My Hacker Theory in a nutshell (3) #38
This is the fourteenth installment of "My Hacker Theory in a nutshell (3)," part #38 of my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia. See Part 1 for more information about this 5-part series.
[Index #1] [Previous: My Hacker Theory (2) #37] [Next: My Hacker Theory (4) #39].
■ Other Shroudie explanations don't work[see 24May14, 08Dec14 & 23Jul15].
[Above (enlarge: Drawing of the approximately 1.2 cm x 8 cm sample area, from A1 (Arizona 1), O (Oxford), Z (Zurich) to A (Arizona), with a photo of the Shroud sample superimposed over the drawing on the bottom right hand side[13Jun14; 11Feb15; 18Nov15]. Clearly there can be no significant difference between samples in such a tiny area, if the radiocarbon dates were real and not generated by a hacker's program[11Feb15; 28Jan25]!
We have seen in Part 1 and Part 2 that there is both historical and artistic evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the Shroud is at least 716 years older than its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date. So the 1260-1390 (=325 ± 65) radiocarbon date of the Shroud cannot be correct. But shroudies are under no obligation to explain how the first century Shroud has a 1325 ± 65 radiocarbon date, as the agnostic art historian and Shroudie Thomas de Wesselow (1971-) pointed out:
"Contamination, reweaving or fraud: three potential sources of error, any one of which could have caused the incorrect carbon dating of the Shroud. But can we legitimately reject the carbon-dating result without determining exactly what went wrong? Of course we can. Archaeologists routinely dismiss 'rogue' radiocarbon dates out of hand. The success of a carbon-dating result should never be declared unilaterally; it is always measured against other evidence. The 1988 test may therefore be declared null and void, even though, without further direct study of the Shroud, it is unlikely we will ever be able to say definitively what went wrong"[14Feb14; 22Feb14]Having said that, as I have shown in my previous Hacking Theory series': 18Feb14; 24May14; 23Jul15 & 23Jan17, it is my theory that the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud was the result of a computer hacking. I therefore need to show that other Shroudie explanations why the first century Shroud has a 1325 ± 65 radiocarbon date are wrong[08Jun14; 11 Jun16].
Apart from "Sample Switch," (see future) all shroudie attempts to explain why the first-century Shroud has a 1325 ± 65 years radiocarbon date:
• Accept the 1260-1390 date and attempt to reconcile the 1st century Shroud with it[19Apr17].
• Claim that new carbon-14 shifted the first century Shroud's radiocarbon date 13 centuries into the future to the `bull's eye' date 1325 ± 65 years[09May17].
• Don't explain why the Shroud's radiocarbon date is 1325 ± 65.
• Ignore that it would be a miracle if new carbon shifted the Shroud's 1st century radiocarbon date ~13 centuries into future to the `bull's eye' date, 1325 ± 65[30May14; 26Oct14; 08Dec14; 24May14; 23Jul15; 18Aug15; 19Apr17; 09May17].
• Are mutually exclusive: they all can't be right but they all can be wrong!
