real skepticism versus pseudoskepticism: a cautionary tale
by Catte Black
The 9/11 series here has proved interesting in a number of ways. The scientific contributions have been thought-provoking, as has the BTL discussion, the level of which remains(with a few exceptions), consistently high. One thing it has made even more clear than it was before is the chasm between real skepticism and pseudoskepticism.
Real skepticism is solidly sourced in analysis, probabilities and data. Pseudoskepticism is sourced in prejudice, a priori claims of certitude and arguments from authority.
Real skepticism embraces debate, is concerned with ongoing research and avoids certitude. Pseudoskepticism has no interest in debate, eschews research, and wears certitude like a badge of office.
Real skepticism has no need of ad hom. Pseudoskepticism uses ad hom as its one and only weapon.
It’s easy to mistake one for the other, particularly in areas of specialty where we, as laypeople, have limited knowledge. If a scientist claims he has found thermite residue in the WTC dust, how easily do non-scientists evaluate that claim?
And if websites emerge full of voices mocking the claim it’s easy to assume these are science-voices mocking immovable ignorance or stupidity.
And if their mockery is echoed in a thousand media outlets, it’s tempting – particularly for those who aspire to be well-informed – to join in on the assumption it must be based on some sort of obvious condition of fact we are not aware of.
In a society that claims to value rational thinking the consolation and kudos of being part of a seemingly rational consensus is incredibly seductive. And it seduces most of us at some time or another. Discovering somewhere down the line you have been lulled into pseudoskepticism can be a rude awakening.
One of our readers – he’s known as Jeff Jerome Fryer here, but we’ll call him “boggis the cat” because that’s what he calls himself in the discussion featured below – is an indefatigable believer in the infallibility of the NIST fire-collapse theory. To his credit he has been trying really very hard to find sources to back up his beliefs. He isn’t a scientist, but he took the time to find NIST’s reports and to read and quote them extensively.
As a methodology this certainly beats the “haha you suck” approach we’ve seen used by others here. He even went to the International Skeptics Forum, a place he evidently respects, to invite people to come here and debunk the criticisms of the NIST report we’ve been publishing.
And this is where the story becomes a little fable about the difference between real skepticism and the fake kind.
BTC clearly and genuinely believed the ISF were skeptical scientists, or scientifically literate laymen, whose mockery of “twoofers” was based on the unassailable physical rationality of their position. He clearly anticipated they would respond to his request with a detailed and impeccable scientific rebuttal he could re-post here.
Let’s take a look at how that worked out for him.
With what may have been misapplied faith BTC opens the thread he started (titled “Off-Guardian’ running a “9/11” series filled with ‘truther’ woo”), by asking if anyone at the ISF was “interested in having a look at what has been posted up already” on OffGuardian, and “possibly cobbling something together” as a scientific rebuttal:
Did these “skeptics” throw the requested rebuttal together, explaining why Newtonian physics upholds NIST’s claims?
No, they didn’t.
They just evaded and sniggered and sniggered some more.
So, after a while, and clearly feeling ever so slighty dismayed, BTC very politely says ‘ha yes, OffG are really stupid, but about the science…?’
This time at least, a poster calling himself “LSSB” did respond to the question and pointed BTC to another person in another place who he thinks might be able to answer the questions LSSBB apparently couldn’t.
But this is not at all what BTC was expecting. So, yet again, this time with a hint of edge, he asks “thanks”, but “…Am I understanding the NIST model validation process correctly?”
“LSSBB” is, once again, the only one to respond, but his answer probably didn’t do much to restore BTC’s dwindling faith.
“Don’t understand regarding NIST,”, says this worthy and wel-informed international skeptic, “they had a whole set of websites dedicated to their investigations of the WTC collapses at NIST.gov. Worth reading, however they can get pretty technical….”
Shhh…Listen….that thunking sound you hear is BTC’s heart dropping into his boots at the ghastly realisation these people he looked up to as uber-cool, uber-informed scientifically-trained skeptics know less about the NIST report than he does. One of them read it one time and found it “pretty technical” (no kidding, LSSBB). The rest are apparently so focused on how dumb the “twoofers” are they’ve never had time to look at any of the physical evidence at all.
But who needs evidence when you have grade-school mockery, right? Who needs real skepticism when pseudoskepticism is cheaper, easier and endorsed by your TV?
Poor boggis the cat. A rude awakening indeed.
Despite being diagnosed as “twoofers” by those who claim to know, we’re hoping our 9/11 series might be able to transcend labels and even be a small voice in support of real skepticism – viz the emphasis of data and observation over prejudice and faith-based belief-systems. And we agree with BTC in one thing – if anyone out there knows of good, solid research that supports the NIST fire-collapse hypothesis and rebuts the Harrit et al thermite finding, or any other aspect of the “truther scientist” research, we really want to see it.
You can email us at [email protected]
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This thread has 300 comments and is becoming unwieldy, so we are closing it. Please feel free to continue your discussions on other 9/11 threads.
In fact, no it isn’t. It’s a point but not the point in this case. It misses the point—despite your claim. No one provided any reply indicating that he’d recognized the logic error—I would like to say that I’m astonished but I’m not. You certainly haven’t shown that you’ve grasped the significance of the logical error. Jerome’s reply was actually quite close and could be argued to intend to say in a bit more round about manner what the actual point is. But you shut him down, ruled him out of order—having missed the error’s significance yourself, you were not well placed to recognize his framing of the answer in a different way.
FAQ # 12 goes,
but I’m quite sure that, as it was actually put by many of those who posed it, it went,
To reply to the general question, “If, supposing your theory, “X,” is true, then what about “Y”? –where “Y” assumes (conditionally) the elements of the theory to be true—the reply that, “You may not ask “What about ‘Y’ since ‘X’ is proven (scientifically!).
Yes, of course it is, but, again, if ‘X’ is true, then why do (or don’t) we find (or not find) ‘Y’?
You may not wish-away or wave away that query by insisting that, since ‘X’ is proven, raising the question ‘Y’, concerning the proven theory, is out of order, since ‘Y’ presupposes the correctness of ‘X’ and is raised as an anomalous circumstance only when ‘X’ is assumed to be true.
Our lawyer is in a circular argument he has not recognized (at this point) and apparently, neither have you.
