[Vision2020] More Shroud: can you take the excitement?

[Joan Opyr]

Dear Visionaries:

To add to Frank Cheng’s post, I'd like to point out that Steven D Schafersman has published a critique (http://www.skeptic.ws/shroud/ ) of Ray Rogers’ critique of the 1988 carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin.  The 1988 carbon dating placed the Shroud’s creation to between 1260 and 1390 CE.  As Dr. Cheng reported, Rogers’ work suggests that the Shroud is much older, possibly 3000 years old, which would make it a Roman rather than a medieval artifact.  But Dr. Rogers, it would seem, is not the last word on the Shroud’s date, nor on the accuracy of the 1988 carbon-14 tests.  The labs that conducted those tests dispute Dr. Rogers’ assertion that the material they tested was from a 14th century repair patch.  They maintain that they tested the fabric itself, not a medieval repair, and that in three blind tests by three different labs, they all came up with the same conclusion: that the Shroud was of 14th century origin.
  
Now, the site on which I found Schafersman’s critique is not a peer-reviewed scientific journal, but I have come across a few of those, also taking Dr. Rogers to task.  I’m afraid I didn’t bookmark the sites, and I don’t have time this morning to dig them out.  (Even as I type this, I’m supposed to be updating New West Magazine, www.newwest.net, with lots of fascinating Northern Idaho insider information.  BTW, any ideas from any of you on this subject would be most welcome.  What's the best coffee shop in Lewiston?  Where do people like to hang out in Coeur d'Alene?  At the moment, my part of Northern Idaho is looking rainy and dank and dull, and my collection of the Emma Peel episodes of “The Avengers” is calling to me, loudly, and siren-like.)   
  
Oh, one other thing I've picked in my casual Shroud browsing is that it would seem as though the late Ray Rogers fell into what's called "the Shroud believer" camp.  As far as I can tell, there are Shroud skeptics, Shroud believers, and some ill-defined scientific middle filled with the researchers who don’t have a stake in either authenticating or de-bunking the Shroud but are instead interested in its date, its method of creation, and etc., for other reasons.  Purely scientific reasons?  Who knows?  Anyhow, a professor named Alan Mills has proposed that the Shroud is a natural phenomenon, created by a kind of reactive oxygen, specifically “singlet oxygen,” but other scientists have been very busy critiquing his work.  This stuff is interesting, and if you're bored -- or want to engage in legitimate work avoidance -- you might check out http://www.petech.ac.za/shroud/Singlet.htm.  I've learned all sorts about oxygen singlets, stuff I could have used when I was taking (and flunking) chemistry way back when.  Now, if I could just find a way to work oxygen singlets into my coffee shop reviews . . .  
  
So, who knows?  Medieval fake?  Roman reality?  Whatever and however the Shroud was made, we do know that it is A) older than panes of distortion-free glass, and B) that it has not been successfully re-created on the rooftop of the New St. Andrews.  This is a shame, actually, as I’d kind of like one to hang in my living room.  It would go so well with the sofa.

"Mrs. Peel, we're needed."
  
Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.auntie-establishment.com
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