■ Neutron flux [20Jan25a]. This was the first attempt to explain why the 1st century Shroud could have a 1260-1390 radiocarbon date, by Harvard physicist Thomas J. Phillips and it was actually in the same 16 February 1989 Nature issue as the 1260-1390 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud article[08Dec14; 23Jul15]. In a letter to Nature Phillips wrote:
"If the shroud of Turin is in fact the burial cloth of Christ, contrary to its recent carbon-dated age of about 670 years (Nature 335, 663; 1988 and 337, 611; 1989), then according to the Bible it was present at a unique physical event: the resurrection of a dead body. Unfortunately, this event is not accessible to direct scientific scrutiny, but the image on the shroud, which still cannot be duplicated, appears to be a scorch, indicating that the body radiated light and/or heat. It may also have radiated neutrons, which would have irradiated the shroud and changed some of the nuclei to different isotopes by neutron capture. In particular, some 14C could have been generated from 13C. If we assume that the shroud is 1,950 years old and that the neutrons were emitted thermally, then an integrated flux of 2 x 1016 neutrons cm-2 would have converted enough 13C to 14C to give an apparent carbon-dated age of 670 years"[PT89].As far as I am aware, Phillips was not a Shroudie, although he knew the Shroudman's image "cannot be duplicated, [and] appears to be a scorch," and presumably is a Christian. But as pointed out by Oxford laboratory's Robert Hedges (1944-), "Phillips ... has not included the neutron capture by nitrogen in the cloth"[HR89, 08Dec14]. This shows that Phillips knew little about radiocarbon dating. While the conversion of carbon-13 with its 7 neutrons to carbon-14 with its 8 neutrons would appear to be simpler, carbon-13 is rare, comprising only about 1.1% of all carbon on Earth, so there would not be enough carbon-13 in the Shroud's linen to convert to carbon-14 and affect the Shroud's radiocarbon date. Nitrogen-14 (ordinary nitrogen), also with 7 neutrons, is far more abundant, comprising about 78% of Earth's atmosphere. Almost all carbon-14 is created in the upper atmosphere by neutrons colliding with atoms of nitrogen-14. So neutron flux theorists claim that it was the nitrogen-14 in the Shroud's air spaces (since there is no nitrogen in cellulose see below) that was converted to carbon-14 and accounts for the first-century Shroud's 1260-1390 radiocarbon date[20Jan25b].
Problems of the Neutron Flux Theory (NFT) include: • No mechanism "No plausible physical mechanism has been proposed to explain how the resurrection was accompanied by a significant neutron flux"[HR89]. • Amazing coincidence "it is an amazing coincidence that the neutron dose should be so exactly appropriate to give the most likely date on historical grounds [1355]"[HR89; 09Jan14; 08Dec14]. • Fine-tuned "To produce a date within 100 years of the first recorded history of the shroud [1355] implies that the dose has been `fine-tuned' to better than one part in a hundred million"[HR89, 08Dec14]. • Distance from image "samples taken much nearer to the image ... would have given a carbon date even more recent than the historic age"[GH96, 300, 08Dec14]. • No Biblical support. While there is Biblical support for the Light Radiation Theory (see 25Oct24), there is none for the NFT[20Jan25c]. • Source was Jesus' body According to the NFT, the source of the neutron flux was Jesus' body. The loss of normal oxygen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus atoms (to mention the most numerous) would be incompatible with human life. And it would not be a valid explanation that it didn't matter if Jesus' resurrection body was not viable as a human body because the risen Jesus impressed on his disciples that his resurrection body was still a human body (Lk 24:39; Jn 20:19-20; 26-27). The Council of Chalcedon (451), ruled that Jesus was "perfect in manhood", but a risen Jesus with a great many of his neutrons missing, would not be perfect in manhood! [20Jan25d] • No nitrogen in cellulose There is no nitrogen in cellulose which comprises the Shroud's linen (see below). The NFT therefore claims that the nitrogen in the Shroud's air spaces was
[Right (enlarge): Cellulose molecular structure [CDL]. As can be seen, cellulose (C6H10O5), consists only of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen in repeating molecular chains.]