Or, reduced to the absolute minimum:
Your admonishment of Jerome, which went,
sums up and applies directly and quite neatly to both the positions of the ae911Truth group members and your own argumentation here. I think it is much more you who are challenged by the concluding remark: You must decide whether that is a rational approach.
(*) At some level the site recognizes the validity of that question because, after wasting a lot of time beating uselessly around the bush, they summarize their answer this way :
— as though these claims settle the matter.
You are not a very good logician.
Let me keep this simple for you:
Some things are pertinent to some issues, and others not.
If the world is round, and everybody except Jerome believes it to be flat, is he wrong?
“But,” you object, “everybody except Jerome believes the world to be flat?”
Question: what is the relevance of your objection to the truth or untruth of what Jerome believes?
Your analogy is really not pertinent–but I see where you’re trying to go with it.
Why didn’t you–and now, why don’t you, if you’re able, that is– simply explain to us clearly and precisely us why this question– “If the theory is true, why have there been no Whistle-blowers?” —isn’t valid and worthy of a respectable reply? It’s been fifteen years.
To at least half the nation (myself included) Edward Snowden has set a heroic example of the value of whistle-blowers. In this case, what are we to believe?—absolutely perfect command and control over every one of the (How many?) scores? hundreds? a thousand? more?–people with personal knowledge of this scandalous attack? Seriously?
“Why didn’t you–and now, why don’t you, if you’re able, that is– simply explain to us clearly and precisely us why this question– “If the theory is true, why have there been no Whistle-blowers?” —isn’t valid and worthy of a respectable reply? It’s been fifteen years.”
Was I being disrespectful? Are you a good or bad logician? Isn’t this a legitimate question to ask and then to muse the answer out loud in one’s reply to the person about whom you asked yourself the question?
But getting back to the matter at hand: someone points out to you that you bring up an issue that is irrelevant to another issue, and you don’t see how it could be irrelevant.
All of your schematizing with ‘X and ‘Y’ drives at the proposition that any ‘Y’ can be made ‘logically’ relevant to any given ‘X.’ And my “analogy” quite simply, clearly and precisely shows you that this is bad reasoning and an assumption that is wrong to make, making you by implication a bad logician, at least in this instance since you cannot disclaim authorship of what you wrote, eh.
Then for purposes of clarification, I “contrived” an example to simply, clearly and precisely show you the irrelevance of a ‘whistleblower’ to a crime. See it below maybe a second time, eh.
So what don’t you understand? Hmm. That’s right: the logic that is both implicit and explicit in my examples are giving you some difficulty, eh.
And then to top it off, you now bring in Edward Snowden, and now the conversation is on to something else altogether: “the value of whistle-blowers.” But you were concerned with showing us that if a certain kind of crime had been committed, then accessories to the fact or some of the conspirators themselvs would have come forward and come clean, therefore, so goes your implicit reasoning, the crime cannot be of the kind we can call an “inside job.” But admissions or no admissions to any crime has no bearing on whether the crime was or was not committed, eh. Do you understand?
RE : “Was I being disrespectful?”
In my opinion, definitely.
E.g. :
RE :
“Are you a good or bad logician? Isn’t this a legitimate question to ask and then to muse the answer out loud in one’s reply to the person about whom you asked yourself the question?”
You hadn’t asked a question. (See the citation, just above.)
But, to answer this one, I’m not adept at formal symbolic logic, the use of symbolic logical operators to write true and false statements. But I think I’m reasonably adept at the informal use of logic in everyday practical reasoning and, as far as I’m able to see so far from your comments in this site, i’m significantly better at that than you are.
I’ve asked you twice now–the last time expressly–to simply explain in ordinary language …”why don’t you, if you’re able, that is– simply explain to us clearly and precisely us why this question– “If the theory is true, why have there been no Whistle-blowers?” —isn’t valid and worthy of a respectable reply? ”
And you’re still avoiding doing that. My conclusion, then, is that you’re unable to. But you’re still welcome to explain it if you can.
The argument that the lawyer is making is that the official story may be false irrespective of whether or not a whistleblower ever comes forward to contradict the official story. Is this simple enough for you? There is nothing illogical about this statement. Do you understand?
“Do you understand?”
Yes, indeed I do. How about you?
Do you share the view that the events were an example of a cover-up? If so, doesn’t that imply in some way or another, partly or wholly, “an inside-job”?
I have other questions–if you’re interested–
I’d like to hear you present your opinion on these questions:
1) How many currently-active people do you estimate there are with direct personal knowledge
of the plan or its cover-up? How many originally had direct knowledge?
2) Were the hijacked planes a convenient coincidence — were the explosives planted to one day and left to be available for demolition at a suitable occasion? Or were the dates of hijacking and demolition coordinated?
3) Why should it matter very much or at all that the Towers were completely demolished in the attack–what is essentially changed in any similar scenario in which they’re struck, suffer ectreme damage, causing many deaths, but do not collapse? In other words, what is the supposed tactical or strategic difference in the value of the attack which causes the same deaths–or more–but does not level the site struck? (Note: the Pentagon was not demolished by planted explosives.)
You think you understand, but you obviously don’t. I do indeed believe there is a cover-up afoot and by implication something that we can call an “inside-jop.” That no whistleblowers have come forward, other than the many hundreds of eye witnesses who know they heard and saw explosions, is immaterial to the ‘fact.’ That you insist on this point as somehow or other being the ‘test’ that ‘proves’ anything about the truth of the official story, demonstrates obtuseness. Oh, am I being disrespectful? Only if you are obtuse.
Another variant of your objection, just to be clear:
A man is found with a bullet through his head, his wallet has been discarded empty beside his body, and later it is established that the empty shell casing matches perfectly the caliber of the bullet retrieved from inside his skull. Forensic experts declare that he was murdered. Then you come along fifteen years after these established fact and object that it could not have been murder because no one has yet come forth to admit to the crime.
Can you spot the “logical” error?
What I “spot” there is a laughably contrived and inapt scenario that is in no way analagous to the circumstances we’re treating here. Your gambit is typical of those who argue your point of view.
It’s agreed by all that a crime was committed, and, yes, that the crime involved a conspiracy–the hijackers constituted a genuine conspiracy. There was zero logical need that it have involved any insider cover-up in order to be planned and carried out.
