Dot points summary of my Hacker Theory (3)
This is the twenty-first instalment of my "Dot points summary of my Hacker Theory (3)," part #44 of my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia. For more information about this series see "Dot points summary of my Hacker Theory (1)."
[Index #1] [Previous: Dot points summary of my Hacker Theory (2) #43] [Next: "Dot points summary of my Hacker Theory (4)" #45].
First, I have updated "Dot points summary of my Hacker Theory (1)" with "Evidence that the Shroud is older than 1260," "Historical evidence that the Shroud is older than 1260," and "Artistic evidence that the Shroud is older than 1260."
■ 1260-1390! On 13 October 1988, the coordinator of the laboratories' radiocarbon dating, the British Museum's Michael Tite (1938-), flanked by Oxford radiocarbon dating laboratory's Prof. Edward Hall (1924-2001) and its chief technician Robert Hedges (1944-), at a press conference in the British Museum, London, announced that the Shroud's radiocarbon date was 1260-1390[24May14]. On a blackboard behind them Tite had written "1260-1390!"[21Jun20; 25Aug24].
[Right (enlarge): From left to right, Prof. Edward Hall (Oxford), Michael Tite (British Museum) and Robert Hedges (Oxford) announcing on 13 October 1988 that the Shroud had been radiocarbon dated "1260-1390!"[24May14].]
■ Exclamation mark In 1990, ~2 years after the press conference, when asked who wrote the exclamation mark on the blackboard, Tite answered "I can't remember who did that"[21Jun20]. Yet in 2020, ~12 years after the press conference, Tite admitted that it was he who did it[21Jun20]. This shows that Tite is not a scrupulous truth-teller but can tell lies about the Shroud when when it suits him[28Jan25]. Previously we saw that Tite was an extreme Shroud sceptic[31Jul25, who along with McCrone and Linick, would not accept that the Shroud was Jesus' even if its radiocarbon date was first-century[24Jun14; 30Dec15; 15Aug17]. The Vatican was naive, in entrusting the dating of the Shroud to this group of non-Christians, with no Christian oversight. It should have insisted that, as the Shroud was the Church's artifact, the laboratories were required to send the result to it for consideration before it was announced publicly[07May16].
■ "one in a thousand trillion" Prof. Harry Gove asked and answered:
"The other question that has been asked is: if the statistical probability that the shroud dates between 1260 and 1390 is 95%, what is the probability that it could date to the first century? The answer is about one in a thousand trillion, i.e. vanishingly small"[20Feb14; 24May14; 23Jul15; 09Mar17; 28Feb25].Tite added that the odds were "astronomical" that the Shroud could be first-century and have a 1260-1390 radiocarbon date[24May14; 23Jul15; 28Feb25] and Hall wrote that it was "totally impossible"[24May14; 23Jul15; 28Feb25].
But the flip-side is that since the Shroud is first-century, as the evidence overwhelmingly indicates, it is the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud which the probability against is "one in a thousand trillion," "astronomical" and "totally impossible"[23Jul15; 11Jun16; 20Dec14; 09Jan21]!
■ 1989 Nature article On 16 February 1989, an article, "Radiocarbon Dating the Shroud of Turin," was published in the British science journal Nature[17Feb19; 21Mar23]. It claimed that, "The results provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval ... AD 1260-1390, with at least 95% confidence"[17Feb19; 29May19; 06Nov20]. Those dates are a statistically manipulated combined average of the dates of each laboratory[17Feb19; 29May19; 13Mar21; 22Jan25; 28Jan25]. The "1390" and "95%" are fraudulent (see here and here).
• Not peer-reviewed? Tite, the author of the Nature article, did not mention that it had been peer-reviewed, in his rush to have it published[28Jan25]:
"T: I wrote the article. I was the person who put it together and circulated it to the labs and they added their bit. In our lab we did the statistical analysis"[MP89, 10]although he implied that it was[MP89, 10]. However, Casabianca, et al., mention, "As suggested one of the referees ..."[CT19]. But such is the shambles of the three laboratories' radiocarbon dating revealed in their raw data that Casabianca, et al. exposed[29May19], the question then is: did Tite take any notice of the peer-reviewers comments? There were only 66 days between the last laboratory, Oxford, submitting its results to Tite on Monday 8 August 1988[08Dec22], and the press conference announcing the 1260-1390 results of the dating on Thursday, 13 October 1988[08Dec22]. And as we saw above, Tite did not even mention peer review in his explanation of why he chose Nature rather than a specialist radiocarbon dating journal to publish the article (see below). Tite would have had to submit the three laboratories' results, as well as the British Museum's statistical analysis, to a panel of peer-reviewers. They would have needed many weeks, if not months, to review the results and return their comments and questions to Tite. Tite would then need to send the reviewers' comments and questions to the three laboratories and receive back from them their answers. Only then could Tite write the article. That Tite does not even mention such a large amount of time that peer-review of the laboratories' results and the British Museum's statistical analysis would take, indicates that, if it happened, Tite ignored it. That the article contains an elementary rounding error to the nearest 10 years from 1384 to 1390[22Jan25; 28Jan25], when it should have been 1380[28Jan25; 22Jan25], which peer-reviewers would surely have required to be corrected, indicates that Tite ignored what peer-review of the article there was.
