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18th November 2012, 02:18 PM | #4201 |
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They start off by being surprised that the results from the different labs are different. This appears to be because they haven't understood that within assay variability is almost always going to be less than between lab variability.
Having made their first error they then compound it by deciding that the position of the sample in the shroud is the problem. Unfortunately, they do not know the precise positions, a situation that would make most people give up on that line of enquiry, but not this lot. They just put the numbers in all permutations and hey presto they get some results they like and some they don't. They also seem to apply weighting to some of the samples and not to others, presumably after putting these few numbers through the wringer they still couldn't get the result they wanted. From this ignorance about testing and quite bizarre attempts at what can only be called numerology, they finally and grandly conclude not very much at all. I'm not surprised that the authors are an economist, an industrial engineer and a civil engineer. I am surprised that there is well respected professor of statistics from LSE. In fact Riani and Atkinson have collaborated before and Riani appears quite solid as well. Now my searching skills may be dulled today but I searched the Springer (publishers) site for Riani and 'Science and Computing' and didn't see this paper although it shows up in a google search. Atkinson conveniently lists his publications but again I failed to spot this paper. May I conclude by saying I am sure that Jabba hasn't read this paper, with his far superior statistical skills he would have dismembered it for us long ago. |
18th November 2012, 04:09 PM | #4202 |
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Kudos for a complete analysis, down to the paper's paper trail.
Very much appreciated, indeed. You and tsig have really put the E in JREF today. |
19th November 2012, 03:37 AM | #4203 |
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Plus the Arizona facility has dated thousands of other samples, the idea that there's some sort of systemic error in the process is the silly fantasy of YECs.
Don't hold you breath. Indeed. Though Jabba has also mentioned the long debunked pollen nonsense of Max Frei. Indeed. Yes, the authors of the paper don't seem to have a sufficient grounding in the experimental methodology involved. Isn't one of the Seven Circles of Hell reserved for people who do that. Statistics and Computing. Refereed rather and peer reviewed. |
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19th November 2012, 01:34 PM | #4204 |
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20th November 2012, 04:17 AM | #4205 |
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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20th November 2012, 05:24 AM | #4206 |
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There is a rule of thumb in this area. You need 30 events in each group before you can start drawing conclusions. They started with 12 observations and then split them into 3 groups.
If this was just a group of shrouders then I wouldn't expect anything else than nonsense, but the involvement of Atkinson is puzzling, I wonder if it is one of those cases of authors not reading the papers. |
20th November 2012, 05:57 AM | #4207 |
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Possibly. Perhaps an email to him?
And I found The 9 Circles of Scientific Hell article I was looking for. Perhaps we should start allocating the authors of the dubious papers shroudies like to cite to their proper place. |
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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20th November 2012, 06:55 AM | #4208 |
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Carbon Dating/Relevance of Blood
- I now have that article by Miller and Pellicori re the SCRR’s ("serum clot retraction rings") to which Adler referred. So far, I'm impressed with their article, but not so much with Adler’s description of their findings. They refer to other articles by STURP members and I’m suspecting that Adler was really referring to those other articles, as well, when he claimed that there were SCRR’s around all the scourge marks. Unfortunately, this one article cost me $25, so I won’t be trying to scrounge up the other articles this easy way… I’ll probably have to go to the State Library in order to see the articles – which I probably won’t do…
- The way I see it, M&P sort of “allude” to the rings rather than claim them directly... And, they don’t claim that all the scourge marks have rings around them. - The closest they get to “naming” the ‘rings comes in their conclusion, where they say, "Another feature requiring explanation is the lighter bordering area seen with many bloodstained areas. The interpretation is that blood serum is present." They do mention these lighter borders several times in their paper as they describe the markings on the different body parts. - For me, there’s another problem in the article in that its wording doesn’t support my understanding of “wound involvement.” My current understanding (after reading their article) is that SCRR’s just require blood exudates (not whole blood) – they do not require the wound itself -- and consequently (conceivably), could be simply painted on by an artist… - But still, how likely is that? - If these rings actually exist on the Shroud, we are essentially forced to conclude that real blood was involved (these rings were unknown in the 14th century, the rings are still invisible to the naked eye and the rings encircle at least “many” of the wound areas). - And once there, how could we conclude that the image-with-bloodstains is just a “paint job”? How could we not conclude that a real and tortured human body was involved? --- Jabba |
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20th November 2012, 07:15 AM | #4209 |
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Well, dipping a brush into a pot of blood is pretty much as simple as dipping it into a pot of paint, I reckon.
