My hacker theory: guarded support from Ian Wilson but censored by the BSTS' David Rolfe!

© Stephen E. Jones[1]

On 19 January I received an email of that date from Joe Marino (copied to over 20 others), with the subject heading,

[Right (original): Joe Marino speaking at the 2014 St. Louis Shroud Conference[2].]

"Significant article in Winter 2019/2020 British Society for the Turin Shroud Newsletter" (my emphasis below):

"Winter 2019/2020 issue of British Society for the Turin Shroud Newsletter now online (subscription required).

Issue includes a condensed version of my 1 hour, 45 presentation on the invisible reweave theory presented at the Ancaster, Canada International Shroud conference in August 2019.

Notable is a comment at end of article by noted Shroud scholar Ian Wilson, who had not been a proponent of the theory, but now writes,

`A Major Change of Mind…

For those of us who disbelieve the medieval date that the 1988 carbon dating attributed to the Shroud, the key question perennially needing to be resolved is how three internationally respected scientific laboratories could have produced an error of thirteen centuries.

Without unreservedly supporting any one theory, I have tended to favour the microbiological contamination argument because the sliver of linen from which all three laboratories derived their samples came from a corner demonstrably handled countless times during historical Shroud expositions and therefore bound to have been heavily contaminated by hand contact. Likewise, whilst conspiracy theories should always be treated with the greatest caution, I have taken seriously the possibility of some sort of laboratory foul play in 1988, based on the suspiciously early leaking of the results, the equally suspicious centering of the result around the year 1350, and the never explained early 1989 suicide of the Arizona laboratory's computer guru Timothy Linick.

By contrast the Reweave Theory long promulgated by Joe Marino and his late wife Sue Benford has never attracted me, mostly due to my not having found the slightest sign of any such restoration work when I was closely looking for such anomalies during my examination of the Shroud in 1973. This scepticism has, however, now greatly diminished due to the very convincingly presented Joe Marino conference paper that follows, buttressed by a ‘French Reweave’ demonstration - specifically performed on a Shroud-like herringbone weave - that can be viewed on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIgC_IeuzKE. Whilst I still cannot yet describe myself as fully convinced by any one theory, I can now commend Joe's presentation unreservedly….'" (ellipses original)[3].

I was elated that my Hacker Theory (see 23Jul15 & 28Oct18) had received guarded support from Ian Wilson and that it had been mentioned in the BSTS Newsletter (or so I - and Joe - thought )!

So I excitedly replied to Joe (copy to the others and Ian Wilson):

"Joe (cc Ian Wilson and others)

Thanks and especially thanks to Ian:

"Notable is a comment at end of article by noted Shroud scholar Ian Wilson ... Likewise, whilst conspiracy theories should always be treated with the greatest caution, I have taken seriously the possibility of some sort of laboratory foul play in 1988, based on the suspiciously early leaking of the results, the equally suspicious centering of the result around the year 1350, and the never explained early 1989 suicide of the Arizona laboratory’ computer guru Timothy Linick."

As previously mentioned, our two theories are not incompatible, if Linick's program built on (rather than substituted) the existing C-14 atom counts of the Shroud samples:

"But looking at the great variability of Arizona's C14 atom counts across its subsamples A1-A8 (above), it has just now occurred to me that the carbon contamination and/or medieval repair theories and my hacker theory may not be incompatible. What if Linick's program did not substitute the C14 atom counts coming from the Shroud, but in a mathematically sophisticated way inflated them to 13th-14th century dates? If so, then the variability of the C14 atom counts could reflect actual carbon-14 variability across the Shroud sample, due to contamination and/or younger repair threads (see above that Arizona's subsample was in two parts A1 and A from opposite ends of the Shroud sample). But the 13th-14th century dates of the Shroud samples would be due to Linick's program inflating that carbon-14 variability to 13th-14th century date levels! And again note that in favour of my theory is that `odd man out' very first run C14 atom count of 8226 (above) which equated to "1350" (see above)." (Casabianca, T., et al., 2019, "Radiocarbon Dating of the Turin Shroud: New Evidence from Raw Data," Archaeometry, 22 March)