Try and discuss the issue without introducing ridiculous and inapt pseudo-analogies, would you? And please see my as-yet-unanswered query you.
correction : “analogous”
variant: a form or version of something that differs in some respect from other forms of the same thing or from a standard.
correction: “inept”
LOL! Is that a correction of my use of “inapt”?
Inept works nicely, but inapt may be less inept than inapt.
Re-light my Fryer!
Man, you are motivated – I’ll give you that.
So, you want to talk about probability. Very well, I’ll bite.
Do you – or do you not – accept that no steel-framed concrete buildings had seen a total collapse due to fire alone anywhere else in the world, ever before September 11, 2001?
I’ll give you a helpful document link at this point – commissioned by NIST, no less!
http://www.jensenhughes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/White_Paper_Historical_Survey_Building_Collapse_NIST_JBeitel-NIwankiw_OCT-2006.pdf
Lo and behold, this entirely new and unknown phenomenon occurs not once, not twice, but three times, all in one day, we are asked to believe.
Two of the buildings were hit by impacts they were designed to withstand (if you count a fully-laden Boeing 707 as equivalent, the largest airliner back in the day); the third was barely hit by anything at all.
What, my dearest Jerome, do you estimate, is the probability of that?
Ultra909:
I think your notion of using probability arguments with Jerome Fryer has itself a very low probability of a rational outcome.
You see. J Fryer has stated elsewhere he is a Christian, which means at some deep level he has already signed up for improbable beliefs
Historically, these begin with the first recorded instance of failure of the abstainance method.
They progress to the setting aside of the laws of physics (walking on water), the laws of nutrition (Feeding the 5K), and the laws of medicine ( long dead Lazarus).
They then record the failure of the planned ‘death by nailing’ an event that, it is claimed is unique, supernatural and has never recurred.
So the probability of each of these apparently non repeatable events is low; the probability of them combined is vanishingly small.
Even worse, the followers of this improbable belief system have a distinct and sometimes fanatical tendency to try and ‘convert’ others to these beliefs.
This seems to be a sort of ‘safety in numbers’ scheme designed to buttress up their deep seated uncertainties.
Which is what seems to be playing out in this thread No??
Oh, and before I get carted off the the nearest cross, I should state that there
are some who call themselves Christian that do enquire deeply on this matter
For example David Ray Griffin.
He is an original thinker, distinguishing himself in theology as well as
delving into modern physics
He has written a book: Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11
ISBN-13: 978-0-664-23117-0 – available from Amazon
which details the events, concludes that the ‘official story’ is at best incomplete,
at worst a calculated deception.
He then goes on to consider what followed on from 9/11, which from his POV, he
considers ‘demonic’ or ‘evil’
Considering that ‘Christian’ George Bush went on to cause the deaths of
a million Iraqis, its not a charge the ‘exceptional nation’ can dismiss lightly
Ha! How long did it take you to realise that you’d thrown the ‘good’ Dr Griffen under the bus?
😀
“What, my dearest Jerome, do you estimate, is the probability of that?”
100%
If an event occurs, then the probability of that event having occurred is 100%. What you have there is a tautology of sorts.
Note that Arup believe that the towers would have collapsed solely due to a large fire. In other words: they were flawed in design. You will be relieved to know, no doubt, that these were unique designs — there aren’t other ‘tube around a core’ design towers ready to catch fire and collapse.
WTC 7 was another unique situation, where they built a forty-seven story building on top of, and surrounding, an existing building — requiring some design decisions that proved to be a bad idea. It probably would have been fine if either: a) it had not been near one of the towers, and got hit by debris and set on fire; or b) they were able to successfully fight the fires that developed, instead of deciding to give up (due in large part to lack of sufficient water supply, and partly not wanting to risk yet more firefighters deaths) and let the building burn out.
I also estimate the probability of thermite or other explosives having been placed in any of these buildings to be zero. (Plus or minus zero, with a 100% confidence interval, no k factor determination. Not strictly correct, in metrology terms, but then this isn’t a measurement. 🙂 )
This is a short (6:26) piece that covers NIST’s process for building models for the fires in the WTC towers:
https://youtu.be/aLoNG18NElQ
Note that they do physical tests (observe the part where they are burning a dummy office workstation load-out) that are carefully monitored. The models are then calibrated to produce the same (or nearly same) results that they found doing these physical tests. This is what is done to ensure that the model is as correct as possible.
The NIST documents explain this process, but the import of it seems to be eluding a lot of people.
“Nearly the same results”
“Correct as possible”
I wonder what you would have said Jerome if any of us lunatic patients had used these phrases?
It would indicate that you understood that, in the real world (not the world of pure imagination), it is almost impossible to be certain of anything where a complex physical process is involved. (Consider climate modelling. It is far from perfect, but the prediction of global heating is still being proven correct.)
All science involves probabilities. The probability of fire being the cause of collapse of all three ‘suspect’ buildings in the WTC complex is very high (there being no other obvious contender, aside from the serious fires and impact damage in the spcase of the towers). The probability of thermite or other explosives is effectively zero.
Models do not have to be perfect to prove a hypothesis to be probable. Remember that Arup dud their own modelling and tests, independent of NIST, and concluded that a severe fire alone could have collapsed the towers. (Their argument is that NIST need not have factored in the aircraft impact and fuel load. Once the buildings were ablaze on multiple floors they were doomed to fail.)
I found a question which I wondered about in the “ae911truth” sites FAQ –as follows
FAQ #12: Where are the 9/11 Whistleblowers?
Now, I invite the interested reader to read carefully just that much (of a longer reply) and then find the logical error(s). If you cannot, then I submit that you do not belong in this “debate.” Note, by the way, that the author cited supposedly holds these degrees : ” J.D. L.L.M.” They did not save him from the howler of a logical error on display here. This is just one of any number of examples of why these people are “out to see” on this matter and I cannot take them or their “arguments” seriously.
[edited for typo – OffG ed]
If science proves a fact to be true no amount of subjective opinion about how believable it is has any relevance. That’s the point.
Facts are what science collects then uses to posit hypotheses. Any hypothesis that isn’t able to be disproven becomes the accepted theory. Theory changes over time, usually.
[edited for content-free repeat-trolling – OffG ed]
If there were serious problems in the consensus view they would have been found. Arup, for example, did their own analysis and believe that the WTC towers would have collapsed from a large, multi-floor, fire alone. If Arup had found that the fires couldn’t bring the buildings down, then that would have been interesting to people outside of insurers and architects.
