The Urban Dictionary defines stoopid as having the quality of being really, really, really, stupid.

My current two-stage imprinting/developing model, which the world of Shroudology
is still largely ignoring …

imageColin tells us on his blog:

Digression: Yup, it’s how real science operates – there is no obligation in model-building to incorporate other people’s assumptions or preconceptions that might not have been given as much prior thought beforehand: science ain’t democratic, and would not have made such speedy progress between the 17th and 20th century if that had been the case. Science is unashamedly elitist, which is why scientists rely on each other via ‘peer-review’ to judge the fitness for publication in respected journals. There is no trial by media where traditional science is concerned. Internet-reporting of science in real time via the internet is a different matter entirely, which is why this blogger is taking the trouble right now to spell out the difference between a painting and an imprint, and will be explaining shortly why the a priori  indications are that the TS image IS an imprint, not merely an artist’s attempt to simulate an imprint, or even a hybrid of painting and imprint, reiterating yet again his amazement that STURP bothered to squander so much time, energy and resources on checking out the depressingly third-rate “just a painting “ hypothesis when there were far more pressing questions to address re the MECHANISM of imprinting.  STURP was supposed to be an elite task force, and should have behaved as such, eliminating non-starters from its model-building assumptions, and indeed should have STARTED WITH A MODEL, instead of thinking one could go in with space-age equipment and simply hoover up the relevant facts, arriving on time at a destination called Truth. Sorry, all you STURP defenders, but that’s not how science (real science, that is) works in the real world. Indeed, it sometimes fails to reach its destination on  time, even using its preferred model building approach. To paraphrase Winston Churchill: experimentally-based model building is the worst form of enquiry, apart from all the others that have been tried from time to time.

So, to the question: why are/were we supposed to see the TS image as an imprint, a real imprint, not just an artist’s impression of an imprint, the answer, correction , answers, are painfully simple:

1. It’s the close correspondence to events leading up to and immediately following Joseph of Arimathea’s arrival at the cross bearing expensive linen for wrapping and transporting a sweat and blood-stained body, likely to leave an imprint, stoopid
2. It’s the up-and-over double image, on high quality linen, stoopid.
3. It’s the life-sized image, stoopid.
4. It’s the negative image with 3D properties, stoopid.
5. It’s the cardboard cut-out look, stoopid, with no imaging of sides, stoopid.
6. It’s the image superficiality, stoopid
7. It’s the real-looking bloodstains, stoopid.
8. It’s the absence of a loin cloth, stoopid.
9. It’s the absence of a crown of thorns, just strategically-sited blood stains in the hair etc, stoopid.
10. It’s those spindly fingers, exactly as expected from real imprinting, stoopid
11. Ten killer clues should be more than enough to be getting on with. If you want more than 10, then it’s the whole darn shebang, stoopid.

To conclude: to those of us who ain’t stoopid, the Turin Shroud IS a real imprint.

The real question is whether the TS could only have been formed by imprinting of the real Jesus onto his burial shroud, as we are repeatedly asked to consider and/or believe by certain self-styled "scientists", OR whether it could have been faked by a medieval artisan.

This retired scientist’s own position, after some 3.5 years of research, albeit in kitchen and garage: of course it could have been faked. My current two-stage imprinting/developing model, which the world of Shroudology is still largely ignoring (Thibault Heimburger MD being a notable  exception) – or maybe has yet to learn of – shows how it could have been accomplished, at least in principle. It ain’t rocket science. Indeed, it’s part kitchen science, starting with plain white flour. Medieval alchemists could have supplied the nitric acid.

Hopefully my model will not turn out to be a damp squib,  the way the STURP Summary was a damp squib, with much pseudo-science following in its wake, much of the latter coming from senior STURP members who, in view of their unique  STURP credentials should  have exercised greater self-restraint, no matter what their particular ‘world view’.