"That there was younger carbon contamination and/or threads from a medieval repair included in the radiocarbon dating samples does not, of itself, explain why the first century Shroud had the `bull's eye' 1260-1390 = 1325±65 radiocarbon date. For an explanation of both, see my possible reconciliation of the carbon contamination and/or medieval repair theories with my hacker theory:

"But looking at the great variability of Arizona's C14 atom counts across its subsamples A1-A8 ... it has just now occurred to me that the carbon contamination and/or medieval repair theories and my hacker theory may not be incompatible. What if Linick's program did not substitute the C14 atom counts coming from the Shroud, but in a mathematically sophisticated way inflated them to 13th-14th century dates? If so, then the variability of the C14 atom counts could reflect actual carbon-14 variability across the Shroud sample, due to contamination and/or younger repair threads ... But the 13th-14th century dates of the Shroud samples would be due to Linick's program inflating that carbon-14 variability to 13th-14th century date levels!" ("News and Editorial," Shroud of Turin News, July 2019)

While your invisible reweave theory does explain the variability in C-14 atom counts across the ~1.2cm x ~8cm Shroud sample, it does not explain why: 1) the very first Arizona C14 run was "1350":

"Gove doesn't consider how amazing it is, that the very first dating at Arizona, "1350 AD," agreed to within 25 years of the midpoint, 1325, of the average of all the other datings! Especially considering the very wide spread of all those datings: 204 years! (see above), and Arizona's 110 years. In fact the mean of Arizona's first date, 591 +/- 30, is not a typical one: it is the lowest of all the means. And because lowest is most recent, it is the upper limit of the dating's calendar years." ("6 May 1988: On this day 30 years ago in the radiocarbon dating of the Turin Shroud" )

"Thus the corrected mean of Arizona's first date was actually 1950-591=1359, i.e. it overlapped by 4 years the first appearance in undisputed history at Lirey, France, in c.1355. In fact, as pointed out in 23Jun18b the mean of Arizona's first date is not a typical one: it is the lowest of all the laboratories' means! And because lowest is most recent, it is the upper limit of the dating's calendar years! But see 29May19b where 591±30 was the result of a fraudulent combining of two dates, 606±41 and 574±45." ("4 June 1989: On this day 30 years ago in the radiocarbon dating of the Turin Shroud")

nor 2) why the combined average radiocarbon date of all the Shroud subsamples was 1260-1390 = 1325 +/- 65, which `just happened' to be 25 years before the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history at Lirey, France, in 1355.

As the physicist Frank Tipler pointed out, that would be a miracle (Tipler believes it was literally a miracle):

"If the radiocarbon date is ignored, there are quite a few reasons for accepting the Shroud as genuine ... But ... what must be answered before the Shroud can be accepted as genuine - is why the radiocarbon date is exactly what one would expect it to be if the Turin Shroud were actually a fraud. A very plausible history of the Shroud from A.D. 30 to the present has been constructed ... However, the first time the Shroud is agreed by all scholars to have existed is 1355, when a French squire, Geoffrey de Charny of Lirey, in the bishopric of Troyes, petitioned the Pope to display it as the unique burial cloth of Jesus. ... A few decades after de Charny's death, the bishop of Troyes denounced the Shroud as a fake and said that he knew the name of the forger, who had confessed. So if the bishop and later skeptics were correct, we would expect the linen of which the Shroud is made to date from the time of the forgery. That is, the middle of the fourteenth century. When the radiocarbon date was discovered to be between 1260 and 1390 (95 percent confidence interval), most scientists (including myself until a few years ago) were convinced that the Shroud had been proven a fraud. If bacterial or other contamination had distorted the date, we would expect the measured radiocarbon date to be some random date between A.D. 30 and the present. It would be an extraordinary and very improbable coincidence if the amount of carbon added to the Shroud were exactly the amount needed to give the date that indicated a fraud. That is, unless the radiocarbon date were itself a miracle ..." (Tipler, F.J., 2007, "The Physics of Christianity," Doubleday: New York NY, pp.178-179).

