The (Non) History Channel strikes again

With a new drivelish show hinting that the Shroud of Turin is something other than a medieval relic forgery.

It's Holy Week; time for stuff like this.

That said, The History Channel has fallen short, even far short, of its name for a number of years. This is nothing new. Search this blog for "The History Channel" for more examples.

Vatican researcher claims Shroud is real

Barbara Frale claims computer enhancing let her see Greek, Latin and Aramaic words on the Shroud of Turin.

First, I want a list of the experts to whom she showed her photos.

Second, I want her to show the photos to the general public. Especially to specialists in scripts from 2,000 years ago.

Third, in light of that, I want her to admit this means nothing. Assuming the Shroud is from the 13th-14th century, the forger could have written any lettering that is there.

Fourth, there’s other refutations at the link.

Shroud of Turin believers grasp at straws again

Yes, naïve or, more often, self-delusional Shroud sympaticos are once again making the claims that 1988 radiocarbon tests were inaccurate. Please. We’ve heard this before.

The Today Show piece is one-sided in not quoting a single Shroud skeptic to refute those claims, the claims about “ancient Mediterranean pollen grains,” that too much handling of the Shroud threw off radiocarbon calculations, that there actually is blood on the Shroud (there isn’t, at least none that’s been identified) and more.

Of course, that’s nothing new either. American TV trots out gullibility-driven twaddle like this around Christian religious holidays, as do major newsmagazines.

See Skeptic’s Dictionary for the truth about all these claims.

The suggestions that modern biological contaminants were sufficient to modernize the date are also ridiculous. A weight of 20th century carbon equaling nearly two times the weight of the Shroud carbon itself would be required to change a 1st century date to the 14th century. Besides this, the linen cloth samples were very carefully cleaned before analysis at each of the C-dating laboratories.

But, Shroud sympaticos will continue to bring up new red herrings, as Bob Carroll notes at Skeptic’s Dictionary.

PBS needs a skeptical thinking cap on the Shroud of Turin

Instead, Secrets of the Dead gives us an episode HUGELY biased in favor of “it’s Jesus” Shroud worshipers.

On the entire hour of showtime, I saw just one actual skeptic, and he got no more than 60 seconds of air time.

All the old bogus arguments got trotted out:
1. There’s bloodstains (no, that’s vermillion pigment).
2. The CO2 dating is off due to “contamination” (no, it would take twice the total CO2 weight of the shroud to throw its dating off by 1,300 years).
3. A sudarion (2,000-year-old style) head cloth from Spain “validates” the Shroud (no, it undercuts it, because how could it have blood and a face image as well as the Shroud itself).
4. Pollen only from the Jerusalem area is on the Shroud (it was lifted with Scotch tape, very likely to have been contaminated itself).

That’s just the top four, for starters. I could easily list half a dozen more. For example, if the Shroud itself were an actual burial cloth, draped over the body of Jesus or whomever from head down, why aren’t the forward and reverse images on the Shroud touching each other at the top of the head?

OOPS!

(Note: Since I posted this, I discovered this was a rerun of a show that originally aired in 2004. If anything, that makes PBS’ crime even more egregious.)