Comments on: Oh No! Fake Shroud of Turin?!

By: Oh No! Fake Shroud of Turin?! | Turin Travel - Culture and Recreation

Oh No! Fake Shroud of Turin?! | Turin Travel - Culture and Recreation — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:41:30 +0000

[...] You find the original post here http://www.reasonabledissen … | Carl [...]

By: Carl

Carl — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:03:30 +0000

That’s a pretty good justification, really. It seems like the vast majority of people actually just don’t really think about it, which keeps them in the rut that they were born into. You have earned 3 dissent points for making me rethink this in a new light!

(Disclaimer: Dissent points cannot be redeemed for anything, nor do I plan to keep track of them in the long run.)

By: Carl

Carl — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:09:53 +0000

Admittedly, I enjoy a good “I told you so” at least as much as anyone else. And I guess I’m nit outraged too much. I just don’t think this is the right subject to put resources into, since we already knew it was bogus and they won’t listen anway.

By: Powerfan5000

Powerfan5000 — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:04:28 +0000

I agree that the “true believers” are a lost cause, but showing people that there is a logical explanation for every miracle or super natural claim may convince some of those who are just beginning to see the logical inconsistencies in their own faith.

By: Carl

Carl — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:04:01 +0000

It’s a good point. I am a big proponent of research for its own sake. I remember in college how my professors had to fight for funding and explain how just because you can’t see the benefits directly it still is very important. Perhaps some good results will come out of this. And of course it is their money. I don’t mean to say that they shouldn’t be allowed to do this with it. I just think that the shroud of Turin is mostly insignificant to most of them as well as us. My opinion is that there are better targets. That’s all.

By: Crystal

Crystal — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:54:51 +0000

I agree that the dyed-in-the-wool Christians won’t care that he was able to recreate it, but is that any reason NOT to do it? Or is it really any reason for people NOT to say “Ha! I told you so!”? If all our actions are determined by who we can or cannot convince/convert, then nothing will ever get done.

Think about it this way – when Tiktaalik was discovered, did the scientific community really think that those creationists would sit up and say “Wow! We were totally wrong!”? No, of course not. Did that stop everyone from oohing and ahing about it? No. Did that stop everyone from saying “HA! We told you so, Creationists!”? No!

While everyone knows fundamentalists won’t budge from their stubborn beliefs, these things are still important, so of course the science and skeptic community will be talking about them. As for shoving it in Christians’ faces, it’s human nature to say “I told you so”.

By: Meeee

Meeee — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:29:54 +0000

It’s just how science works. People will research what they feel like researching, and trying to make them focus on something else won’t automatically come up with better results (I’m fairly sure Carl Sagan made this point far better than I can).

That said, this particular piece of research was aimed towards answering a very specific criticism: proponents of the original shroud claim(ed) that it was impossible to manufacture a fake using methods available to people at the time it was made. These researchers set out to determine whether or not it was possible, and it turns out that it is.

Who knows, maybe the results of this will have importance elsewhere. Maybe it’ll change how historians/archaeologists think about various relics they’ve found or something.