Dawkins Too Busy with the Crowd to Worship His Savior?

Are “Reason Rallies” more important than (empirical) science?

If for nothing else, this project makes a point…that the confidence in the explanatory power of modern empirical science esps (MES) espoused by Richard Dawkins remains limited. The shroud of Turin remains a mystery– that doesn't mean that there is no answer of course there is an answer–all knowledge, including that acquired by modern empirical science (MES) is based on the principle of sufficient reason…that every effect must have a cause. That is why This organization has offered 20,000 pounds for the person who can solve it. In the Aristotelaisn/Thomistic worldview, that cause includes more than the mere mechanical cause of a given effect. What is the mechanical explanation for the coming about of this piece of cloth with an image on it? Any ideas? From Deacon Nick:

David Rolfe, founder of the website Shroud enigma, has challenged Prof. Richard Dawkins to scientifically explain the image on the Shroud of Turin, and how it was created. If Prof. Dawkins succeeds in offering a provable scientific explanation for the creation of the image on the Shroud the Shroud enigma site will donate £20,000 to The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. 

David Rolfe’s challenge to Prof. Dawkins’ categorical statement:

‘“The new ‘evidence’ amounts to yet another ‘Argument from Personal Incredulity’: the Italian scientists cannot understand how it could have been faked. By contrast, the carbon-14 evidence that the shroud’s linen is much too young to be the shroud of Jesus is rock solid. Three independent labs, in Arizona, Zurich and Oxford, were each given four samples, making 12 datings in all”. 

David Rolfe issued the following challenge in an Open Letter to Richard Dawkins:

’29th March 2012

Dear Richard Dawkins

It is really not sufficient to dismiss the Shroud, as you do, on the basis of a C14 test from a single and badly selected sample area. Are you really saying that C14 has never made a mistake? Archaeologists frequently go back to retest something when other data conflicts. That has been impossible with the Shroud.

In your Shroud blog you argue, rightly in my view, that it is not enough for Christian apologists to weigh faith heavier than facts. After all, Christianity is based on a historical figure. The Shroud of Turin is a much-studied tangible object and it is a very significant fact that its unique image – so far – remains unfathomable. But that could be about to change if you, with the weight of your formidable foundation behind you, choose to accept this challenge.

When Professor Hall, Head of the Oxford Radio Carbon Unit announced the C14 result he was asked for his explanation for the Shroud. He said: “Someone just got a bit of linen, faked it up and flogged it”. This sounded a bit glib at the time and now, over twenty years on, it is beginning to sound a little hollow. No one has yet been able to show how it might have been “faked up”.
Thanks to the work of Professor Fanti it is now possible to take a scientific approach to such a task. He describes the criteria that must be satisfied to recreate it and it is published in a peer reviewed scientific journal.

Accepting this challenge would appear to be consistent with your foundation’s mission. Does it not represent a wonderful educational opportunity to investigate what some have suggested could only have been the work of a Leonardo Da Vinci? To make the decision easier for you we will donate the £20,000 to your foundation if you simply accept the challenge and follow it through to some kind of conclusion. The public can make up their own minds about the result.*

The challenge then, if you choose to accept it, is to explain how the Shroud and its image might have come into existence. If you cannot pin it down then, in all conscience, you should, at least, give it the appropriate respect as an enigma. If you can explain it then this site’s title becomes a misnomer and you will have solved a great
mystery.Everyone would like to see this matter resolved. Could you be the one to do it?

With all good wishes

David Rolfe
Publisher
Shroud-enigma.com

* This £20,000 donation is not made possible because championing the possible authenticity of the Shroud is well funded or lucrative operation – far from it – but because your acceptance would trigger a commission for a documentary along the lines of our 2008 BBC2 film with Rageh Omaar. If you wish, you could nominate an executive producer.

Protect the Pope comment: To meet this challenge Prof. Dawkins would have to explain a number of characteristics of the image on the Shroud that have so far eluded scientists, such as:

• The perfect anatomical details as testified by pathologists.
• The authentic historical details of a 1st century Roman crucifixion as testified by historians.
• The 3 dimensional information contained in the image as testified by experts in computer image analysis.

Three weeks into the challenge and nothing has been heard from Prof. Richard Dawkins.

Of course Dawkins will always use the escape hatch/emergency exit of “it is only a matter of time before science will be able to explain it.” Well Richard not only is there no scientific evidence for that claim (since it is a philosophical claim) but also, if “it's only a matter of time,” you can shorten that time, gain tremendous fame, be the hero of your fight against religion and be 20,000 pounds richer. Why don't you pull your resources together and do this for humanity! Disabuse us from the bonds of our irrational religious embrace!

The difficulty I see with this challenge is that it remains “pre-philosophical” and ignores the greater question: “Is metaphysical knowledge (knowledge beyond the empirical sciences) possible?” Despite the fact that Dawkins makes numerous claims which are not grounded in empirical science (for example that science will eventually explain everything (except this statement itself of course)).

For me (and I think Aristotle as well), its not so much a bet that he won't find a MES explanation (it would continue to give enormous credit to Christianity if he couldn't), its more the fact that he appears unwilling to take that risk. He is out parading around about the confidence he has in MES, all the while not even doing science. Dawkins remains more of a philosopher than he is a “scientist” of MES.