The aggrandizement of scientific data in the media: The Shroud of Turin blood marks as a case example

The Shroud of Turin is a fourteen-foot-long cloth bearing the life size image of a man with blood marks and has been heralded as the most scientifically studied archaeological artifact in human history. The Shroud has been proclaimed to be either the actual burial cloth of the historical Jesus of Nazareth or a cunning medieval forgery. In several recent television programs that received widespread international media attention, a “Shroud expert” made the claims that the blood on the Shroud has been demonstrated to be human, male, and type AB, and was identified as Semitic. Additionally, it was reported that high levels of ferritin and creatine, indicative of polytrauma, had been found on the cloth and that premortem and postmortem blood had been identified. Discussed below is a scientific fact check about such characteristics of the blood on the Shroud of Turin and the capabilities and limitations of the techniques used in these investigations.