Discovery Channel, Teaching the Debate

As readers of this blog may be aware, I am not very happy with the way things have been going at the Discovery Channel, Science Channel, History Channel, etc. Their focus on archaeology and religion ends up taking completely unsupported leaps into fantasy at every turn. Perfect examples of this can be seen in their shows Digging for the Truth (notable in that one episode was withheld when they discovered their new host had been in a porno), The Naked Archaeologist (staring Jacobovici, who is thankfully not naked and is unfortunately not an archaeologist), or their terrible documentary on the Talpiot Tomb.

At this point in the year (Easter season), as well as Christmas, they tend to focus on Christian themes. This year, more than ever, it seems to be offering up terribly unrealistic assessments of the past. A good clue to what’s going on at these channels is that they were showing the Bible Code documentary on Good Friday. This year, the Discovery Channels website has gotten into the act, with an absolutely terrible article on the Shroud of Turin. It is full of misinformation and apologetics, without touching on the valid research that has been performed. Since I just yesterday finished editing an article on the shroud, I thought I would look at the Discovery Channel’s claims, and offer up the substantial science.

The article is presented as a slide show, which makes it easy to tackle their points one at a time. I won’t be addressing all slides, but will note those I do.

The Shroud of Turin is is believed to be the burial cloth of Jesus, revealing the face of Christ as it was impressed in a strip of linen. The first documented reference of the shroud dates to 1357, when the linen was displayed in a church in Lirey, France. Believers contend that the shroud is the “cloth with an image on it,” reported by the early Christian historian Eusebius to have been given to the Christian King Abgar V of Edessa in 30 A.D. According to this account, the cloth, known as the Mandylion of Edessa, was taken to Constantinople in 944. It disappeared in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade. (Slide 1)

Analysis: This does a good job of telling what believers content, while completely over looking the facts. The description of the Mandylion of Edessa does not actually match the Shroud of Turin, since it was supposed to only show the face, not the entire body as the Turin shroud does. Additionally, this story of origin overlooks the confession of a forger to the local bishop in the 14th century, and the Pope of the period’s recognition of the shroud as an artistic fake.

I also take some issue with the beginning statement, since the shroud is not believed by most scholars or scientists to be the cloth of Jesus. Certainly religious devotees do, but this is way to broad of a statement.

In 1973, the shroud was shown for the first time on television, with an introduction by Pope Paul VI. Also in 1973, the shroud was secretly examined by a commission of experts, who took cloth and surface dust samples. The results of the investigation, published three years later, pointed to the presence of pollen from plants unique to Israel and Turkey. This suggested the linen had been exposed to the air in these countries. (Slide 5)

The failure to mention that later tests by STURP (Shroud of Turin Research Project, a pro-authenticity group) failed to match these findings. Their tapes, taken in 1978, lacked the pollen evidence. Add to this the fact that the originals were collected by Max Frei, who had, as a criminologist, been caught faking evidence in the past, and one must question the results. Even if the shroud had been there, it would not link it to Jesus in any strong way (These areas and conditions existed well before and after the period in which Jesus lived).

Barrie Schwortz, the photographer for the 1978 investigations, told Discovery News, “We used X-rays, ultra-violet and spectral imaging and photographed every inch of it in the most minute detail, but we still couldn’t come up with the answer to the single question we had come to ask: ‘How was the image formed?’”(Slide 7)

This certainly seems amazing, since one would expect scientists to be able to determine how such an image was formed. They did. Walter C. McCrone published an article in 1990 discussing his finds of paint and related material on the Shroud of Turin. Not only with, but the “blood” was found to be inconsistent with actual blood, but exist in areas with high amounts of red ochre. In addition to this McCrone found artistic text books discussing methods from the 14th century of painting on fabric to create images like the shroud. Joe Nickell took this one step further and actually experimented, and successfully painted images that had the same pseudo-negative and low penetration as the Shroud of Turin. We should also remember McCrone’s largest issue with these tests, that those involved were not experts in the fields used in such studies and that their tools would not have been sufficient to find the pigments that were clearly their under higher magnification. So, this claim, posted by the Discovery Channel, appears to be in ignorance of a long period of later research.

