Eucharistic Miracles and Raw Data

In Christ we trust. All others bring data.

This is the fourth in the series in the “Eucharistic Miracle Data Problems” project that began with this article, “Exaggeration and Eucharistic Miracles” at Crisis Magazine. This post is about the criticality of raw data in the investigative reports.

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Raw Data in Science

Before I get into specific criticisms of the Eucharistic miracle investigations, I thought it would be useful to elaborate on the single concern that runs through all the cases, particularly the newer ones (Buenos Aires, Tixtla, and Sokółka). It’s the raw data, or rather the lack of it. Why is raw data important?

Raw data is the unprocessed, original observations or measurements collected during experiments before any analysis or manipulation. It includes measurements, instrument readings, settings, and conditions. Raw data also includes details about methodology, such as microscope or other instrument types and capabilities, sample preparation, experimental design and rationale, reagent lists and manufacturers, and genetic information. The communication of raw data ensures transparency in science and enables other scientists to verify and replicate results. In turn, such peer oversight facilitates error detection, improves analyses, and ultimately saves money and time in research.

When I was in graduate school, chemistry researchers were required to record their activities and results in institution-issued notebooks and initial each page, doodles, cuss words, and all. Those records are left behind when the student graduates with a doctoral degree. The institution owns them. When I published in scientific journals, the first draft always came back with recommendations from anonymous experts in the field for new experiments to verify the findings. Raw data is essential for scientific integrity and reproducibility.

Why It's Different from Primary Sources

In the last post I brought up a statement made by Fr. Terry Donahue (on Matt Fradd’s podcast) that we should always seek primary sources when researching the narratives of Eucharistic miracles. Of primary sources, he said: “If you don’t have the document in your hands, I would hesitate to use it in apologetics.” I said it’s more than that in science. Primary sources are not enough.

I used that example (and sorry to pick on you, Fr. Donahue) to tie it to this post because raw data is something I think non-scientists do not appreciate. Raw data and primary sources are not the same thing. If you are writing about St. Thomas Aquinas and his treatise on the virtues, for example, then yes, you need to reference his original work as well as any secondary commentaries on the original work. It is poor scholarship to wage opinions without citing sources. Why is raw data different from primary sources? Because science is empirical.

Scientific proof relies on empirical evidence, experimental data, and reproducible results to establish objective facts about the natural world using the scientific method. Science is based on measurable, testable phenomena and falsifiability. Scientific proof seeks to test hypotheses with observable experiments.

Philosophical proof uses logical reasoning, arguments, and conceptual analysis to address abstract questions about existence, ethics, or knowledge, and it does not rely on empirical testing. Philosophical proof aims to establish truth through deductive or inductive reasoning, going beyond physical measurement.

In philosophical proofs, the writing and reasoning are the raw data, if you will, but since science depends on our senses to take in data to process abstractly, it must be underpinned by the data from experiment.

I have noticed that non-scientists often argue that the ‘raw data’ is available for the Eucharistic miracle investigations, but what they really mean is that a report or statement from a scientist or lab was shared as evidence. “Dr. So-and-So said this is living heart tissue.” “Forensic Lab Such-and-Such said the blood type is AB.” “The lack of paternal DNA is proof of divine origin.” And so on. For example, I explained the situation with the claim that all Eucharistic miracles investigated test positive for type AB blood. This belief is based on a statement not raw data, and the ones making the statement are journalists, philosophers, theologians, and admittedly medical professionals who ought to know better.

As a brief aside here, I am going to come back to this point in a future post. I do not think forensic labs or medical doctors, even cardiologists, are the right scientists to be analyzing Eucharistic phenomena. Shelve that thought for now.

What would the raw data reveal that the report does not? I already gave the answer above—to ensure transparency and enable other scientists to verify and replicate results, detect errors, improve analyses, and saves resources, all essential for scientific integrity and reproducibility. If someone asks, “How was the AB testing done?” or “Did you check for bacterial antigens known to be genetically the same as human antigens?” or “What did the control experiments reveal?” or “How repeatable were your results?” then that person can find answers. Without raw data, we simply have a person or group of persons making unsupported statements. That’s a no-no in science. It’s why data is so important.

You may have heard of the reproducibility crisis in scientific publishing. It’s about raw data. People lose faith in science when data is not sufficiently shared.

Why This Applies to Eucharistic Miracles

Eucharistic miracles are extraordinary claims. If you are Catholic, try to pretend you’re not {shudder} and imagine how strange transubstantiation sounds. Bread (the Host) and wine (in the Chalice) made by human hands becomes the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ at the moment the priest pronounces the words of consecration. “This is my Body.” We think deeply about this revelation. We believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist because Christ said so. It is the purest and simplest act of faith for Catholics.

If you are not Catholic, you probably expect a claim that a Host turned into observable, measurable human, and living heart tissue or that the contents of the Chalice turned into observable, measurable, and living human blood of type AB to be thoroughly verified by scientists making that claim. As you should.

