Talk:Walter McCrone

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[edit] Vinland map

Really now, James-- how can you mention the Vinland Map without noting McCrone's declaration of forgery has been discredited? I can only conclude you think criticisms of McCrone's work is something done by Shroudies alone. But the vindication of the Vinland Map was done by top scientists in the field and published in respected peer journals. I'll be back to correct this oversight. JDG 16:54, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Assuming that your basis for saying "discredited" is the Yale Daily News article, then you should take note of the scientists' views reported therein: McCrone says forgery, Olin disagrees, Clark concurs with McCrone, and Tully says the evidence isn't conclusive. That doesn't add up to "discredited" unless you start out wanting to disbelieve anything McCrone says.

As to the discussion of the matter here, I worded my reference very carefully. It doesn't say, "McCrone proved the Vinland map was a forgery." It says, "His microanalysis produced evidence that the ink of the Vinland map contained a substance not incorporated in ink until the twentieth century, from which he concluded that the map was a forgery." The McCrone analysis is certainly evidence for the stated conclusion. The substance he tested for (anatase) was, in fact, not incorporated into ink until modern times, although (if Olin is correct) anatase might have occurred in older inks (without having been deliberately incorporated) because it would be produced as a byproduct of the incorporation of vitoral. Finally, the article states only that McCrone concluded the map was a forgery -- not that he proved it.

The arguments and counterarguments about the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin and the Vinland map belong in those articles, not this one. You've already made sure that the criticisms leveled at McCrone concerning the Shroud are presented there. I think the article on the Vinland map would be improved if it had more detail about the different scientific points of view. Rehashing those arguments here is irrelevant clutter. JamesMLane 01:42, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, I guess predictably, I could hardly disagree more. My statement about the discrediting of McCrone's Vinland Map work was based on a number of articles, but you can see the validity of it in the Yale article alone. For starters, it was not Olin alone who found the amount of anatase in the map was far smaller than claimed by McCrone and that such trace amounts are often present in documents certified from the Renaissance and late Middle Ages-- she was basically acting as coordinator for a group of specialists working out of the Smithsonian, and they were all credited in their summary for the journal 'Analytical Chemistry'. Before this group, there was Thomas Cahill of the UofC, who was extremely critical of McCrone's findings and repeatedly expressed his astonishment that McCrone so confidently declared the map a forgery even though he'd had no prior experience with medieval documents. Even Tully, while tending to side with McCrone on the main issue of the map's authenticity, says " I don't see [the possibility of] a further study that is definitive", despite the fact that McCrone was categorical in stating his anatase finding _was_ definitive... In short, the consensus now is that McCrone's analysis was nothing like the conclusive answer McCrone claimed it was, and that fact certainly belongs in an article about McCrone himself. People will be coming to this article from the shroud and Vinland Map articles to check out this guy who made the most absolute statements about the empirical bases for rejecting the authenticity of those items. It is certainly relevant to expand here on the unusual amount and intensity of criticism his work on both has inspired, not from zealots and others with obvious agendas but from his fellow peer-reviewed scientists. JDG

Call me crazy, but I think that a reader who wants to know about the different arguments pro and con about the shroud or the map would go the article on that subject, not to this one. I see no evidence that McCrone's work has aroused an "unusual amount and intensity of criticism." It would be more accurate to say that these two subjects are controversial and that just about every scientist who's gotten involved in them has been criticized by someone else. I inserted a general statement that other scientists have disagreed with McCrone, but I think the exposition of their positions belongs in the other articles, not here. JamesMLane 07:24, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] McCrone and STURP

Mr. Lane apparently believes that the words "confiscated" and "unwelcome conclusions", without citing any source, constitutes an article written from a neutral point of view. You say "confiscated" as if 1) the slides "belonged" to Dr. McCrone, and not the scientific team as a whole, and 2) that the STURP team used Storm Troopers to wrest the slides from McCrone's kung-fu grip. You use the phrase "unwelcome conclusions" to suggest that the STURP team had an agenda to prove the Shroud of Turin was the shroud of Jesus' before any tests were ever done, and that our hero the Doctor saved us from these fanatics. These words are loaded words, and I will not accept this phrasing without outside sources. If you do not come up with a source to back these statements, I will change this wording again (though I'm expecting that Nickells and McCrone will be the sources used). I don't necessarily have a problem with the phrase used [though I don't personally agree with it, this opinion is out there, and certainly needs to be in an article on Dr. McCrone], just make sure that the reader knows what the source is. In addition, opposing views absolutely need to be placed in opposition to counter-opinions when those opinions exist. This is a controversial subject, as mentioned above, and, despite Mr. Lane's assertions that he "worded [this article] carefully", I was disgusted at the one-sidedness which was portrayed in the "Shroud of Turin" section (the Vinland Map section, while it needs improvement, was not as bad as the Shroud of Turin section).