Note that your comment is not a reply or rebuttal of the point being made, which stands as self-evidently true. If a fact is scientifically proven then subjective opinions about its probability are irrelevant.
If you a priori reject all the evidence from one side as being inadmissible for some reason then of course you will find no evidence to oppose your view. You must decide whether this is a rational approach.
NB – any repeat unsourced claims of failure to understand, repeat claims of lack of evidence coupled with repeat refusal to address any evidence presented you, and repeat statements of opinions you have previously been forced to retract is now being regarded as trolling.
Dear Admin.,
I do make frequent typographical errors and am grateful for their correction. E.g. where I have
‘ “ae911truth” site’ — “site” should have been the possessive form, “site’s”.
Did I actually type “out to see” rather than my intended, “out to sea“?– or is it this to which the ‘Edited for typo’ refers? My expression is derived from “at sea,” a metaphorical expression.
“(all) at sea (about something)
Fig. to be confused; to be lost and bewildered. (Alludes to being lost at sea.) When it comes to higher math, John is totally at sea.
your blockquotes were broken.
Article: “Why the ‘9/11 Truth’ movement endures 15 years later”.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/september-2001-truther-conspiracy-theory-1.3756431
What I find the most unfortunate about this ‘truther’ stuff is this sort of problem, where people are throwing their lives away chasing phantoms.
Arguing about some carefully edited YouTube videos or calling each other names based on failing to comprehend technical documents is all fun and games, but there is a serious impact from this sort of lunacy on some people.
Just one question.
Do you think it’s woo to want NIST to release its collapse models?
Indeed. Speaking as a deluded, woo-filled truther nut with serious sociopathic tendencies, I’d love to have the opportunity to completely fail to understand that particular technical document.
[edited for content-free trolling – OffG ed]
So that’s pedantry added to your repertoire Jerome. Those ISF tutorials are working their magic.
It isn’t pedantry to point out the technical issues that you’d face, or point out that you should try to understand what the documents you do have full access to right now actually present.
(Nor is it “content-free trolling”.)
Your phrase ‘try to understand’ is presumptuous, loaded and has the whiff of ISF ad hom condescension.
Anyway, not only did NIST not release its modelling workings, but they made them technologically inaccessible to vast numbers of their potential audience. And all with public funds.
I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t be released. The non-release isn’t NIST’s decision, by the way.
My guess is that they are more concerned about random people doing random things with the data and producing vast amounts more nonsense. Consider how many people claim to be able to find flaws and evidence of fraud in the explanations of the data used for climate change models.
[edited for fact-free trolling, you have been repeatedly warned Jerome – OffG ed]
OK, thank you – so to be clear you DON’T think it’s woo to ask for the NIST models to be released?
Ask the relevant authorities.
You do understand that the data would have to be used in the commercial software packages required for it? That it won’t necessarily be ‘user friendly’ to use? That you require a significant amount of computing power to use it?
In principle, as it was paid for out of taxpayer funds, it should be made available unless a good reason is given.
“In principle, as it was paid for out of taxpayer funds, it should be made available unless a good reason is given.”
Thank you. Second question. Is it woo to question any aspect of the NIST report?
You would have to explain what you mean by “question”.
If you mean make an unsupported assertion, or an assertion based on either misunderstanding or deliberate distortion, then that would indeed be woo.
Arup, for one example, do criticise the NIST report on the basis that they believe that their modelling indicates that the fires alone would have brought the towers down — that they were fatally flawed in design. (In this case, they believe that the fire-proofing was inadequate, so it wasn’t necessary for the jet impacts to have knocked a lot of it free, as NIST thinks was likely.)
That’s absolutely right Jerome … have you had a look in the mirror lately?
It is deplorable that you cite this vile piece of presstitute guff in support of your argument that you’re concerned that, because of “this ‘truther’ stuff … people are throwing their lives away chasing phantoms”.
The article focuses on Robert McIlvaine, who tragically lost his son in the 9/11 events, and who does not believe the official story. His life has been turned upside down by the nature of his loss and his determination to find the truth of what happened. You, and others like you, condescendingly and cruelly characterise Mr McIlvaine as a sad, lost, ‘Truther’ who should just accept the government line and move on. The article you cite does a similar job, implicitly and despicably associating people who have very good reasons to doubt the official story with others “that speculate about the moon landing” and “the Hollow Earth hypothesis” and other ‘conspiracy theorists’, as well as “raging anti-Semite[s]” and being members of communities engaging in ‘pseudo-science’.
The problem with trying to sideline and dis-empower Robert McIlvaine and like minded people is that there are very many of them. According to a 2006 poll by the New York Times and CBS News, 53% respondents thought the Bush administration was hiding something, and 28% per cent believed it was lying. Ten years later, it’s likely that those percentages have grown, and if they are extrapolated across the USA population we are talking about very big numbers of people indeed.
So there are probably many millions of people in the USA alone (let alone the rest of the world) who see abundant evidence to suggest that the facts about the 9/11 events have not been properly told, let alone properly investigated, and who therefore want another investigation. You choose to call such people by derogatory names such as ‘Truthers’, ‘Conspiracy loons’, and the like. If, wanting another investigation in the circumstances makes me a ‘Truther’ in your eyes, then I wear the label with pride.
But the logical converse of that position is this: you are someone who is (presumably) capable of comprehending the glaring anomalies, fallacies, problems and generally inadequately explained factors associated with the whole official 9/11 narrative as they have been explained here and elsewhere, and yet, even in the face of all that evidence, you claim there is no need for a new investigation. Well, that makes you an ‘Anti-Truther’, or a ‘person who is satisfied with non-truth, or partial truth’ about 9/11. I reckon that makes you a person who is ‘Pro-non-truth’ or ‘Pro-liar’. But my favourites so far are:
Credulist – (A word I just made up to mean someone who is credulous – after all ‘Truther is a made-up word too)
Obscurantist:
Def. – A practitioner of obscurantism; an obscurant
Obscurant (plural Obscurants)
Def.