So there is no need for Ian Wilson (or anyone) to chose between the three theories: 1) "the microbiological contamination argument"; 2) " the Reweave Theory long promulgated by Joe Marino and his late wife Sue Benford"; and 3) "the possibility of some sort of laboratory foul play in 1988, based on the suspiciously early leaking of the results, the equally suspicious centering of the result around the year 1350, and the never explained early 1989 suicide of the Arizona laboratory’ computer guru Timothy Linick" (my Hacker Theory )

What I call my Revised Hacker Theory comprehensively covers all three!

PS: I don't know whether you have read my argument that Margaret of Austria's snippet of the Shroud would have been removed, not after her will was executed in 1531, but either when she was Duchess of Savoy (1501-4), or it was a gift from Margaret's successor as Duchess of Savoy, Claudine de Brosse (1450–1513):

"1531 Margaret's will is executed but there is no record of a portion of the Shroud having been removed at that time. Marino and Benford claim, or imply, that consequently there was an excision of a 5½ inch x 3½ inch (~14 cm x ~8.9 cm) section from the Shroud which was later almost invisibly repaired with 16th century thread which unknowingly was included in the 1988 radiocarbon dating sample ... But clearly Margaret could not have legally stipulated the removal of part of the Shroud which was not her property in 1508. So presumably she had been given, or had taken, a snippet from the Shroud when she was Duchess of Savoy between 1501-4. Or it was a gift from her mother-in-law, dowager duchess Claudine de Brosse (1450–1513) in 1505 when Margaret formally relinquished custody of the Shroud to Claudine [see "1505b"].

PPS: I have just now subscribed to the BSTS Newsletter.

Regards,
Stephen Jones"[4].

However, having paid my subscription to the BSTS Newsletter, and reading right through the latest online issue, I could not see a mention of my Hacker theory. So I wrote to Joe Marino again:

"Joe

Having paid my subscription to the BSTS Newsletter digital version and logged in, I cannot see where the words in black below appear.

Was it only in the paper edition?

Regards,
Stephen

On 19/01/2020 4:47 am, jmarino240@aol.com wrote:
> Winter 2019/2020 issue of British Society for the Turin Shroud Newsletter now online (subscription required).

>Issue includes a condensed version of my 1 hour, 45 presentation on the invisible reweave theory presented at the Ancaster, Canada International Shroud conference in August 2019.

>Notable is a comment at end of article by noted Shroud scholar Ian Wilson, who had not been a proponent of the theory, but now writes,

>"A Major Change of Mind…

>For those of us who disbelieve the medieval date that the 1988 carbon dating attributed to the Shroud, the key question perennially needing to be resolved is how three internationally respected scientific laboratories could have produced an error of thirteen centuries.

>Without unreservedly supporting any one theory, I have tended to favour the microbiological contamination argument because the sliver of linen from which all three laboratories derived their samples came from a corner demonstrably handled countless times during historical Shroud expositions and therefore bound to have been heavily contaminated by hand contact. Likewise, whilst conspiracy theories should always be treated with the greatest caution, I have taken seriously the possibility of some sort of laboratory foul play in 1988, based on the suspiciously early leaking of the results, the equally suspicious centering of the result around the year 1350, and the never explained early 1989 suicide of the Arizona laboratory’ computer guru Timothy Linick.

>By contrast the Reweave Theory long promulgated by Joe Marino and his late wife Sue Benford has never attracted me, mostly due to my not having found the slightest sign of any such restoration work when I was closely looking for such anomalies during my examination of the Shroud in 1973. This scepticism has, however, now greatly diminished due to the very convincingly presented Joe Marino conference paper that follows, buttressed by a ‘French Reweave’ demonstration - specifically performed on a Shroud-like herringbone weave - that can be viewed on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIgC_IeuzKE. Whilst I still cannot yet describe myself as fully convinced by any one theory, I can now commend Joe’s presentation unreservedly..."[5].

At first Joe didn't understand what I was getting at and he replied:

"Stephen,

I printed out the last page when I was online yesterday and it was all there. See attached [PDF].

Joe [...]"[6].

So I sent Joe a screenshot of that part of the BSTS Newsletter article:

"Joe

Thanks, but neither your `see attached' PDF nor the actual BSTS Newsletter paragraph "A Major Change of Mind - Ian Wilson" (see below) [The screenshot I sent Joe did not have the expanse of white space between "unreservedly." and "13" which is in the Newsletter.]:

contain the words in your email which I highlighted in black, now highlighted in red about "Timothy Linick":

"For those of us who disbelieve the medieval date that the 1988 carbon dating attributed to the Shroud, the key question perennially needing to be resolved is how three internationally respected scientific laboratories could have produced an error of thirteen centuries.