If this counter-balance isn't achieved, I will fix it myself. For example, from Dr. Heller's point of view, it was McCrone who would not let him look at the slides which may or may not have contained "blood" on it; if any "confiscating" went on by the leadership of the STURP team, it was, according to this viewpoint, because McCrone wouldn't let Heller and Adler look at the slides which had been given to McCrone for study, slides which had been promised to Heller by Jackson and Rogers after McCrone was done with them.

Before concluding, I just want to reiterate that Mr. Lane wrote this article without any cites. I noticed that he managed to put some citing in after I made changes to his article which, in my opinion, was written from a non-neutral point of view. He doesn't even cite McCrone's findings of paint on the Shroud, a fact that I find very disturbing. As a matter of fact, as someone who is new to the Wikipedia, I would like feedback on better ways to quote sources, since footnotes apparently are discouraged. Do not ruin this great web site, which I am now absolutely fascinated by, with agendas. - T.J. Swartz

Citation of sources: Most Wikipedia articles are written without citations. You can click on "Random page" a dozen or so times and see how many citations you find. In the months since I created this article, I've moved toward including more citations. although even now I'm less likely to include citations for points that I don't think will be controversial. A correct report of McCrone's research and his opinion doesn't strike me as controversial. As far as I know, everyone agrees that McCrone considered the Shroud a medieval forgery.

On the particular points you raise, "confiscated" came from an article by Nickell in the Skeptical Inquirer, available here, which includes this paragraph:

STURP representatives paid a surprise visit to McCrone's lab to confiscate his samples, then gave them to two late additions to STURP, John Heller and Alan Adler, neither of whom was a forensic serologist or a pigment expert. The pair soon proclaimed they had "identified the presence of blood." However, at the 1983 conference of the prestigious International Association for Identification, forensic analyst John E Fischer explained how results similar to theirs could be obtained from tempera paint.

As for calling his conclusions "unwelcome" to STURP, I thought that point was obvious, since the STURP researchers were selected by the Church and most of them thought the Shroud to be authentic. It's like saying that Noam Chomsky's views would be unwelcome at the Republican National Convention, or Ann Coulter's at the Democratic National Convention. It's not intended as implying that one side was right, just that STURP's attitude toward McCrone was affected by his very public disagreement with his colleagues.

My comment that "I worded my reference very carefully" was with regard to the Vinland map issue, but the general principle applies to the Shroud as well. Nothing that I wrote says, "McCrone proved the Shroud to be a medieval forgery." Wikipedia shouldn't take a position on such a question. It's perfectly OK, however, to say "McCrone...concluded that..." because that's a factual report of his opinion.

Having reviewed the article as it stood a month ago, I have no qualms about anything I wrote. One specific criticism you make is: "Mr. Lane . . . doesn't even cite McCrone's findings of paint on the Shroud, a fact that I find very disturbing." To the contrary, what the article has said since its very inception is: "McCrone, upon analyzing the samples he had, concluded that the red stains that had been pointed to as blood were actually pigment -- specifically, red ochre and vermilion tempera paint." If by "doesn't even cite" you mean "doesn't even provide a citation for", then it's because it's an example of something not seriously disputed. (The correctness of McCrone's conclusion is disputed but the correctness of the statement in our article, namely that he came to that conclusion, is not disputed.) A citation would certainly be valuable to a reader who wants more detail on the subject, though, so I'd have no objection to the addition of a citation.

That's an example of how the article, although not biased (in my biased opinion), isn't definitive. There's certainly more that could be written about McCrone. You'll note that, for all your denunciation of my alleged "one-sidedness", I didn't try to remove the anti-McCrone material you inserted. I thought that your phrasing was biased, given that you never even let McCrone's point of view have so much as a sentence to itself without being criticized, as if you didn't trust the reader to continue past a period. I tried to make the presentation more neutral in tone but I didn't remove anything of substance. This is typical of Wikipedia articles -- they're always in a state of flux, always subject to being improved by someone else who comes along and sees additions or corrections that should be made.