converted to carbon-14 by a neutron flux generated by Jesus' resurrection. But the carbon-14 in the Shroud's air spaces would not become part the Shroud's cellulose fibres and so could not change the Shroud's radiocarbon date[20Jan25e]. • Would add neutrons to cellulose atoms The same neutron flux which the NFT claims would add a neutron to an atom of nitrogen-14 in the Shroud's air spaces and convert it to an atom of carbon-14, would also add neutrons to atoms in the Shroud's cellulose fibre molecules. The likely effect on a cellulose molecule's chemical bonds would be the disintegration of that molecule. In which case the Shroud fabric would likely have disintegrated in the first century[20Jan25f]! • Would have killed the guards at the tomb A neutron flux strong enough to convert enough nitrogen-14 to carbon-14, to shift the Shroud's first-century radiocarbon date ~thirteen centuries into the future to 1325 ± 65 would have killed the guards stationed outside the tomb (Mt 27:65-66), by Neutron Activation. But the guards were alive when an angel descended to roll back the large stone across the entrance of the tomb and announce to Jesus' women disciples who had come to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body (Mt 28:1; Mk 16:1; Lk 23:55-24:1; Jn 20:1), that Jesus had been resurrected (Mt 28:1-6; Mk 16:1-6; Lk 24:1-6). The guards "became like dead men" (Mt 28:1-4) and after the women had left the tomb, the guards recovered and some of them went into Jerusalem and told the chief priests "all that had taken place" (Mt 28:11-13). The guards were unaware until the angel's announcement that Jesus had been resurrected inside the tomb, and so they had not heard, nor felt, any neutron flux from inside the tomb, which they surely would have, if they were not killed by it! So there was no neutron flux inside Jesus' tomb! [20Jan25g]. • Would have killed the disciples who went inside the tomb A neutron flux in Jesus' tomb would leave residual radiation which would have killed the women disciples, and the Apostles Peter and John, who went into the tomb soon after Jesus' resurrection (Mt 28:1-6; Mk 16:1-6; Lk 23:56-24:3; Jn 20:1-8). Yet one of the women, Mary Magdalene, ran from the tomb to tell Peter and John that Jesus' body was not in it (Jn 20:1-2). And Peter and John were still alive and well 2-3 years later when in Acts 8:14 they were together sent by the Jerusalem church to minister to the new Christian converts in Samaria! So again there was no neutron flux inside Jesus' tomb! [20Jan25h]. • Does not explain the Shroud's 1260-1390 radiocarbon date Finally, the NFT does not explain why a neutron flux from Jesus' resurrection converted nitrogen-14 in the Shroud to carbon-14, which `just happened’ to shift the first century radiocarbon date of the Shroud thirteen centuries into the future, to the `bull's eye’ 1325 +/- 65 years radiocarbon date! Which `just happens' to be exactly 30 years before the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history at Lirey, France, in 1355! As the physicist Frank Tipler (1947-) pointed out, 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"[TF07, 178]. But that is what the NFT is either claiming, or ignoring. Only my Hacker Theory (and Tipler's Supernatural Deceptive Miracle by God Theory) explains that! [20Jan25i].
■ Carbon contamination • Explains why the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud cannot be correct Irremovable contamination of the Shroud's linen with younger carbon explains why the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud cannot be correct: "Although pre-treatment, involving cleaning of materials to be carbon dated, is standard procedure, and was certainly carried out with maximum possible thoroughness in the case of the shroud samples, doubts surround the extent to which this procedure can ever be 100 per cent effective ..."[12Feb08a]; "... the Shroud `provides an almost copy-book case of an object seriously unsuitable for carbon-dating,' having even in its `universally accepted history subsequent to the mid-fourteenth century' been `subjected to centuries of smoke from burning candles,' `involved in a serious fire in 1532,' and having a `backing made up from ... holland cloth' which `has now been in the closest contact with the shroud for over four hundred and fifty years"[12Feb08b] and "In [the]1532 ... fire ... moisture in the Shroud would turn to steam ... contaminants on the cloth would be dissolved by the steam and forced ... into the flax fibres' very lumen and molecular structure ... contaminants would have become part of the chemistry of the flax fibres themselves and would be impossible to remove ..."[08Jun14]. • Does not explain why the 1st century Shroud has a 1260-1390 radiocarbon date Prof. Harry Gove (1922-2009) asked "How much organic carbon contamination was required to change 0 AD to 1325 AD" and "The answer ... was that ... 79% of the shroud would have been composed of such carbon contamination and only 21% would have been actual carbon from the shroud linen" but that "is preposterous"[24May14, 08Dec14 & 23Jul15]. Oxford's Prof. Edward Hall (1924–2001), stated that "modern contamination amounting to 65 per cent of the mass of the shroud would be necessary to give a date of 1350 to a fabric originally dating from the time of Christ" but "any such contamination would have been less than 0.1 per cent"[24May14; 08Dec14 & 23Jul15]. In fact Arizona laboratory still has part of its Shroud sample as it came from Turin, uncleaned and undated, and it has "no evidence for either coatings or dyes, and only minor contaminants"[08Dec14](see below).
[Left (enlarge): Photomicrograph by Shroudie Barrie Schwortz (1946-2024) in 2012 of Arizona laboratory's remaining undated part of its Shroud sample (presumably "A1" above), as it came cut from the Shroud, with no pretreatment[08Dec14]. As can be seen, it has no obvious contamination or foreign fibres, whereas, if the Shroud were first century (which it is) and subsequent contamination produced the fourteenth century radiocarbon date, then this sample would have to be two thirds shroud and one third contamination (my emphasis)[13Jun14].]