1. One who acts to confound or obfuscate; an obscurantist.
2. A person who seeks to prevent or hinder enquiry and the advancement of knowledge or wisdom; an agent of endarkenment.
3. An opposer of lucidity and transparency in the political and intellectual spheres.
I’m going to go with ‘Obscurant(s)’ – I reckon it describes you and your mates from ISF and their ilk to an absolute T.
But take your pick from the above. I hope you wear your choice with pride.
“So there are probably many millions of people in the USA alone (let alone the rest of the world) who see abundant evidence to suggest that the facts about the 9/11 events have not been properly told, let alone properly investigated, and who therefore want another investigation.”
[edited for content-free trolling – OffG ed.]
Just so that no one misses this:
@ john miller, September 21, 2016, (https://off-guardian.org/2016/09/07/on-the-physics-of-high-rise-building-collapses/comment-page-1/)
Alaska University model by PROF.Hulsey has apparently shown that WTC7 could NOT have collapsed due to FIRE:
Here are the credentials of an absolute duffer, unlike you Mr. John miller the engineer-cum-pilot:
Leroy Hulsey
Department Chair, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Professor, Ph.D., P. E., S.E., Civil Engineering
(907) 474-7816
Duckering 243B
[email protected]
http://cem.uaf.edu/cee/people/leroy-hulsey.aspx
I mention Hulsey only because he corroborates everything that you glibly assert, Mr. john miller the engineer-cum-pilot, if what you assert is being asserted with your tongue through your cheek, eh:
A) To save yourself some time, start @ 29 minutes and listen carefully, contra NIST:
WTC 7 Evaluation Finds: Fire DID NOT Cause the Collapse of WTC 7
B) To save yourself some time, start @ 14 minutes and listen carefully, contra NIST:
Attorneys Are Told: “Possibility of WTC 7 Collapsing Due to Fire is ZERO”
C) To save yourself some time, start @ 29 minutes and listen carefully, contra NIST:
WTC 7 Evaluation Finds: Fire DID NOT Cause the Collapse of WTC 7
Because, eh, Mr. john miller the engineer-cum-pilot, “no newspaper will team with these clowns [i.e., Steven Jones, Robert Korol, Anthony Szamboti, andTed Walter], they have no evidence, no proof,” and they have no evidence, no proof, because you say so, eh, Mr. john miller the engineer-cum-pilot.
And merely to demonstrate how long on accusations and short on “facts” Kevin Ryan always is, what was his estimate, again, of how much expansion NIST could possibly have gotten out the girders it said initiated the collapse of WTC7?
“In any case, although NIST does not state it clearly in the new report, a 575 °C increase in temperature would have caused the girder end of the beams to experience a maximum of 2.2 inches of deflection.”
http://911review.com/articles/ryan/NIST_WTC7.html
And what did Leroy Hulsey et al. find: both their models calculated a net expansion of LESS than, not 2.2 inches of deflection, but 2 inches! (See the second video in my reply “@ john miller, September 21, 2016, (https://off-guardian.org/2016/09/07/on-the-physics-of-high-rise-building-collapses/comment-page-1/),” and start your viewing @ 11 minutes.)
Do not trust anything Kevin Ryan writes and says if you are a “bunker,” because, of course, he is always — I don’t know how he does it — 100% accurate in everything he does and says.
Discussed in the ISF forums here:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=311698
Hulsey proves a negative, apparently. You’d think that overturning the scientific method would be bigger ‘news’.
Meanwhile, in the real world, there are still no professional scientific or engineering bodies that believe anything more than fire was required.
Good morning Jerome,
I had a look at your link to ISF and if, by ‘discussion’, you mean such gems as this contribution from a certain Mr ‘beachnut’ …
… Then I suggest you review your definition of ‘discussion’.
In addition, you seems to have trouble understanding the scientific method, as well as the application of logic re problem solving. Nothing is being ‘overturned’ here in the sense that you mean it, except NIST’s findings regarding the initiation of their fire-induced collapse scenario.
Watch the videos posted by Norman Pilon, along with his comments (and mine below) regarding the details of Prof Hulsey’s work and his conclusions about the possibility of WTC7 collapsing because of fire. When asked what the probability was, on a scale of 0 to 100, that the building collapsed due to fire, he gave a simple one word answer, “Zero”.
Prof Hulsey is highly qualified and experienced and is a acknowledged expert in the fields of Civil and Structural Engineering, as well as in mathematical modelling using state-of-art methods in finite element, finite difference and theoretical solid mechanics.
But perhaps you think you know more than him about the subject, eh?
I think it’s becoming pretty obvious Jerome doesn’t read the links provided or any of the “truther” science papers or articles. This is why he can’t respond to any actual data or points. He just searches on ISF for some “rebuttals”, however weak, and posts them here. I think that’s why he seems so impervious. He genuinely does not know how useless the ISF responses are because he hasn’t read the articles they’re responding to. ISF says they are nothing but “woo” and he takes their word for it, probably because they reassure him by saying what he wants to hear. if he starts reading the “truther” science he might begin to realise they have valid points. That’s the only explanation I can find for his behaviour short of him being a troll.
[edited for repeat trolling and unsourced claims that have already been refuted – OffG ed]
What else is there to say? Do you expect me to read and critique every piece of ‘truther’ woo?
If you want to debate this properly, you’ll have to go somewhere where a real debate can take place. My suggestion is the ISF forums precisely because that seems to be where the ‘truthers’ are taking their latest ‘science’ and other material that they’re using to support their case.
NOTE FROM ADMIN: if you don’t want to debate, you are admitting your purpose here is simply to troll. Engage with other commenters on the science being discussed or stop commenting; Do NOT reply to this note
Good morning Norman (well, its morning here in the UK),
I watched these videos yesterday – very interesting. Prof Hulsey and his team appear to have modelled the WTC7 building very carefully and accurately, and it seems they’ve done so more carefully than NIST. They conclude that NIST was incorrect in deciding that the floor beams expanded sufficiently to push the girder off its seat and thereby ‘initiate’ collapse. The floor beam losing its connection to column #79 is the crucial step which leads to the rest of NIST’s ‘progressive collapse’ scenario.
Hulsey shows that NIST artificially assumed stiffness in certain parts of the floor structure in order to produce the required elongation of the beams through thermal expansion, sufficient to dislodge the girder. This is similar to heating a steel rod which is constrained at one end only, thereby ensuring that all the displacement through thermal expansion occurs at the unconstrained end. Applying such an artificial constraint to the floor beams is clearly a nonsense because it does not accurately model the real structure of WTC7.