In 1988, a sample of the shroud was removed for radiocarbon testing. Three laboratories carried out the tests. In 1989, the results, published in the journal Nature, held that the radiocarbon tests show “the linen of the Shroud of Turin is medieval.” One of the researchers, Edward Hall, told journalists, “Someone just got a bit of linen, faked it up and flogged it.” (Slide 8 )

It is good that the Discovery Channel offers this slide, since the carbon 14 tests are perhaps the most important study ever done on the shroud.  To date, many problems have been proposed by shroud supporters, but Walter C McCrone and others have shown them all to be simply ad hoc arguments and non-substantive. Of course, the Discovery Channel, only a few slides later, falls for one of these arguments, which is almost certainly false.

Thread extracted from the shroud by G. Riggi di Numana. The thread was taken from an area near where the 1988 radiocarbon test was performed. In 2005, researchers M. Sue Benford and Joseph Marino suggested that the shroud had been expertly rewoven in the precise location from which the carbon-14 sample was taken. In a peer-reviewed paper, chemist Raymond Rogers supported the finding, saying, “As unlikely as it seems, the sample used to test the age of the Shroud of Turin in 1988 was taken from a rewoven area of the shroud…The radiocarbon date was thus not valid for determining the true age of the shroud.” (Slide 12)

Claims that the 1988 testing of the shroud was based on a contaminated, rewoven area are popular, but unlikely. First, in 1988 there was no method of reweaving that would be completely invisible, especially to the two textile experts used in selecting a section of the shroud to test. Additionally, as McCrone has pointed out, any form of contamination significant enough to switch the dating from roughly 30 CE to the 13th or 14th CE would have to be an overwhelmingly large portion of the sample, so much in fact that it would dwarf the original material. There is no credible reason to assume such would go unnoticed by the textile experts. Since I am not a chemist, I cannot argue with Raymond Rogers, but can state that he is associated with the apologetic organization STURP, and that his analysis fails to address the various issues presented by McCrone, including many failures McCrone dirrectly sites in STURP’s analysis of the textile.

Finally, as much as I hate as hominem attacks, something must be said on the Discovery Channel’s choice of “experts”. M. Sue Benford is an alternative medicine supporter, who writes on homeopathy, laying on hands, gamma radiation, the after life, bioenergy healing, and other nonsensical pseudo-science. Her credentials place her as a registered nurse, not a textile or radiocarbon expert. Certainly her area of study and obvious failure to follow basic scientific methodology make her a questionable expert. Joseph Marino is a former monk and Catholic priest, and is now billed as a sinologist, a person who researches the Shroud of Turin. Note, that sinologist is not the same as scientist, historian, or archaeologist. While Raymond Rogers, is an actual chemist, these other “experts” are anything but scientific, and for the Discovery Channel to site them shows a lack of judgment.

In general, the Discovery Channel article is quite low in quality, dismissing the actual research in favor of statements by pseudoscientists and faithful shroud devotees. There are certainly some challenges to the tests that have been performed on the shroud to this date, but not one of them actually serves to provide positive evidence that the Turin Shroud was used to bury Jesus. Instead, they create debate and attack scientific evidence that is oppose to a religious and untenable position.

I am disapointted in the Discovery Channel for the overall presentation of this piece, but especially for ending it with the quote from Pope John Paul II

“As it is not a matter of faith, the Church has no specific competence to pronounce itself on these questions. It entrusts the task of research to scientists, to arrive at appropriate answers for questions related to this cloth.”

I don’t disagree with the Pope at all. In fact it’s good to hear a religious figure state that science can test claims that others might just claim as proved through faith. However, the Discovery Channel ignores the fact that tests have been done, and have found the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin lacking. Instead, favoring an article which actively searches out the fringe in order to ignore science.

 

Damon, P.E. et al “Radi0carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin.” Nature 33 (16 February 1989): 611-615.

Fagan, Garrett G. et al Archaeological Fantasies. New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2006.

Grove, H.E. “Dating the Turin Shroud- An Assessment.” Radiocarbon 32.1 (1990): 87-92.

McCrone W.C. “The Shroud of Turin: blood or artist’s pigment?” Accounts of Chemical Research 23 (1990): 77-83.

Nickell, Joe Inquest on the Shroud of Turin. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1983.

_____. Looking for a Miracle: Weeping icons, relics, stigmata, visions & healing cures.

Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1993.

Shermer, Michael Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, superstition, and other confusions of our time. New York: W.H. Freeman, 1997.