I'm battling with the concept of "if there is sign of blood there must have been a body", frankly. Until or unless you can eliminate all of the possible ways that blood could have got on the cloth, it is a huge leap of faith (see what I did there?) to suggest that it had to be from a body in contact with the cloth, and an even bigger leap of faith to say it was any one body in particular. Mike |
20th November 2012, 07:38 AM | #4210 |
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Just a wild guess, off the top of my head, but if I wanted to paint a forgery of a supposedly bloodstained cloth I'd want the bloodstains to look as realistic as possible.
I wonder what would be the best way to do that? Oh yes, paint it on. And while we're at it, if it's painted on then it doesn't need to be related to a human shape, so I can use something else, like pig's blood, or chicken's blood. |
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20th November 2012, 07:40 AM | #4211 |
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20th November 2012, 08:55 AM | #4212 |
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This post is both heartening and depressing in equal measures. You're actually starting to do proper research - you're looking for the ultimate sources of information, and you're reading those sources with a critical eye. That's fantastic. I mean that genuinely, with no snark intended. It's great.
However, you're not letting this critical assessment of the data actually influence your conclusions at all. That's not so good. It seems that it doesn't matter what evidence you find, or how many of your beliefs you find to be built on poor data, you will continue to believe what you choose to believe, because it's not a belief built on data, but on faith. Please try to let your conclusions be formed by the facts, rather than having the conclusion you want to reach first and foremost, and then trying to fit the facts to it. |
20th November 2012, 09:14 AM | #4213 |
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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20th November 2012, 09:50 AM | #4214 |
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20th November 2012, 09:53 AM | #4215 |
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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20th November 2012, 01:53 PM | #4216 |
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Effective Debate
Squeegee,
- I assume that you don’t accept my courtroom analogy (I can’t remember what you’ve said about it in the past, but then no one here has openly accepted it), but that is what I’m trying to develop here. My primary objective is to represent my “client” as best I can, and I assume that your primary objective is to represent yours as best you can. -I do have a caveat however – to admit my doubts when I recognize them. You guys have caused me some doubts that I hadn’t previously recognized. And, I will try to continue to admit them as they come up. But, until you pretty much convince me that “my client is wrong,” I will keep arguing “his” case as best I can. That's the idea. --- Jabba |
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20th November 2012, 02:23 PM | #4217 |
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I seriously doubt that anyone apart from you is doing that.
You see, this is a skeptics' forum, and skeptics generally follow the evidence, wherever that leads. If someone comes here with a whacky claim we'll assess the evidence. If that evidence suggests that they may have something then we'll give it due consideration and look at it further. If the evidence is strong enough we'll alter our perspective, change our minds and accept the whacky idea as probably true. We don't argue a side, we assess evidence. It's basically the scientific process, which is how evidence should be assessed anywhere, even in a courtroom. We aren't lawyers, and neither are you. To be honest we aren't even the jury, we're just interested bystanders, watching the trial and weighing the evidence for ourselves. In fact, if this were a trial and you were the defence lawyer I think the defendant would have asked for a new lawyer a long time ago, assuming the judge hadn't dismissed you and ordered a new lawyer to be assigned. You don't understand much of the evidence, you bluster about what evidence you will be presenting, and regularly fail to present it, and what little real evidence you have presented has invariably been either of poor quality or undermined your case. Frankly, you're a liability to your client's chances of acquittal, and you seem to be the only one who doesn't realise it. |
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20th November 2012, 02:31 PM | #4218 |
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Thanks for that information.
Simple, Jabba. Go back to the 'ifs' your final conclusion depends upon. Real blood does not imply real wounds, remember? Still, at the end of the day, haven't you noticed that when you consult real experts, you start accumulating evidence the entire pro-authenticity stance is based on wishful thinking and half-truths? |
20th November 2012, 02:32 PM | #4219 |
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wollery said it better than I would have.
