Claims that wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) can “date” linen have been advanced in a sequence of publications associated with Giulio Fanti, Liberato De Caro, and Cinzia Giannini. This paper critically evaluates the scientific credibility of those claims with attention to sample provenance, method validation, and publication pathway choices, and assesses whether the WAXS program provides a credible challenge to the supervised 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Turin Shroud. Across the 2013 book-centered dissemination of alternative dating, the later PLOS ONE publication and subsequent retraction, the 2019 Heritage methodological proposal, and the 2022 Heritage application to a purported Shroud thread, recurring weaknesses are observed: incomplete chain-of-custody documentation, limited external validation of the aging-to-age inference, and sensitivity to unmeasured environmental history (temperature, humidity, storage, and handling). The WAXS approach, as presently described, behaves less like an independently anchored chronometer and more like a model-dependent proxy that requires strong assumptions and site-specific calibration. On current evidence, the WAXS program does not meet comparative standards set by the 1988 multi-laboratory, controlled, and statistically reported radiocarbon protocol. Concrete requirements for credibility are proposed, including preregistration, independent replication, blinded samples, transparent chain-of-custody, and systematic sensitivity analyses that bound the effect of plausible environmental histories.