Stephen is now trying to convince us that Timothy Linick, did indeed, hack the AMS computer consoles when the Shroud of Turin was carbon dated in order to fake the results and thus prove that the shroud was not the authentic burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth.
Linick was, Jones tells us, 1) an extreme anti-authenticist, 2) was the leaker of Arizona’s carbon dating results, 3) was found dead ‘under unclear circumstances’ within a day’s time of the death of a KGB agent named Karl Kock, 4) was involved in AMS measurements and 5) had sufficient time to prepare. None of these things, of course, may be true except the coincidental date of his death which is not evidence of any kind of connection whatsoever. And if there was any real truth to any of this, so what?
If this isn’t enough for Stephen, we now have Hugh Farey who is (drum role) an ant-authenticist acting like the editor of a newsletter should act:
Arizona’s Prof. Jull’s and Oxford’s Prof. Ramsey’s misleading and false responses to my hacking proposal A copy of a comment I made on Dan Porter’s blog, proposing that the radiocarbon dating laboratories may have been duped by a computer hacker (at that early stage I did not claim it was a theory) was sent without my permission to Prof. A.J. Timothy Jull, Director of the Arizona radiocarbon dating laboratory.and to Oxford’s Prof. Christopher Ramsey, by the anti-authenticist Editor of the BSTS Newsletter, Hugh Farey[44] and then posted by Porter to his blog[45] .
Stephen finds this suspicious.
Note to Stephen: If you comment on my blog, it is a public statement. Hugh Farey does not need your permission to send your comment to anyone.
Note to Stephen #2: You are stating that professors Jull and Ramsey made misleading and false statements. I hope you can prove that.
Note to Stephen #3: All of this is pure conspiracy theory of the worst kind.
Sorry, I don’t have time for this.
Dan, I find it difficult to agree with most of what Stephen Jones is saying, however he has the right to say whatever he feels, as long as he knows that posting on your blog is a public statement, as you reminded him. It is for his own good.
But perhaps commenters are being unduly harsh with him, there have been even worse allegations before. The sample-switching plot gained support in continental Europe. Dr. Michael Tite just kept quiet. How did the Church react? Dr. Tite was invited to the Round Table in Turin by Cardinal Severino Poletto.
In so far as he is addressing the integrity of Ramsey and and Jull, Stephen Jones is making claims that are potentially libellous. I think his ideas are so crack – pot that they won’t be taken seriously by anyone but one can get into trouble, in UK law at least, by repeating libels.
The sample switching hypothesis was equally crack-pot ( honest opinion so not libellous) so it is not surprising that the reputation of Tite was not affected by it.
One of the claims conspiracy theorists often make in support of their ideas is that since no one has refuted them, they are more than likely to be true. It’s a bore, but someone has to do it.
– Linick was an extreme anti-authenticist. Jones puts forward no evidence for this. He is looking for a refusal to accept authenticity, even if the shroud were proved 1st century. His quote from Linick does not support this. Linick says that proving the shroud to be first century “leaves room for argument” and “it would be the right age, but is it the real thing?” This is not a refusal to accept authenticity – it could very well be a rhetorical question posed by an authenticist, who might then go on to demonstrate that the answer is yes.
– Linick was probably aware of McCrone’s prediction that the Shroud’s carbon date would be “about 1355.” Jones puts forward no evidence for this. His comparison of Jones’s rhetorical question with McCrone’s assumption that a 1st century shroud would be accepted as genuine by nearly everyone is specious. But so what? Dozens of people could have read McCrone’s predictions, as they were published years previously. Even if he hadn’t read McCrone’s work, the range of likely dates, either 1st century or 13th-14th century, was obvious to everybody.
– Linick was the leaker of Arizona’s “1350” first date of the Shroud. Jones puts forward no evidence for this. He claims that for Sox simply to quote’s Linick’s rhetorical question above is “proof beyond reasonable doubt that Linick was the leaker.” Well, it isn’t, is it?
– Linick was found dead of suspected suicide on 4 June 1989. Jones puts forward no evidence for this. His death, according to the obituary by Timothy Jull, was “untimely,” and according to Bruno Bonnet Eymard, was “in unclear circumstances.” This is not evidence of suicide, nor of murder. A Vatican insider article in 2013 claims suicide, but gives no reference. This is an unwarranted escalation of suggestion; it is not evidence. Jones is unable to find published information on Linick’s death in Arizona (a ‘closed record’ state). Had he tried a common genealogy program he would have found trhat Linick’s death was registered in California, not Arizona.
Jones’s next three points are less controversial: Linick was a measurement scientist, the AMS apparatus required a program to assess its results, and there were six weeks between the cutting of the sampels and the radiocarbon dating in Arizona. None of it, of course, is evidence for any Soviet plot.
After that, we discover that Jones’s allegations were sent, by me, without his permission, to Timothy Jull and Christopher Ramsey, who lied in their responses. For what it’s worth I also sent the Arizona laboratory a large chunk of Part 1 of Jones’s allegations, and have now sent them and Prof. Ramsey a substantial part of these latest libels. I do not need a libeller’s permission to report his libels to the people he is libelling, nor does his pitiful plea of copyright cut any ice with me.
Since from the 1390s to this day the Church has accepted and supported the display of the shroud as an object of veneration and so had never pronounced anything that is incompatible with a date in the fourteenth century, what would it lose in credibility by the KGB faking the date?
Linick was obviously a wizard programmer if he could insert a programme in both Oxford and Zurich which could pick out the Shroud even before the sample had been chosen.
If Jones’ naming and shaming was not so blatant, distasteful and unwarranted, this would be a highly entertaining blog for those who enjoy sci-fi.