Your general question about citing sources is a good one. My understanding is that a software change to facilitate footnoting is under consideration. Until then, one method often used is an in-text hyperlink, with the URL enclosed in single brackets so that it appears only as a number, leaving the page less cluttered. I've done a lot of editing of the George W. Bush article, where quite a few statements get this treatment because the subject matter is so inherently controversial. (I just checked it now and found 64 sequentially numbered links.) On the other hand, many articles on scientific subjects follow APA style, under which reference might be referred to in text as "Heller 1980" or the like, with full bibliographic information in a separate section at the end. I had some discussion of this at Talk:Rofecoxib with an editor who was used to the APA style. JamesMLane 16:46, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

While I don't have time right now to dispute every subject you brought up which I disagree with, I will start with this one: You say that the word "confiscate" came from an article in the "Skeptical Inquirer" by Joe Nickell. Could we not, then, come to an agreement by putting the word "confiscate" in quotes, at least acknowledging that this wording is based in opinion, and then maybe citing it?

While I understand that most articles I have read so far do not contain citations, or not very many, that does not mean that we should be lazy in citing sources. Citations only make articles more sound. This is what Wikipedia has to say on the subject:

Cite sources (citation): provide references that help the reader to check the veracity of the article and to find more information. Good citations are critical to help make Wikipedia trusted and useful.

If you consult an external source while writing an article, citing it is basic intellectual honesty. More than that, you should actively search for authoritative references to cite. If you are writing from your own knowledge, then you should know enough to identify good references that the reader can consult on the subject—you won't be around forever to answer questions. (Also, this forces you to check your facts, and you might find that you don't know everything.) The main point is to help the reader—cite whatever you think will be most helpful.

This applies when writing about opinions, as well—beware the temptation to write weasel phrases like, "Some people say..." Who said it, and where and when? (Remember that Wikipedia is not for your opinions or for original research.)'

I am not advocating that every sentence needs to have a citation after it. That is what I believe these Talk pages should be for, to discuss where they might be helpful (at least that should be one purpose of the Talk pages).

If the phrasing appears opinionated, cite where you got the information; if other, differing opinions exist, counterbalance the statement by pointing out that there is disagreement on this particular subject. However, I think that this sometimes adds to needless clutter to an article, which is why I deleted the whole phrase to begin with. It seems a bit petty to have the internal struggles of STURP in a Wikipedia article on Dr. McCrone. After all, as far as I know, the slides which were given to Dr. McCrone to analyze were not given to him to keep. Joe Nickell says they were confiscated, Raymond Rogers (or was it Jackson?) says that they went to Chicago to get the slides they had given to him because he was not going to be able to show up at their next conference on the Shroud (I'm relaying this information from memory, so forgive any details I might have left out). Unless you have an article or some other source which says that the slides were not rightfully taken from Dr. McCrone ("confiscated", in this context, implies, to me, that the object in question was taken from the subject without their consent and without legitimate authorization), we have to assume that they "belonged" to the scientific team as a whole. If requests were made to Dr. McCrone for the slides, as the opposing opinion claims, and he would not provide them, why would it be out of line for Rogers and Jackson to go to Chicago and "confiscate" them for their conference? Is that really "confiscating"? If I give you something to analyze, and you don't give it back, and then I go and get it from you, is that "confiscating"? Besides, who knows who is right? And does it really matter? Don't these seem like petty questions? That is my problem with the disputed sentence.

According to your bio, you are an attorney, Mr. Lane; you, of all people, should know the power of words, and that you need to be careful and truthful in employing them. The way it stands right now, I simply don't like what the disputed pharse is insinuating, which is that the STURP team did not have a right to take back the slides, and that they wanted the slides back for the sole reason that they needed to cover up what Dr. McCrone had found. There simply is no agreement on that; in addition, I don't think that the word "confiscating" accurately reflects all opinions on the subject. What I suggest is this; the phrase should go. In the alternative, put quotes around "confiscating", cite the source, and cite Rogers or Jackson, or anyone else who would probably take umbrage at your choice of words, from their own writings. We are not writing a closing argument here; this is supposed to be an encyclopedia article. Again, either the phrase should be corrected or eliminated, in my opinion.