Hall's retirement The article was not submitted to a specialist, peer-reviewed radiocarbon dating journal, such as Radiocarbon or Archaeometry, because, according to Tite, "Nature is published more rapidly, comes out once a week and is accepted for immediate results"[MP89, 9]. But that is not a valid scientific reason. The need for rapid publication was that Oxford Radiocarbon Dating laboratory was founded and largely funded privately by the wealthy Prof. Edward Hall[27Aug15; WI01; 28Jan25], but under Oxford University's then mandatory retirement at age 65 policy, Hall had to retire on 10 May 1989[28Jan25]. Hall had 45 "rich friends" who would fund an endowed chair of archeological science at Oxford (the Edward Hall Chair of Archaeological Science)[17Feb19; 21Jun20; 21Mar23], if the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud was a `success'[22Jan25]. And Tite was the first occupant of that chair[17Feb19; 22Jan25; 28Jan25]! Hall, being a Trustee of the Bristish Museum, was effectively Tite's boss[17Feb19], and it would be naive not to think that Hall, with £1M funding of his Oxford laboratory depending on a medieval radiocarbon date of the Shroud, did not say to Tite, words to the effect,`get it right Michael and the job (Director of Oxford Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory and the Chair of Archaeological Science) is yours'[21Mar23]!
Evidence that the article's radiocarbon dates are computer-generated include:
• Fig. 1 shows no overlap between Arizona and Oxford's dates of 
[Left: Fig. 1 Mean radiocarbon dates with ±1 standard deviation errors bars, of Sample 1 (the Shroud) and the three control samples[28Jan25].]
Sample 1 (the Shroud), and almost no overlap of Oxford and Zurich's dates. Arizona's oldest date is 1249 and Oxford's youngest date is 1220. And Zurich and Oxford only overlap by 3 years: Zurich's oldest date is 1217 and again Oxford's youngest date is 1220[28Jan25]. Yet there was overlap between the control samples 2, 3 and 4, of all three laboratories[28Jan25], which were not computer-generated.
• Table 1 lists the mean dates of each laboratory's dating runs of 
[Right (enlarge): Extract of Table 1 of the Nature article[ 23Jun18; 28Jan25]. "Sample 1" is the Shroud with the dating runs of each laboratory[28Jan25]. Years are before 1950[28Jan25], after which atmosheric nuclear testing added man-made carbon-14 into the atmosphere[17Feb19; 22Jan25; 28Jan25]. So Arizona's first listed run was 591 ± 30, i.e. 1950-591 = 1359 ± 30. Oxford's first listed run was 795 ± 65, i.e. 1950-795 = 1155 ± 65. And Zurich's first listed run was 733 ± 61, i.e. 1950-733 = 1217 ± 61].
Sample 1 (the Shroud). But Arizona's 4 listed runs were actually 8 runs[12Feb08; 17Feb19; 29May19], which were combined and averaged, with no explanatory footnote, and falsely headed "individual measurements"[17Feb19; 29May19; 28Jan25]. Hence Arizona's first listed run appears as "1359" when it actually was "1350"[23Jun18; 08Dec22]. Converted to calendar years (before 1950), the mean date of Arizona's first listed run, 1359, was the most recent (youngest) of all three laboratories' 12 listed dating runs[23Jun18; 03Aug19; 13Mar21; 21Mar23; 22Jan25; 28Jan25]. The mean date of Oxford's first listed run, 1155, was the least recent (oldest) of all three laboratories' listed dating runs[22Jan25; 28Jan25]. And the mean listed date of Zurich's first listed run, 1217, was the least recent (oldest) of Zurich's 5 dating runs[22Jan25; 28Jan25].
I had thought that the probability of this pattern occurring by chance would be 1/4 x 1/3 × 1/5 = 1/60[22Jan25; 28Jan25]. But then I realised that within each laboratory its dates could be in any order. I rediscovered what I once knew as a maths and science teacher almost a decade ago, that the number of permutations of n distinct objects is n factorial, usually written as n!. Therefore the number of permutations of Arizona's four dates is factorial 4, i.e. 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 24; that of Oxford's 3 dates is factorial 3, i.e. 3 x 2 x 1 = 6; and the permutations of Zurich's 5 dates is factorial 5, i.e. 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 120. So the probability of this pattern occurring by chance across the three laboratories was not 1/4 x 1/3 × 1/5 = 1/60, but 1/24 x 1/6 x 1/120 = 1/17,280! When I thought the probabilty of this pattern occurring by chance was 1/60, I tried to demonstrate it on a spreadsheet, but even then it became too difficult, and it would have be too wide or long to fit into a blog post.