This applies to all forms of contamination of the Shroud by younger carbon (including the "Bioplastic Coating" and "Medieval Repair" theories-see future) as an explanation of the first century Shroud's 1325 ± 65 radiocarbon date.
■ Bioplastic coating [24May15; 21Mar23; 04Jun24] Dr Leoncio-Garza-Valdes (1939-2010) was a pediatrician in San Antonio, Texas[24May15] and a professor of microbiology at the University of Texas, San Antonio[21Mar23]. Garza-Valdes had a particular interest in the jade artifacts of the Mayan civilisation of Central America [29Jul08] between AD 200 and 900 [21Mar23]. In 1970 Garza-Valdes bought two Mayan jade artifacts because of their lustre, but two Mayan jade experts told him that they were fakes because of their lustre and because their provenance was unknown[GV98, 15]! So evidently Garza-Valdes' "bioplastic coating" was unknown to Mayan jade experts, and still is: a search for "bioplastic coating Mayan jade" without the quotes returned no hits from science journals. In 1983 Garza-Valdes conducted his own tests on the two artifacts and on one, the Itzamna Tun, he found "millions of blue-green ... bacteria ... and also some fungi ..." (my emphasis)[GV98, 16]. And "because the gloss was formed by bacteria" Garza-Valdes "called it a `bioplastic coating'" (my emphasis)[GV98, 16]. Chemically it was a polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA)[GV98, 16], a member of a group of biodegradable plastics that are produced by microorganisms[PHW]. Garza-Valdes claimed that tests at the "Santa Rosa Hospital" and at "the medical examiner's office in San Antonio" detected blood: "definitely blood, definitely ancient and definitely of human origin"[GV98, 16]. Here is an example of Garza-Valdes' capacity for self-delusion: what he wants to be true he thinks is true! It is actually very difficult to prove that suspected ancient blood really is blood, let alone that it is human blood. The 1973 Turin Commission of experts failed to prove that the bloodstains on the Shroud were blood[16Apr22]. Heller and Adler[08Dec22] and Baima Bollone[0Dec22] did in the 1980s prove the Shroud's bloodstains were real, human, blood, but with very sophisticated equipment and their specialist expertise. If Garza-Valdes, with no specialist expertise, detected blood on his jade artifact at a hospital and medical examiner's office then it could not have been ancient blood but would have been painted on it to make his fake artifact appear to be genuine! In 1991, to prove its wasn't a fake, Garza-Valdes, had his Itzamna Tun Mayan jade artifact radiocarbon dated by Arizona radiocarbon dating laboratory, and it returned a radiocarbon date of 1535 ±240 years, which was a range from AD 240-690[21Mar23]. While this was within the range of the Mayan culture which flourished between AD 200-900, Garza-Valdes felt that the dating was too recent and that his Mayan jade artifacts were "several centuries older"[21Mar23]. This raises the questions: 1) what was radiocarbon dated? and 2) was the artifact's "bioplastic coating" destroyed? Since jade is an inorganic mineral, it has no radiocarbon date. So a jade artifact's radiocarbon date would be the date of all carbon additions and substractions which had accumulated on its surface during its existence! Which would make its radiocarbon date meaningless. In normal radiocarbon dating the artifact is pretreated to clean away any accumulated non-original carbon, but it the case of Garza-Valdes' Itzamna Tun jade artifact, it was its accumulated non-original carbon which was radiocarbon dated! Garza-Valdes took his Itzamna Tun jade artifact (not a sample from it) to Prof. Timothy Jull (1951-), the Director of Arizona laboratory, who was involved in the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud[GV98, 18]. So presumably the process of radiocarbon dating the Itzamna Tun jade artifact destroyed the evidence of its bioplastic coating!