This is what I believe it means to write an article from a neutral point of view. Don't say "I thought the point was obvious, therefore, I didn't cite it", because other people coming to this page will not know of its "obviousness". THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF CITATIONS. I will write more later on my supposed "anti-McCrone" opinions, which, of course, aren't my "opinions", but actual quotes from McCrone's own book (with regards, anyways, to the contents of the letters which criticized him). Actually, I would like feedback on a better way to cite them, since the quotes come from McCrone's writings, and not Heller's. - T.J. Swartz

Since Mr. Lane has not attempted to edit this article in a way that is agreeable to both sides of the argument, I have taken the easier route stated above and eliminated the disputed sentence. After further consideration, I just don't feel that the sentence belongs in an encyclopaedia article. I feel that this edit makes the aritcle more "scholarly" and neutral without any fights over counter-balancing the statement. Any future attempts to edit this article to its previous form will be edited back. - T.J. Swartz

This is a problem with a volunteer project -- I saw your earlier comment but hadn't yet gotten around to revisiting this article or the talk page. (Wikipedia has too many distractions.) I see more importance to the relationship between McCrone and STURP than you do. Nickell's use of the word "confiscated" didn't suggest to me that he was charging STURP with a theft in violation of the law, but rather (in the context of his phrase "surprise visit") that STURP took back the samples earlier than it would have if McCrone had backed its agenda of a pro-authenticity report. Documenting exactly what went on would be a useful addition to the McCrone article. As you say, such an addition would have to give all sides of the story.

Until someone has time to do that, I can live with removing the word that bothers you. From Nickell's article, however, I do think that we should report his response to Heller and Adler, again in the interest of giving both sides of the story. It's also worth noting that McCrone adhered to his opinion even after the Heller/Adler paper.

I'm still not clear on these quotations you added. The way the paragraph reads now, any reader would conclude that the terms like "pontifications" were used by Heller, not by McCrone. If that's not accurate, it needs to be rewritten.

With all these recent additions of material by and about Heller and Adler, the Shroud section of this article has become longer. It's inevitable, I suppose, that a highly publicized issue like the Shroud will tend to overshadow the rest of McCrone's life and work. Nevertheless, to try to put it in perspective, I've organized the article with headings.

Similarly, I've added headings to this talk page, to make life easier for the reader as the page grows. If you feel that having your original comment placed under the heading "McCrone and STURP" is inappropriate, please feel free to reword the heading. I don't want to put your comment in a false light; I just want to give some organization to the page. JamesMLane 18:21, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Finally, I've reached an agreement with you. As noted above, I had a problem (at least, in my mind) of putting the quotations from McCrone's book in the article. While these quotes come from Dr. McCrone's book Judgment Day For the Shroud of Turin, they have the potential for being very prejudicial for the neutral reader. But, the problem I was facing was that the preceding sentence, "drummed out", was in quotes. I didn't know how to best approach the addition, nor do I know how as of right now. My opinion on the sentence:

I DO NOT LIKE IT

What I do like, is feedback. In addition, I'm thinking of doing a seperate article on the "blood" on the Shroud. I'm going to call it "Shroud of Turin: Blood", and I would really like it if Mr. Lane backed me, and, for lack of a better term, "vetted" me on this article (Since he is the only one that really reads this article, along with me). While I am treating this as if there are only two individuals in the world who care about this, I am desperate for ANYONE'S feedback.

About this sentence: "I'm still not clear on these quotations you added. The way the paragraph reads now, any reader would conclude that the terms like "pontifications" were used by Dr. Heller, not by Dr. McCrone. If that's not accurate, it needs to be rewritten." As I have noted above, these are not words used by Dr. Heller, but come from Dr. McCrone's book. My logic goes like this: In Dr. Heller's book, "Report on the Shroud of Turin", he says that Dr. McCrone had "submitted two papers for peer review...The reviews [of the STURP team] were, as always, rigorous, and they pulled no punches. McCrone, feeling insulted, resigned" (Heller, p. 184). In Dr. McCrone's book, he speaks of the contents of the letter (the reviews), which I have in the article. How do I cite the sentence? Sorry, but I'm not on Law Review. I definitely need help in this area. - T.J. Swartz