Without unreservedly supporting any one theory, I have tended to favour the microbiological contamination argument because the sliver of linen from which all three laboratories derived their samples came from a corner demonstrably handled countless times during historical Shroud expositions and therefore bound to have been heavily contaminated by hand contact. Likewise, whilst conspiracy theories should always be treated with the greatest caution, I have taken seriously the possibility of some sort of laboratory foul play in 1988, based on the suspiciously early leaking of the results, the equally suspicious centering of the result around the year 1350, and the never explained early 1989 suicide of the Arizona laboratory’ computer guru Timothy Linick.

By contrast [the Reweave Theory]..."

Where do they appear so I can reference them?

Thanks,

Stephen"[7].

Joe replied, at last having realised what I was getting at:

"Stephen,

OK, figured out what happened.

Ian had sent me a MWord file before publication showing how the piece was going to read.

The final version on the BSTS site is such that one can't even copy and paste the text, so when I sent his piece to my email contacts on which your included, I used the Word version he sent me so I could copy and paste.

I didn't realize that the actual version was shortened and left the Linick part out--not sure why because there was plenty of room left on the page.

I've attached the doc that Ian sent me.

Regards,

Joe"[8].

That is, the BSTS Newsletter's Editor, David Rolfe [Left [9].], had seamlessly, without ellipses, edited out Wilson's words about "Timothy Linick," such that his readers would never know that they were there, when there was "plenty of room left on the page" for them (see above)!

I replied to Joe, "I presume that David Rolfe is anti- my Hacker theory and censored it":

"Joe

On 24/01/2020 10:27 pm, jmarino240@aol.com wrote:> Stephen,

>> OK, figured out what happened.

>> Ian had sent me a MWord file before publication showing how the piece was going to read.

>> The final version on the BSTS site is such that one can't even copy and paste the text, so when I sent his piece to my email contacts on which your included, I used the Word version he sent me so I could copy and paste.

>> I didn't realize that the actual version was shortened and left the Linick part out--not sure why because there was plenty of room left on the page.

I presume that David Rolfe is anti- my Hacker theory and censored it. "First they ignore you ..."!

Rolfe asked me a while ago to submit an article to the BSTS Newsletter, but when I pointed him to my online, "Media release: Were the Turin Shroud radiocarbon dating laboratories duped by a computer hacker? " and said he could use that I never heard anything more from him.

>> I've attached the doc that Ian sent me.

Thanks. I will quote your email below in a future blog post and say it was in Ian Wilson's original article submitted to the BSTS Newsletter, which you were sent a copy of, but it was edited out in the Newsletter.

Regards,

Stephen"[10].

Because it was not me directly that Rolfe censored, but Ian Wilson, Rolfe's predecessor as inaugural Editor of the BSTS Newsletter, for ~18 years from 1982 to 2001!

Five days later I emailed Joe Marino that Rolfe did censor that part of Ian Wilson's submitted article which mentioned "Timothy Linick" (i.e. my Hacker theory - see 23Jul15 & 28Oct18) on the grounds that he considered it to be "radical" and "might be confusing":

"Joe

I vaguely thought that David Rolfe had explained to me why he deleted Ian's words below:

"Likewise, whilst conspiracy theories should always be treated with the greatest caution, I have taken seriously the possibility of some sort of laboratory foul play in 1988, based on the suspiciously early leaking of the results, the equally suspicious centering of the result around the year 1350, and the never explained early 1989 suicide of the Arizona laboratory’ computer guru Timothy Linick."

I found it when I finally got to the bottom of my inbox [in an email of 20 January confirming my BSTS membership]. Rolfe did censor it on the grounds that he considered it to be "radical" and "might be confusing":

"I felt that including the more `radical' Linick hypothesis into the same issue might be confusing. That said, unless there is anything further on the contamination aspect, I would like to do something quite major on the Lin[ic]k/Sox axis. I knew Sox well. I later discovered how duplicitous he could be. Some more spadework needs to be done and I hope to find the resources to do it"[11].