A Shroud sceptic might argue that the probability of any permutation of those dates, occurring by chance, would be 1 in 17,280. This may be true (I am no mathematician), but presumably only a tiny minority of those would form a meaningful pattern. And among that tiny minority of those that did form a meaningful pattern, some (e.g. the pattern of all the dates in perfect chronological order from Arizona's first to Oxford's last, or its reverse), would likely have invalidated that dating, because of suspected fraud. That is because the dates would be expected to form no pattern, but be randomly distributed across all three laboratories. There is no scientific reason why these dates, from three different laboratories, in three different countries, and generated at three different times, would show any pattern.
In particular, there is no scientific reason why the very first dating run of all three laboratories, contained in Arizona's "1359," should be the `psychological hammer blow' "1350"[22Jan25; 04Jul25] which instantly convinced Gove and all others present at Arizona's first dating on 6 May 1988 that, after this one dating run in one laboratory, that "the year the flax had been harvested that formed its linen threads was 1350 AD ... It was certainly not Christ's burial cloth":
"At 9:50 am 6 May 1988, Arizona time, the first of the ten measurements appeared on the screen. We all waited breathlessly. The ratio was compared with the OX sample and the radiocarbon time scale calibration was applied by Doug Donahue. ... At the end of that one minute we knew the age of the Turin Shroud! The next nine numbers confirmed the first ... Based on these 10 one minute runs, ... the year the flax had been harvested that formed its linen threads was 1350 AD-the shroud was only 640 years old! It was certainly not Christ's burial cloth but dated from the time its historic record began[08Jun14; 22Sep15; 10Feb18; 03Aug19] ... I remember Donahue saying that he did not care what results the other two laboratories got, this was the shroud's age"[08Jun14; 22Sep15; 10Feb18; 03Aug19]Gove even quoted with approval Donahue saying above that he "did not care what results the other two laboratories got, this was the shroud's age"! They all ignored Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman (1918-88)'s First Principle, "you must not fool yourself-and you are the easiest person to fool (my emphasis)"
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself-and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that"[22Jul12; 27Aug15; 18Nov15]And that "1350," date was then leaked by Arizona physicist Timothy Linick (1946-89)[24Jun14; 30Dec15; 08Dec22; 07Apr25] (the hacker whose program generated it[05Jul14; 29Mar16; 07Apr25]) to Shroud sceptic David Sox (1936-2016)[24Jun14; 05Mar15; 30Dec15; 15Aug17], through Linick's half-brother Anthony Linick (1938-), who worked with Sox for at least 11 years from 1982 to 1993, at the same American School in London[22Feb16; 15Aug17]. And Sox leaked that "1350" date to the media through his friend Richard Luckett (1945-2020)[24Jun14]. Linick leaked the "1350" date to create a climate of expectation[RTB], such that, as Oxford's Prof. Hall recalled: "Everyone was resigned to it being a fake long before the announcement" (my emphasis).
"So it was `leaked' by the press ... in the States long before the newspaper stories started here [sic] ... Everyone was resigned to it being a fake long before the announcement. In this sense it was out of the bag from the very beginning"[RTB].The final element of this unique, meaningful, probability 1 in 17,280, pattern of Shroud dating runs in Table 1 of the 1989 Nature article, is that when the dates of Sample 1, the Shroud, were combined and averaged, with the fraudulent help of Tite[RTB], it produced a radiocarbon date of the Shroud of 1260-1390[RTB], the mid-point of which is 1325 ±65[RTB], which `just happens' to be exactly 30 years before the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history at Lirey, France, in 1355[RTB]!
The range of the dates, from the oldest 1155, to the youngest 1359, is 204 years[RTB]! Yet the laboratories' Shroud samples were cut from the one Shroud sample ~10 mm x 70 mm (or ~0.4 x 2.75 in.)[RTB].
• Table 2 shows that the Shroud sample had an "X2 value (2 d.f.)" of "6.4." This is the Chi-squared test (Χ2) for homogeneneity, where the upper limit of 2 degrees of freedom at a 95% significance level is 5.99[RTB]. This renders the "with at least 95% confidence" false and fraudulent[RTB]. The Chi-squared values of controls samples 2,3 and 4 were "0.1," "1.3," and "2.4"[RTB]. Under Table 2 the article admitted:
"An initial inspection of Table 2 shows that the agreement among the three laboratories for samples 2, 3 and 4 [controls] is exceptionally good. The spread of the measurements for sample 1 [the Shroud] is somewhat greater than would be expected from the errors quoted"[RTB]!But this is impossible if the Shroud dates were real and not computer-generated by a hacker's program[RTB].
To be continued in the twenty-seon instalment of this post.
Notes:
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to extract or quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided the extract or quote includes a reference citing my name, its title, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page.
Bibliography
CT19. Casabianca, T., et al., 2019, "Radiocarbon Dating of the Turin Shroud: New Evidence from Raw Data," Archaeometry, 22 March, 1-9.
MP89. Marinelli, E. & Petrosillo, O., 1989, "The 1988 Shroud Samples: An interview with Dr Michael Tite," Paris Symposium 1989, Shroud News, No 81, February 1994, 10.
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.
WI01. Wilson, I., 2001, "Obituary: Professor Edward Hall, CBE, FBA," BSTS Newsletter, No. 54, November.
Posted 7 September 2025. Updated 30 September 2025.
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