A reader writes:
Over at SSG someone recommended Gilbert Lavoie’s paper from the Frascati Acheiropoietos workshop. I’m very impressed. I hope that you will suggest this peer-reviewed paper to your readers. The following paragraph from the paper says it all. "From extensive analytical studies of the Shroud of Turin we know that the image is not man-made, and from medical forensic studies of the blood marks we know that a crucified man was laid out on his back and wrapped in this cloth. But the question still remains as to what caused the shroud image. A forensic evaluation of the blood marks and a study of the effect of gravity on surface anatomy suggest that a natural event is not the most probable cause of shroud image formation.”
First of all, as far as I know, the paper is a peer-reviewed paper only in the sense that it was reviewed and accepted as a conference paper at a conference on acheiropoietos images. That is not the sense of “peer review” common in scientific disciplines. Moreover, by definition, acheiropoietos images cannot be explained scientifically so long as miraculous causes are implied as the only possibility. That is how I see it.
The text of the quoted paragraph is the paper’s abstract. It is inadequate. It doesn’t mention the contention that the man of the shroud was upright when the image was formed, thus one cannot say that the abstract says it all. This is one of those papers for which it is advisable to read the conclusion first. Then read the paper to see if the presentation is convincing.
It isn’t.
Here is a link to the paper: A medical study of the surface anatomy of the image and a medical forensic evaluation of the blood marks of the Shroud of Turin in relation to image formation