Bury The Evidence

The Shroud of Turin is on display again. Many thousands are viewing it, including the Pope. If you're a Catholic, I don't know why you wouldn't be embarrassed to see so many venerate a fraud.

I've argued in the past about the Shroud, but mostly it's a waste of time. The evidence is clear, and has been for quite a while. It's not that different from, say, crop circles. They're easy enough to explain, but those who got involved on the other side had to puff them up and claim there are all sorts of mysterious properties that they've discovered, and can't be explained conventionally. Now imagine if millions were emotionally committed to believing in crop circles and you'd have something similar. (A scientific parallel might be N-rays, though not being in the supernatural realm, and never being quite that big, when they were exploded, perhaps it was easier for everyone to drop the subject.)

The real problem, and this happens with a lot of questionable claims, is there's no control. People know going in what is to be believed, and so have no trouble collectively coming up with as much "evidence" as they need, not to mention ways to discount absolutely any disagreement. It's too bad that we can't have some sort of blind test. Imagine if believers, individually, were presented with hundreds of shrouds, some that have adherents, some created by modern hoaxsters, but had no no idea which they were supposed to venerate. Not only would the vast majority not choose the Shroud of Turin (or any other), but would have no trouble coming up with all sorts of evidence to prove it isn't real. But as long as they know the answer in advance, they expend their energy trying to prove its authenticity (including many researchers coming up with a narrative where they claim (and probably believe) they approached the issue objectively, or, more likely, with great skepticism).