In 1987 Garza-Valdes organised a symposium in San Antonio, entitled "Scientific Perspectives on the Problems of Art and Artifact Origins"[GV98, 20]. He invited Adler to give a paper on his work on the Shroud, which he did[GV98, 20]. During the symposium Garza-Valdes told Adler of his research on the blood on his Mayan artifacts[GV98, 21]. Garza-Valdes had read Heller's 1983 book, "Report on the Shroud of Turin" and claimed that the photographs in it "displayed a coating"[GV98, 20]. I have Heller's book in front of me and none of its photographs display a coating! This raises the point that when Garza-Valdes, or someone who agrees with him, looks at a Shroud photograph, he/she sees a bioplastic coating. But if someone doesn't see the coating, it's because it is invisible!:
"Inevitably the greatest difficulty, however, concerns why, if the Shroud's fibres do indeed have so substantial a coating, this has failed hitherto to be noticed either by the STURP scientists in the course of their examination of the Shroud in 1978, or by Dr McCrone in his microanalytical work, or by the radiocarbon-dating scientists, during their preliminary examinations of their samples prior to carrying out the radiocarbon dating in 1988. ... To this, Dr Garza-Valdès has totally calmly and reasonedly [sic] responded that unless you knew the coating was there, you simply would not see it, or be aware of its presence. Since it resembles a clear plastic, you would look through it without seeing it, very much in the manner of a pane of glass"[WI98, 310]Apart from its `heads I win, tails you lose' argument, it is actually false that under a microscope polyhydroxyalkanoates "resemble... a clear plastic ... [or] a pane of glass" (see below)
[Above (enlarge): Polyhydroxyalkanoates under a microscope, with high magnification, resemble granules[MS25]! There is no way that the 1973 Turin Commission could have missed this, as they "cut their specimens into slices down to one twenty thousandth of a millimeter thick" and examined them with "The optical microscope" and "the electron microscope" and they saw "bacterial and other organic spores and debris, but these, of course, were only to be expected on material so many centuries old"[26Jul24] (my emphasis). Let alone STURP in 1978 with its battery of microscopic, spectroscopic and chemical tests of the Shroud.]
In 1983 Adler sent Garza-Valdes a broken STURP glass slide with a blood sample from the Shroud's left hand and 6 microfibrils[GV98, 21]. Looking through a microscope Garza-Valdes deluded himself that "the blood itself had been completely replaced by fungi and bacteria"[GV98, 21]! Garza-Valdes ignored what Heller had written on page 215-216 of his book. At STURP's final public meeting in October 1981:
"Adler was asked how he could answer McCrone's claim that there was no blood, but merely a mixture of red tocher and vermilion. Adler flashed on the screen the following table from our paper. Table 5 Tests confirming the presence of whole blood on the Shroud 1. High iron in blood areas by X-ray fluorescence 2. Indicative reflection spectra 3. Indicative microspectrophotometric transmission spectra 4. Chemical generation of characteristic porphyrin fluorescence 5. Positive hemochromogen tests 6. Positive cyanomethemoglobin tests 7. Positive detection of bile pigments 8. Positive demonstration of protein 9. Positive indication of albumin 10. Protease tests, leaving no residue 11. Positive immunological test for human albumin 12. Microscopic appearance as compared with appropriate controls 13. Forensic judgment of the appearance of the various wound and blood marks Then, after explaining each item briefly, Al said, `That means that the red stuff on the Shroud is emphatically, and without any reservation, nothing else but B-L-O-O-D!'"[08Oct09].To be continued in the fifteenth installment 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. [return]
BibliographyGV98. Garza-Valdes, L.A., 1998, "The DNA of God?," Hodder & Stoughton: London.
GH96. Gove, H.E., 1996, "Relic, Icon or Hoax?: Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud," Institute of Physics Publishing: Bristol UK.
HR89. Hedges, R.E.M., 1989, "Hedges replies," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February, 594.
PT89. Phillips, T.J., 1989, "Shroud irradiated with neutrons?," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February, 594.
. "Polyhydroxyalkanoates," Wikipedia, 2 March 2025.
MS25. “Material Summary – PHA Plastic (Polyhydroxyalkanoates)," Supply Club, 2025.
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.
TF07. Tipler, F.J., 2007, "The Physics of Christianity," Doubleday: New York NY.
WI98. Wilson, I., 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY.
Posted 28 February 2025. Updated 14 March 2025.
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