The Hulsey team’s conclusion is that, when the building is properly modelled, the beams cannot force the girder off its seat on column #79 and therefore the progressive collapse scenario is literally a non-starter.
It is further evidence that NIST seems to have tried to ‘fit the facts’ around a pre-determined conclusion.
Good morning, to you, too, CloudSlicer,
“Hulsey shows that NIST artificially assumed stiffness in certain parts of the floor structure in order to produce the required elongation of the beams through thermal expansion, sufficient to dislodge the girder. This is similar to heating a steel rod which is constrained at one end only, thereby ensuring that all the displacement through thermal expansion occurs at the unconstrained end. Applying such an artificial constraint to the floor beams is clearly a nonsense because it does not accurately model the real structure of WTC7.”
Quite ritht. In fact, apart from all the mechanical elements that NIST simply ignores in its modeling of WTC 7, this is the crux of their deception and what Hulsey underscores: if you have an elongated piece of steel, like a girder, and it is “rigidly fixed” at one end and not at the other, the ‘movement’ of the entire expansion of the steel is all in the direction of the end that is “not fixed” or that allows for ‘movement.’
And Hulsey proves that that is how NIST models the whole of WTC7, first by bringing your attention to the floor plan of floor 13 — ( @ 17 minutes to roughly 22 minutes of the first video above and titled “WTC 7 Evaluation Finds: Fire DID NOT Cause the Collapse of WTC 7”) — to point out that NIST purposely leaves more than half of the floor area without what he calls “springs,” that it is to say, without properly modeled ‘joint’ or ‘connection’ substitutes, thereby creating a scenario whereby the girders are effectively modeled as being fixed (or more rigid) at one end and free to expand at the other.
It is in this way that NIST ensured that “all” of the girder’s expansion must happen at the ‘free end,’ pushing, so to speak, against the “fixed end,” thereby in their model, finding the necessary “anchor point” to unseat the intended and purposely targeted column. Ironically, because this is how they had to model WTC7 to reach their predetermined conclusion, when they run their animated version, the movement of the overall collapse is not anything like what was actually observed . . .
Once this work gets peer-reviewed and ends up as a respectable and legitimate area of academic research, the “investigating team of NIST” (sic) will be exposed in the gross misconduct of their so called investigation. I can’t imagine how comfortable they must be in their skins with Hulsey at their heels . . . 🙂
“Quite ritht. In fact, apart from all the mechanical elements that NIST simply ignores in its modeling of WTC 7, this is the crux of their deception and what Hulsey underscores …”
Exactly so. They clearly seem to have fixed their model to reach their predetermined conclusion. The extent of the deception and sham inherent in the NIST and 9/11 Commission reports is staggering and I live in hope that gradually it will be exposed. Such activities can only be carried out in order to cover up something appalling from the public gaze, for whatever reason, and the stakes are high.
I am pretty sure that the powerful actors who were involved in the enormous crime of 9/11 will do their best to contain and/or discredit Hulsey’s work as soon as possible. They have done a good job so far in doing this to the whole 9/11 truth movement for the past 15 years, ably abetted by a compliant MSM and ‘journalists’ not worthy of the title, and they’re not going to stop any time soon. We can only soldier on in the hope that more cracks appear in their edifice of lies and illusions, and that the whole lot will eventually come tumbling down – precipitating a sort of ‘collapsing Establishment’ version of the collapse of a certain well known (ex)building.
Good luck to you in the battles ahead! 🙂
Aye! And right back at you with the best of luck!
This scene, the way that things are, needs to be gotten beyond. It is comforting to know that one is not alone in one’s perception that things have to change, and more so to know that there are a lot of sharper brains out there even more aware and articulate than oneself doing their part. Quite encouraging. Delighted to have made your acquaintance, CloudSlicer. The voice is what matters.
This is an older post from the ‘skeptic’ sub-reddit concerning the NIST report on WTC 7: “A compilation of Scientific Literature that Directly Cites to and Support’s NIST’s WTC 7 report’s methodologies and conclusions”.
https://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/294k95/compilation_of_scientific_literature_that/
The summary:
You realise the summary is data-free argument from authority of course?
Did you read any of the links? Do you wanna talk about them? I’m game if you are. But if you’re just gonna say something science-free and then run away when it’s pointed out you are making no sense then forget it.
On the one hand you have a hodge-pudge of ‘truthers’, most with no background in science and engineering, willing to swallow assertions such as “controlled demolition” in the absence of the expected sounds (let alone the myriad problems with installing and triggering suitable devices).
On the other hand we have institutions such as NIST, with technical experts in the relevant fields, producing reports that are not challenged by anyprofessional scientific or engineering body, anywhere in the world.
This is a suckers vs. science ‘debate’.
You seem like a sucker to me, so far, Loop. Make a concise argument for something if you want to debate that something. If the argument is based on ignorance, and/or woo from some website that you found convincingly ‘sciencey’, then I’m going laugh at you, but I’ll try to respond in any case.
NOTE FROM ADMIN: you have repeatedly been presented with arguments, and even quite well-sorced apparent facts, which you have chosen to ignore. You have been forced to concede points and then pretend not to have conceded them. You make statements and when those statement are refuted you retire from the conversation only to return somewhere else to make the same statements again, thus seeding endless and circular pseudo-debate. Your sole argument seems to be that “truthers” are all idiots and that questioning any aspect of the NIST report is “woo.” You produce nothing to back up this assertion, yet refuse to modify it even slightly, or even to concede the most qualified doubts about the official version have merit.
In short you are currently not debating, you are trolling. Please engage with what is being said to you rather than simply repeating a handful of mantras and ad hom or posting large collections of links you then refuse to debate. Try to avoid libellous innuendo and focus on the issues rather than the people.
Now that Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth has over 2,500 architects and engineers who have reviewed the evidence and come to the conclusion the the NIST report is lacking, your attempt to characterize the truth as a hodge-podge of loonies with no scientific of engineering background is untenable.
Are they all architects and engineers, or are you simply assuming that?
How many (actual) architects and engineers are there in the US?
Find those two facts out, then evaluate your claim.
Jerome, I salute you. Your tenacity is to be admired.
