Colin Berry, MSc, PhD (Biochemistry), in what he tells us is his final posting on the Shroud of Turin, writes:
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, here are two pictures that I consider make it 99% certain that the Shroud of Turin is a medieval fake. You may need to consult some of my previous posts on the subject to appreciate the background – which relate an accumulation of steadily growing evidence from simple kitchen experiments – but I shan’t clutter up this final post with a lot of verbiage – the pictures tell all.
How disappointing. Rather than answer the questions we posed, he simply declares that he is 99% certain that it is a medieval fake. He doesn’t even acknowledge the questions. “I shan’t clutter,” is all that he will say.
Could Dr. Berry have screamed it any louder: Don’t confuse me with facts, my mind is made up?
It gave me a good chuckle when I read it. He gave it a college try so I can’t fault him (too much). He does strike me as the kind of guy you’d like to have a beer with because he has a colorful personality. Best of luck to him in life.
I know.
Lol, people are still going on about that fake sheet! Quality comedy!
Bye…
Sorry, Colin, but I’ll miss you. After you’ve taken time out from kitchen puddling, you might like to turn to some other aspects: Wrist nailing? First nude Christ? Jerusalem arogonite dust particles around feet area? Dead Sea halophyte pollen particles? Vignon markings on post-sixth century icons? Cotton contamination in linen weave (no cotton in 14th c. Europe!). Negative image not recognizable until 1898. My, but those 14 century “fraudsters” were certainly smart. It had to be Leonardo, except he hadn’t been born yet. Give it another go! Cheers!
“Negative image not recognizable until 1898”
A thermal imprint (“scorch”) is what today, using the terminology of photography, we would call a negative. But there were no photographers in medieval times. However, there were some who realized that scorching (“branding”) from a sculpted 3D template could produce an image, which today we would call light/dark reversed i.e. “negative”. Think about it… Try not to get hung up on words. Think ideas, think appropriate non-anachronistic technology, and yes, think medieval image-making – including man-made negatives that preceded the modern era of photography…
Thank you for the comment on medieval image-making from 3D templates. In my comments above, perhaps I also ought to have mentioned the accuracy of the blood flows first reported by agnostic Sorbonne professor of comparative anatomy, Yves Delage to the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1902. British Medical journal ‘The Lancet’ and the London Times reviewed the findings as well-reasoned and scientific, and ‘Paris Figaro’ also voiced its support.
However the Paris Acadamy was so dominated by ‘rationalists’ and ‘free-thinkers’ that the Academy refused to publish the full text of the lecture.
In his “final” letter to ‘Revue Scientifique’, Delage stated: “… I recognize Christ as a historical personage, and I see no reason why anyone should be scandalized that there still exist material traces of his earthly life.”
It is evident that scientific bodies and individual scientists are not immune from their own kind of rationalistic fanaticism, every bit as much as any evangelical Biblical literalist or jihadist. Nicolaus Steno (1638-86), founder of modern geology, encountered similar hostility from the scientific establishment of his time. They all believed that sea-shell fossils either grew in the parent rock or were residues from Noah’s flood. Steno’s only support was from Gottfried Leibnitz and the Catholic Church who had apparently learnt their lesson from the Galileo saga.
It is not just one piece of supporting evidence that is decisive in favour of the Shroud cloth, such as the “photographic negative” aspect, but as in any modern and enlightened Court of Law, it is the total weight of all the evidence that matters.
I can’t believe that any fraudster, medieval or modern, would be capable of creating a cloth with all the so many corroborative features, we now find present in the Shroud.
There’s a tiresome phenomenon I have encountered again and again through participating in internet climate change “debates” (perhaps better described as serial mantra cycling). It’s one I call XYZ denialism.
“There’s a serious flaw in your reasoning re X”
“Yes, but what about Y?”
There’s also a serious flaw in your reasoning re Y”
“Yes, but what about Z?”
There’s also a serious flaw in your reasoning re Z”
“Yes, but what about X?”
“There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza…”
I agree with you completely about serial mantra cycling. I encounter it time and again in my debates with skeptics!
One needs to examine facts.
And facts need a multidisciplinary approach, I don’t believe one man can have the expertise to deal with each questions raised by the shroud.
That said, if you think you have reproduced the shroud, you should seriously think of publishing your findings.