidences they have are (HAL9000+material from the 2002 restoration+..¿?) it would be impossible to have a serious and cold discussion on the facts. Once you release the images, how can you prevent someone from calling up the press and claim that he is seeing something. If not accepted, someone will always put through the idea that someone has been the victim of a plot to keep him silence? If a new C14 test is carried out with positive results, the following day someone will claim that the Church has changed the original fibres since 2002 lest the whole religion system crumbles. If it is negative, again, new claims will be made regarding the selected patch or any other issue.
The Church knows how media work and can foresee that they could never expect a fair and cold debate, whatever the results are. After all, the Catholic faith basements do not rely on a “true” Shroud.
SO most probably, they have already analyzed by themselves the evidences they have at hand and will never repeat the error of putting forward their new evidences so that 40 years later, discussions still go on. After all, never forget that the Catholic Church “does not need” outer scientists (like a second STURP) for this or any other issue. The Church has got their own and very high level experts on virtually every field involved, who can provide her with state-of-the art and cutting edge methodologies and procedures to address this and any other issue. Silently and peacefully while the whirl of the STURP which started nearly 40 years ago is still turning.
And since when is there anything wrong with discussion? Discussion is good. What is bad is the fact the Church, since the original STURP team studies, has been completely uncooperative! They have their own A-team of scientists? Yeah okay…when STURP showed up in ’78 with their precisely built table with magnetics so they would not harm the shroud, they found the church was using ‘tacks’ on the Shroud to hold it in place. OMG NO!…The problem lies with the church not being upfront or forthcoming. The 2002 restoration is proof of that. It’s been 40 years! The technologies today are leaps and bounds ahead that time, or of ’88 or even ’02. I even read of a new type of c-14 technology that no material needs to be destroyed whatsever! …So yes I think many of us are still asking what the hell is the archidiosis of Turin afraid of?
Dan, I do like your mild sense of humour!
Pienso que en el fondo del debate sobre monedas y flores, ya sea consciente o subconscientemente, subyace la reacción de Maillard a la que Rogers atribuye el COLOR de las fibras del lino.
Como cualquier otra teoría vaporográfica la reaccion de Maillard NO puede justificar la imagen, ni de monedas y flores si es que las hubiera, ¡ ni la imagen del Hombre de la Sábana!.
Podría haber justificado el COLOR , no su ordenación como IMAGEN…….pero ni siquiera el color es admisible es este caso específico de la Sábana de Turín.
La presencia del RIGOR MORTIS, patente en la imagen, indicando la persistencia de elevada cifras de ácido láctico NO es compatible con el inicio de la DESCOMPOSICIÓN de las proteinas y producción de las aminas CADAVERINA, PUTRESCINA y afines, necesarias en la reacción de Maillard que propuso Rogers.
La descomposición se inicia una vez ha CESADO el rigor mortis.
Rogers, al que tanto debemos en el estudio de la Sábana, se equivocó en este punto, el cuerpo de Jesús de Nazaret NO sufrió la corrupción, no pudo producir cadaverina, putrescina y afines, y por tanto no pudo haber ninguna reacción de Maillard que diera color a la Sábana.
Para los que creemos en la verdad de ” ni permitirás que tu santo vea la corrupción”, Hechos 2:22-33, la producción de aminas aromáticas, cadaverina y putrescina procedentes de la CORRUPCIÓN, DESCOMPOSICIÓN o PUTREFACCIÓN de las proteínas corporales del Hombre de la Sábana, precisas en la reacción de Maillard que propone Rogers, NO es aceptable ……..y para Turín creo que tampoco.
Carlos Otal