Do I remember correctly that you run a lab? If so would you hire anyone who you knew questioned NIST? Can you see how that might lead many to censor their questions? A great many of us do not feel secure economically.
I am not an expert, but it seems to me there enough “loose ends” for a genuinely independant inquiry to look into.
By the way I do see your point about the thermal expansion models.
“Do I remember correctly that you run a lab?”
Yes, however this is only two technical staff and the owner. Metrology — electrical and torque calibration work.
“If so would you hire anyone who you knew questioned NIST? Can you see how that might lead many to censor their questions? A great many of us do not feel secure economically.”
That would be unlikely to come up in a job interview. Different field.
Provided it doesn’t have any effect on the work, then there is no reason to discriminate based on belief in something irrational.
I am a Christian, and religion is not rational (in terms of scientific testability). That does not affect my work.
The only reservation I would have would be if the failure to correctly ‘connect the dots’ indicated a failure of reasoning more generally. With the work my lab does, that shouldn’t be a problem.
If you were applying for a job at, for example, our national standards lab, however — definitely don’t bring up ‘conspiracy theory’ stuff unless asked.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) maintains data on 17 specialty occupations within engineering including: aerospace, agricultural, biomedical, chemical, civil, computer hardware, electrical, electronics (except computers), environmental, health and safety (except mining), industrial, marine engineering and naval architecture, materials, mechanical, mining and geological, nuclear, and petroleum. However, even this list is not comprehensive and the BLS reports the remaining specialties together under “all others.”[1]
Civil, mechanical, industrial, and electrical engineering were the four largest specialty occupations in 2013, representing a combined 60 percent of all engineering employment. Of the approximate 1.5 million engineers employed in 2013, an estimated 262,170 were civil engineers, 258,630 were mechanical engineers, 230,580 were industrial engineers, and 168,100 worked as electrical engineers. Forty percent of engineers worked in the remaining 14 occupational groups, including those under the catchall “all other.”
Source : http://dpeaflcio.org/professionals/professionals-in-the-workplace/scientists-and-engineers/
[1] http://dpeaflcio.org/professionals/professionals-in-the-workplace/scientists-and-engineers/#_edn1
[ 1600 architects and engineers constitutes only 0.1066667 % of the engineers (architects not included) in the 2013 workforce (as indicated by the source noted above). ]
The point that 2,000 architects and engineeers publicly question the NIST report is not an argument from consensus or supposed majority-view, it’s merely pointing out the falsehood in the oft-made claim that only non-scientists and conspiracy loons question NIST.
Only poor scientists would dismiss NIST on the basis that they’re incompetent or somehow ‘bought off’. The scientific approach would be to prove their incompetence, or somehow find evidence for their deliberately creating a fraud.
It is the ‘truther’ claim that “growing numbers of architects and engineers” are signing up to their project, so it is the ‘truthers’ making an argument based on numbers. (Insignificant numbers, statistically.)
Historically many paradigm shifts have been the work of just one person.
Some have been, yes.
What “paradigm shift” do you anticipate from the ‘truther’ project?
Your statistics would only have any relevance if and only if the majority of those of whom you speak were ‘intimately’ familiar with the terms of the ‘controversy’ as being put forward by the few men and women with scientific training that have taken up the pertinent and controversial issues. Even among the people who are now members of A&E for 9/11 Truth, the majority admit to not having twigged to any ‘problems’ with the government version of what happened until they began actually “looking” at the issues.
So it is meaningless to assert that because the majority of all engineers are not up in arms over the NIST report, the Architects and Engineers who are, represent a ‘lunatic fringe.’ It may in fact be the case that in this instance it’s the majority who are ignorant, uninformed and unconcerned, and who therefore stand outside the purview of a rational and scientific take on the matter.
P.S.
in reply to Admin:
Having read the introduction you linked, I have nothing to alter in my earlier comment. Your introduction does not impress me at all as a reply to my comments. Rather, it’s an artless dodge of the point.
I’ve challenged the pertinence of your alleged distinction between “skepticism” on one hand and something called “pseudo-skepticism” on the other. Specifically, I’ve tried to show that there is no meaningful distinction in these two as they’re actually commonly used: both involve taking up what is (at least claimed to be–sometimes, as in the present case of the 9/11 conspiracies, patently insincerely claimed to be–) a position of “doubt.” About all that you had exactly nothing in a direct response.
Instead, you asked what is the value of conflating the “lunatic” with the reasonable doubters. I ask, rather: what is the value of setting up such a specious distinction in skepticism? Briefly, your posted introduction itself is essentially a litany of innuendo directed at the usual suspects (the U.S. govt.) in which I can find no serious attempt on your part to expressly distinguish one group of these conspiracists from another. Except to admit that in principle such a distinction exists, you haven’t presented any clarification of which, in the opinion of this site’s editors, are the respectable conspiracists and which are not.
&, in reply to Nick : In my comments, “they” refers only to those who state or imply an allegation that implicates directly as knowing co-conspirators people (then) in the U.S. govt–who allege, in short, that this involves what may be called an “inside job,” — whatever their credentials or their claimed motives. ; This very obviously includes the group you tout: “ae911truth.”
I followed a link to ae9/11truth and found there, upon starting to read the page linked, the complete picture of unhinged conspiracy-thinking at its worst. The reader is led into a morass of detail which does nothing to elucidate the important issues and a very great deal to bury them in a swamp of irrelevant detail of shear-bolts and the thermal conductivity–designed, I’m convinced, to bewilder and discourage any sincere readers’ effort to see the points and evaluate their merits and demerits.
A suspicious person –of the sort these claimed 1600 architects and engineers are–could be forgiven for doing some conspiracy theorizing of his own and seeing behind these efforts the possibility of a clandestine project directed from powerful agents of a corrupt political order to sow doubt and confusion and to do precisely what the Off-G series claims to abhor: surround conspiracy theories in general–and warranted ones in particular–in a fog of disreputable nonsense which affords a marvelous cover to real conspiracies. Thus, I could imagine this group being organized and paid for by what conspiracists claim to find everywhere: another “false flag” operation. You see? Any number may play at this absurd stuff.
Rather than presenting a blizzard of irrelevant detail, a group sincerely interested in clearing up a controversy would stick to the essentials and explain concisely their compelling evidence–if they have any. It’s when such groups don’t have any that a reader finds himself confronted with what he finds at “ae911truth.” After my posting a link to the Popular Mechanics study of the conspiracy theories major claims, I was promptly informed that this study had been “debunked.”