To repeat: Eucharistic miracles are extraordinary claims.

If I were the scientist in charge of the investigation, there’s no freaking way I would utter such a conclusion unless I had the data, the raw data that is, to back it up tenfold. Maybe people who have never worked in a laboratory, designed experiments, analyzed test results, and had to put their reputation on the line do not understand the seriousness of raw data. Even when I was not Catholic, I knew that I had to produce data, not just conclusions. I knew because the scientific establishment and my professors drilled that into my head. It’s the right thing to do, and you don’t have to be Catholic to know you should do the right thing.

But if you are Catholic, and you are going to make such an extraordinary claim, then for goodness sake, you’d better back it up in a way that anyone else, Catholic or not, can verify, and you’d better be sure of what you’re saying. If we have such an extraordinary claim as a Eucharistic miracle, then absolutely we should shout it from the mountaintops. But if only if the data is compiled and shared.

What I’m Getting At

Without exception—and I don’t say this lightly—none of the Eucharistic miracle investigations have published raw data. In most cases, the investigators have not even published a report. They make statements (“this tissue is living,” or “this patient was suffering,” or “this DNA has no paternal contribution”), and because some of these investigators are scientists or medical professionals, other people in authoritative positions, some ecclesiastical, some theological or philosophical, some social media influential, confuse the statements for raw data.

This practice has me utterly perplexed. Here these folks say they have the biggest scientific discovery of all times, bigger than the helical structure of DNA or the Higg’s Boson, and they expect us to believe them without data.

Something is not right, and as I explained previously, we already know that there was a coordinated effort to perpetuate a fraud regarding the WHO report.

Meanwhile, huge and aspiring Catholic personalities and networks repeat the narratives adding up to millions of views on YouTube and who knows how many millions of people in audiences or reading articles and books, and they all do it while there is no raw data to support the claims.

Two Examples of Raw Data

Here are examples of raw data in case you want to see what it looks like. I selected two papers, though any peer reviewed paper should have the same.

Ralph Patrick et al., “Integration mapping of cardiac fibroblast single-cell transcriptomes elucidates cellular principles of fibrosis in diverse pathologies,” Science Advances, Vol 10, Issue 25 (21 Jun 2024), DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adk8501.

• Note the “Materials and Methods” section.

• Also note that at the end of the paper, the authors say, “All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials.”

• The Supplementary Material is here. Scroll through the 56 pages to get an idea of what raw data looks like.

Eva van Rooij, “Control of Stress-Dependent Cardiac Growth and Gene Expression by a MicroRNA,” Science, Vol 316, Issue 5824 (27 Apr 2007), DOI: 10.1126/science.113908.

• Note the details in the figures and methods section.

• Note the Supplementary Materials and that the team had to update them because some of the text in the figures was originally unreadable.

I chose the first example because it is contemporary and the second because it is from the time some of the Eucharistic miracle investigations occurred. This is to show that scientists understand, then and now, the importance of raw data. If you click those links, don’t worry about understanding what the text says. Just look at the level of detail provided just for these studies of fibrosis and gene expression. This level of detail is lacking for the Eucharistic miracle investigations.

Now Let Me Gripe

The demand for better scientific integrity with these Eucharistic miracle investigations is not my main complaint, though it is a serious one. My concern goes deeper. It is that Catholics are using these unsupported and inconclusive narratives, sans data, to argue that science proves God exists and that science proves that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. This is backwards. Science, practiced as science within its limits cannot ever provide such a proof.

I’ve spent fifteen years defending the idea that the Catholic religion and science are not at odds, and I do so as a chemist who converted to Catholicism and granted intellectual assent to the truths of faith. I argue that science is the study of nature. For Catholics, that means science is the study of the handiwork of God. For anyone else, it still means we are all studying the same thing. You say nature; I say creation. Let’s go. The reason underneath this unity is precisely what is at stake here—the raw data. It’s how we touch the world. It keeps us honest.

Yes, science points beyond itself metaphysically to the existence of God. Romans 1:20 says, “Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.” Natural theology explains why we can know God exists through reason alone. But these are not scientific proofs. They are metaphysical.

The fact that forensic investigators and medical professionals are making extravagant claims in the name of Christ and asking us all to believe them without peer reviewed reports or sets of raw data is mindboggling to me.

As I said up top: In Christ we trust. He said, “This is my Body.” We believe Him because He’s God. But those populists working on Eucharistic miracles, telling big stories, giving lots of talks, selling all the books, and carrying on with all the fervor? They are not God. And they need to produce data or stop talking.

Let me add here at the end a word of consolation to fellow Catholics. I am not, in any way, saying these miracles are false. I’m saying we don’t know because the science is incomplete and inconclusive. I am also not saying that God could not work this, or any other, miracle. Belief in miracles pretty much goes hand in hand with belief in a Creator. I accept all of that. Our faith is certain.

I am ready to get into the modern investigated cases of Buenos Aires, Tixtla, and Sokółka and the specific (one more time) —>raw data they lack. Until then…