Two messages crossed by desk at about the same time. It was an interesting juxtaposition of thought. First is a comment from Thibault:

image

Second, a reader from Boston College writes in an email:

You should promote anoxie’s very perceptive comment from yesterday. Those words by David Rolfe, since quietly removed from his website, paint a sad picture of the day that Shroud Science died. Not that I think it is a Maillard reaction, it could be, but what happened at Valencia was a non-scientific attempt to legislate science. 

Here is anoxie’s comment that the reader referred to as it appears in Debating a Proposed List of Image Characteristics. Ironical, indeed. It should make for a very interesting BSTS meeting:

image

Shroud science didn’t die but it did get a black eye. In my opinion the drawing up of a list of image characteristics was an unfortunate mistake. If you missed the discussions a few months ago, you should read Sentence One in the Richard Dawkins Challenge is Wrong. Period along with about 24 comments.

For the record, here is the actual, full quotation that Paulette used:

“The list needs work” would imply that we should open up the Shroud and just check things out again. Well, having listened to Bruno Barberis’ paper in Valencia that is unlikely to be an option for a very long time. The fact is that the work has been done. If you have a particular pet theory and it is excluded by the list then, I’m sorry, unless you also have some new overriding evidence to the contrary, you will have to accept that those who are in a position to know have ruled it out. Wanting something to be true does not make it so.