A reader writes:
[Stephen E.] Jones tells us that Fanti’s findings,now published in a book, are to be subsequently published in a “specialist magazine and assessed by a scientific committee.” Isn’t this backwards?
Jones was quoting an article, New experiments on Shroud show it’s not medieval, from Vatican Insider.
Read the Vatican Insider article and also read what Jones has to say. It is important.
And, yes, given the nature of the new studies, it does seem backwards.
Unfortunately, this way of acting is the norm and not the exception in Shroud studies and one of the main reasons why the major stream of science is not interested in it. If every time new scientific discoveries are made they are not presented where they should ( peer-review journals) and instead, a best -seller is written and published around Eastern or Christmas, this definitively sounds suspicious.
Most probably, in the forthcoming months, Fanti will attend a big number of Tv shows where he will be interviewed regarding the findings shown in this book and not those published in serious, peer-review journals. So sad.
Regarding his new findings, I will wait until I read his book or his work is published in a serious journal.
>Fanti’s findings,now published in a book, are to be subsequently published in a “specialist magazine and assessed by a scientific committee.” Isn’t this backwards?
The article actually said:
“What’s new about this book are Fanti’s recent findings, which are also ABOUT TO BE PUBLISHED in a specialist magazine and assessed by a scientific committee.” (my emphasis).
So, it seems that Fanti had waited until his paper had been peer-reviewed and was about to be published in a scientific journal before he published his book about them.
Also, that Fanti’s findings will be published in a book before they are assessed by a scientific committee and appear in a scientific journal does not mean that they were not submitted to the journal some time ago. Due to a backlog of papers to be peer-reviewed and published, it often takes a long time for scientific journals to publish papers that have been submitted to them. For that reason, many scientific journals have a “Date submitted” near the beginning of each paper.
Moreover, it is the rule rather than the exception these days for scientific findings to be first published in the popular press before they are peer-reviewed and appear in a scientific journal. There are science news publications like Science Daily and LiveScience which largely exist for that purpose. To criticise Fanti for doing what most other scientists routinely do is either ignorance of modern scientific publication practice, or a form of special pleading (`it’s OK if other scientists do it, but it’s not OK if a Shroud pro-authenticity scientist does the same’).
Stephen, I usually act as a reviewer of journals belonging to the JCR in my field of expertise and to the best of knowledge, papers are commented or mentioned in the popular press ONLY AFTER being properly peer-reviewed although perhaps after being accepted they are still in press. Science daily and similar usually provide the links to the full papers at the journal website, although still in press.
That said, if this is the case of Fanti’s work, I have no objections just because he is Fanti and I would love to read if available, the corresponding science daily summary. I would have some, if he had chosen to write a popular book first, before receiving the OK from the reviewers of a JCR journal. If i am misunderstanding the situation, my apologies to Fanti.
It’s also customary when developing a new approach to have the methodology validated first – in peer reviewed specialist journals – free of controversy. If there’s a prior intention to deploy a new technique on an existing problem then that can be flagged up by stating the overall objective, say “Re-dating the Turin Shroud” and then adding a subtitle, prefixed with a Roman numeral, e.g.(i) evaluation of new methodology.
Teaming up with a journalist to produce a book before the scientific community has even been primed to expect new methodology is simply to descend to sensation-seeking journalism.
Personal view: attempting to date ancient linen with a chemical marker (Rogers’ vanillin) was bad enough. Resorting now to a single snapshot in time of mechanical properties, secondary to a host of unknown physical and chemical factors, with no reference time-course data, is simply pseudoscience.
But then Professor Fanti is not a dispassionate scientist but an agenda-driven mechanical engineer. There is a world of difference between those two. And no, as I’ve said previously there is no such thing as theophysics, or if there is it should be spelt theofizzics, with the appearance and durability of fizz.
>If every time new scientific discoveries are made they are not presented where they should ( peer-review journals) and instead, a best -seller is written and published around Eastern or Christmas, this definitively sounds suspicious.
The date of publication usually has little or nothing to do with the author. Publishing houses are businesses which exist to make a profit. And it is good business to publish Christian books (pro- and anti-) at Easter and Christmas when they are more likely to be bought as a gift.
Besides, this is the first “best -seller … written and published around Easter… or Christmas” that I have heard of, in which the basis of it is scientific studies that are actually going to be peer-reviewed and published in a scientific journal!