Which is absurd. There is nothing confusing in what Ian wrote above. I will call Rolfe out on it in a blog post the near future on his censorship of Ian and my Hacker theory.

But Rolfe does say that he "would like to do something quite major on the Lin[ic]k/Sox axis". But I'll believe that when I see it.

Regards,

Stephen"[12].

Joe replied in what presumably was his last word on this:

"Stephen,

Yeah, kind of strange that he would think a mention of it would be radical and confusing when he's open to a full article on it!

Joe"[13].

Because I believe that my Revised Hacker Theory (see above) is true, I regard Rolfe's censorship of it because it is, in his opinion, too "radical" and "confusing" for his BSTS Newsletter readership to handle, as an attempt by him to, unwittingly, suppress the truth. Surely most, if not all, of his readers would have heard of my Hacker Theory? So I can only assume that Rolfe does not personally like my Hacker Theory and he is abusing his power as Editor to impose his own personal tastes on his readers!

Last September Rolfe wrote to me, that he was "trying to turn around a declining subscriber base for the Newsletter"[14]. Well he won't do that by serving up the "same old, same old" that his BSTS Newsletter readers have been reading for decades! Over 20 years ago Ian Wilson wrote of anti-authenticists:

"Indeed, if anyone had come up with a convincing solution as to how and by whom the Shroud was forged, they would inevitably have created a consensus around which everyone sceptical on the matter would rally. Yet so far this has not even begun to happen"[15].

But the same is true of pro-authenticists in their mutually exclusive explanations of how the 1st century Shroud has a 13th-14th century radiocarbon date. I maintain that my "radical" Revised Hacker Theory is the only theory that can create a consensus around which most, if not all, pro-authenticists can rally around!

For starters, mine is the only theory which explains the two most important facts: 1) why the very first radiocarbon dating run at Arizona was "1350," which was the most recent date of all, at all three laboratories [see above, 23Jun18 & 03Aug19]; and 2) why the combined average of all three laboratories' was 1325 ± 65, which `just happened' to be a mere 30 years before the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history in 1355 [see above, 20Mar19 & 29May19].

Notes
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided it includes a reference citing my name, its subject heading, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]
2. Joe Marino at "Shroud of Turin: The Controversial Intersection of Faith and Science Conference," October 9-12, 2014, Drury Plaza Hotel, St. Louis, Missouri. [return]
3. Marino, J.G., 2020, email to S.E. Jones and others, "Significant article in Winter 2019/2020 British Society for the Turin Shroud Newsletter," 19/01/20 4:47 am. [return]
4. S.E. Jones, 2020, email to Marino, J.G., and others, "Significant article...," 19/01/2020, 9:48 pm. [return]
5. S.E. Jones, 2020, email to Marino, J.G., "Significant article...," 20/01/2020, 9:54 am. [return]
6. Marino, J.G., 2020, email to S.E. Jones, "Significant article...," 20/01/2020, 10:25 am. [return]
7. S.E. Jones, 2020, email to Marino, J.G., "Significant article...," 24/01/2020, 8:51 pm. [return]
8. Marino, J.G., 2020, email to S.E. Jones, "Significant article...," 24/01/2020, 10:27 pm. [return]
9. Rolfe, D., 2019, "The Shroud of Turin ... A Grave Injustice," Beaconsfield UK. [return]
10. S.E. Jones, 2020, email to Marino, J.G., "Significant article...," 24/01/2020, 10:58 pm. [return]
11. Rolfe, D., 2020, email to S.E. Jones, "BSTS Newsletter," 20/01/2020, 7:46 am. [return]
12. S.E. Jones, 2020, email to Marino, J.G., "Significant article...," 29/01/2020, 8:23 am. [return]
13. S.E. Jones, 2020, email to Marino, J.G., "Significant article...," 30/01/2020, 5:11 am. [return]
14. Rolfe, D., 2019, email to S.E. Jones, "BSTS Newsletter," 12/09/2019, 11:57 pm. [return]
15. Wilson, I., 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, p.235). [return]

Posted: 14 February 2020. Updated: 22 February 2020.