A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client. |
20th November 2012, 04:26 PM | #4220 |
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Of course it's not. This is a question of scientific evidence. As such, these courtroom tactics are irrelevant.
As has been said many times, in many ways, it all comes down to the C14 dating. It all comes down to what the evidence points to. As I say, it's heartening that you're actually trying to examine the evidence from first-hand sources, and that you're apparently starting to recognise where it's weak. I mean, you're not doing it stringently enough, yet, but it's certainly a step in the right direction. Where the problem lies, however, is that you've got a conclusion that you'd like to reach. You're starting off from the assumption that what you'd like to believe is true, and then you're trying to fit the evidence to that, rather than looking at the evidence and drawing your conclusions from there. Let's look at the contents of your previous posts. The argument you're attempting to make at the moment is that it would be impossible or extremely unlikely for the Shroud to have been made in the 14th century because the image on it requires the direct contact of a bloody body, and you don't believe this possible in that time period. You find a primary source for the information upon which you're basing this conclusion. You examine this source and find it wanting because: A) This source itself is referring to sources which aren't reliable. B) This source doesn't actually make the claim about serum clot rings that you initially believed it did. C) This source doesn't claim that all the blood marks have rings around them. D) This source doesn't indicate that real wounds would need to be present in order to make those marks, and in fact indicates the opposite. Despite the fact that A indicates that the article shouldn't be trusted and that your entire argument relies on B, C and D not being true, you still come to the same conclusion. Your conclusion goes against all the evidence, and the only thing you have to support it is incredulity at the possibility of a 14th century artist painting with blood. So you've got 3 scientific labs giving a date which you have been unable to refute or even cast slight doubt on, and yet you're giving more weight to a belief that an artist wouldn't use blood as a material with which to paint. Tell me that you can't take a step back from your position and see that that's not a conclusion to which the evidence points but, rather, is what you'd like to believe to be true and which you're hanging on to despite the evidence. Remember, your original argument was that the cloth needed a body pressed against it. That argument is now refuted. You refuted it. But, despite that, you're still believing what that was an argument for, you've just changed the argument. And, as it happens, you've changed it to something incredibly weak - disbelief that an artist would paint with blood. But this isn't something that will happen overnight, especially with beliefs which are dear to you. It's good that you're headed in the right direction. |
20th November 2012, 05:46 PM | #4221 |
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20th November 2012, 06:40 PM | #4222 |
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Originally Posted by Jabba
If you can't see the problem with that, there is something wrong with the way you're approaching the problem. Because NOTHING about that is valid. There's no evidence, so we can dismiss the argument wholesale. If we don't, we're left with the fact that we have means, motive, and opportunity in abundance. I'd say the odds of someone doing something like painting in blood is 1:1.
Quote:
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21st November 2012, 01:03 AM | #4223 |
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21st November 2012, 01:25 AM | #4224 |
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.Bertrand Russell Zooterkin is correct Darat Nerd! Hokulele Join the JREF Folders ! Team 13232 Ezekiel 23:20 |
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21st November 2012, 03:37 AM | #4225 |
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Indeed, the scientific standard is far higher and less susceptible to Jabba's tactics.
I disagree with this. I think the radiocarbon dating is a major piece of evidence for the medieval origin of the shroud but the sum of it and the other evidence, and their agreement with a medieval dating, is far stronger in toto. It's a start but I'm not optimistic about Jabba accepting awkward facts. This is the classic believer mindset, he need to change that. Well yes, but neither Jabba nor any other shroudies have ever shown this. |
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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21st November 2012, 04:42 AM | #4226 |
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Carbon Dating/Relevance of Blood
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21st November 2012, 05:50 AM | #4227 |
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21st November 2012, 06:13 AM | #4228 |
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For the proposition that there is blood on the Shroud which could only have been put there by contact with open wounds, you've just demonstrated that you have no evidence. The distinguishing marks of blood aren't there and, even if they were, it still could have been painted on. That's not weak supporting evidence, that's no evidence.
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21st November 2012, 06:31 AM | #4229 |
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Blood
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"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence." Charles Bukowski "Most good ideas don't work." Jabba "Se due argomenti sembrano altrettanto convincenti, il meno sarcastico è probabilmente corretto." Jabba's Razor |
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21st November 2012, 06:35 AM | #4230 |
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21st November 2012, 06:37 AM | #4231 |
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Forgive me Jabba, but isn't this you doing exactly what you were told about, further up the page? Having a pre-determined view on the outcome and then looking for the supporting evidence, is just an elementary logical error.
Find out exactly what is there, then find out how it could have got there. Then..........and only then.......... make up your mind. Mike |
21st November 2012, 06:43 AM | #4232 |
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Blood
- This is a long paper, but I think that it does a great job of summarizing the alleged evidence for blood -- http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/ford1.pdf.
- My job will be to see how well I can verify the different supportive claims. - Wish me luck. Or better yet, pray for me! --- Jabba |
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"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence." Charles Bukowski "Most good ideas don't work." Jabba "Se due argomenti sembrano altrettanto convincenti, il meno sarcastico è probabilmente corretto." Jabba's Razor |
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21st November 2012, 06:46 AM | #4233 |
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21st November 2012, 06:54 AM | #4234 |
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21st November 2012, 06:56 AM | #4235 |
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21st November 2012, 06:58 AM | #4236 |
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Blood
Mike,
- This is what they keep telling me -- but, it just isn't my approach here. - I came to the Randi forum to see if I could in fact defend my current position (that the Shroud is probably authentic) against serious skeptics. And, note that my position is only a "probably." My position is not that the Shroud is authentic. --- Jabba |
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"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence." Charles Bukowski "Most good ideas don't work." Jabba "Se due argomenti sembrano altrettanto convincenti, il meno sarcastico è probabilmente corretto." Jabba's Razor |
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21st November 2012, 06:59 AM | #4237 |
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It's already refuted garbage.
1. Heller and Adler claimed to find blood on the cloth. Actually they did not. Their tests showed the presence of a porphyrin (many of which exist, including in plants, the likely source of the pigments used to create the shroud), iron and protein (both of which, even together, certainly don't indicate blood). At least two rounds of specific tests for blood (by Walter McCrone and the earlier Italian investigators) failed to show any sign of blood residue. 2. Heller and Adler failed to properly test their alleged "blood flakes" to differentiate them from vermillion or red ochre, using the Becke line test. McCrone did use this test and proved that there was no discernible blood present, just pigments; he examined thousands of particles from the shroud. Likewise none of the supposed blood particles were soluble in hydrazine nor did they react with an aqueous sodium azide solution. Elemental analysis of the "blood particles" (by mass spectroscopy and later x-ray fluorescence) showed the presence of iron, mercury and sulphur but not potassium and chlorine; what would be expected from the use of vermilion and red ochre pigments but not from blood. 3. STURP also claimed that "blood stains are composed of hemoglobin and also give a positive test for serum albumin" however this is partly untrue (their testing only showed the presence of proteins not specifically hemoglobin) and completely irrelevent as proteins and albumin would have been left by the artist's materials; from boiled parchment and egg used in the tempera pigment binder. To summarise for the hard of thinking. Every competent, properly-conducted test for blood or hemoglobin on the Shroud has been negative. There have been positive tests for iron, protein, albumin, and serum; however none of these are demonstrative of the presence of acyual blood. Further there are excellent explanations for the presence of these on the cloth; the red ochre pigment and proteinaceous tempera binder. The supposed blood on the shroud consists of two major pigments, vermilion and red ochre that were painted on by an artist, creating the perfect (utterly unrealistic) droplets and rivulets of "blood". |
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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21st November 2012, 07:09 AM | #4238 |
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21st November 2012, 07:51 AM | #4239 |
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Squeegee,
- That is also what you keep telling me, but I think you're wrong. Should I start trying to show why I think you're wrong? --- Jabba |
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"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence." Charles Bukowski "Most good ideas don't work." Jabba "Se due argomenti sembrano altrettanto convincenti, il meno sarcastico è probabilmente corretto." Jabba's Razor |
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21st November 2012, 08:04 AM | #4240 |
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