If so, then where is the published retraction on the part of PM‘s editors and authors? Where are the earth-shaking news reports that should certainly have followed from a discrediting of so important a study of the conspiracy? You see, unlike the ae911truth group, Popular Mechanics is a group with a distinguished reputation on the line. When they’re found to have gotten something so important so badly wrong, their reputation and the stakes they have tied up in it requires them to come forward and openly admit their errors. If there’x been any serious such errors, they’d have promptly done this. “Google” “Popular Mechanics” + “retractions” and see what comes up under the heading of September 11, 2001 attacks. Nothing.
All these groups posist a hidden and sinister hand (of the U.S. govt.) in the works. In the case of the attacks of 11 Sept., this makes zero sense. What was the movtive? Who specifically was involved and why? When you have really discovered and clarified a genuine conspiracy, things fall into place and the explanation makes sense–reduces and explains rather than multiplies and raises perplexing problems in reasonability.
Unless one has and clear idea of exactly who acted and why and how they did so–which would enable us to understand, for example, precisely and clarifyingly, why these buildings rather than some others?, why these airlines and not some others?, with these departure cities and not others?, why this date and not some other? And, of course, to what end?–then, very simply, one is simply spining sheer empty speculation and sowing doubt and confusion. Anyone can do that. It adds nothing to our previous and abundantly warranted virew of the government as a corrupt oligarchic political order to allege that they also planned and carried out the 11 Sept. 2001 attacks. So what if they did? What then? What is the intended point of trying to convince people that–shock of shocks–their government can and does commit dastardly acts? We already know this. What we don’t know is whether they committed that one. We do know is that the most reasonable interpretation of all the best evidence, taken together, affords us no sane reason at all to suppose that there was any official involvement at all.
If the attacks were mounted by a secret group in the government in part to provoke fear in the public and reduce public resistance to and questioning of the government’s many clandestine ambitions–planned or already underway at the time–then it failed spectacularly.
Edward Snowden’s revelations came about after the attacks. The trends and tendencies to “Total Information Awareness” surveillance (à la Admiral John Poindexter) he exposed was well underway long before September 2001. What, exactly, are the attacks of that date supposed to have enabled that wasn’t already either underway or easily feasible? The public’s trust and faith in the government has not been heightened by the aftermath of the events; people are more suspicious and questioning than ever. And that’s not thanks to these ae911truth efforts, it’s despite them.
Who funds the principal ‘truther’ ringmasters? Do they make a living solely from donations and sales of bunk?
The only person I can think of who most definitely does receive income from his 9/11 work is Richard Gage. I agree that makes his position a little ambiguous, but let’s be honest no more so than those NIST scientists paid by the government for their expertise.
On the other hand I know of several people whose lies and careers have been adversely affected by questioning the official 9/11 story. I know one academic who, having lost his job, ekes a living doing home-schooling. He was offered a university teaching job after having been let go from his original post, but he was asked to sign a declaration he wouldn’t engage in any more 9/11 research. He declined and was never offered another teaching post. He’s never made this public and would hate to be named, so you can take or leave this as merely anecdotal, but he has never been accused of making money out of his 9/11 work.
Kevin Ryan was fired from Underwriters after blowing the whistle on their gross mismanagement of the real-world fire testing for NIST. His marriage also fell apart. I believe he has some other employment now, but states he has never made a penny out of his 9/11 work.
By the was is the focus on the men rather than the argument a tacit admission you have finally gotten tired of rehashing claims that have already been dealt with?
“The only person I can think of who most definitely does receive income from his 9/11 work is Richard Gage. I agree that makes his position a little ambiguous, but let’s be honest no more so than those NIST scientists paid by the government for their expertise.”
It is extremely weird that you seem to think that scientists are susceptible to bribery or blackmail. Are you also a ‘climate change sceptic’?
Do you understand how much more money can be made by pursuing something like law or marketing? It isn’t as though researchers capable enough to work for NIST or similar organisations (who must also all be corrupt, of course) are not smart enough to handle something comparatively low-brow like that.
You asked a question. I answered.
All human beings are susceptible to bribery and blackmail. But you don’t need anything so vulgar in order to keep people quiet. if you tell someone they need to avoid doing work in certain areas if they want to get promotions or keep their jobs, most people will just do as recommended because they have bills to pay and families to feed. It happens every day in every area of human life, in big and small ways
You conflated the issue of people directly making money from pushing the ‘truther’ claims (varied as they are) with career scientists working in a prestigious national laboratory.
Those two situations don’t equate.
You asked I answered. The answer didnt’ please you, you tried to seed a diversionary argument.
Situation normal.
Diversionary argument ain’t gonna happen.
Find some data to support your vague, and of themselves diversionary, ad homs about “people (plural) making money from pushing truther claims” or stfu.
You stated yourself that Gage makes his income from the ‘truther’ woo machine. I’m asking who else has a financial interest in this, and where the money comes from.
If you don’t know, that’s fine. It might be worthwhile knowing if there are conflicts of interest or income streams coming from somewhere ‘unexpected’.
(One of the central requirements for maintaining ISO 17025 accreditation is ensuring that there are no conflicts of interest. If you are making money from selling a product, for example, then the parts of your organisation doing lab work and sakes must be shown to be managerially independent. If you can’t show that, then you can’t be accredited. There are rules for accredited labs, and no such rules for random academics.)
It’s not our distinction, it’s a recognised philosophical distinction, which is explained in the provided link. But if you need anyone to explain the value of distinguishing between rational doubt and irrational conviction perhaps there is little value in further discussion.
You need to figure out the difference between science and pseudo-science, then you might be able to figure out when you’re being bullshitted.
Just because something fits in with your prejudices it does not necessarily follow that you should accept it — especially if it seems to make no sense when viewed in totality.
But then that would be putting scepticism into practice, instead of using faux-scepticism as a pretext to boost ‘truther’ woo that fits your prejudices.
Can you identify one piece of “woo” we have “boosted”?
Start with your article exposing reading comprehension failure:
https://off-guardian.org/2016/09/17/why-did-nist-decide-wtc-steel-could-not-conduct-heat/
Just because some ‘truther’ site asserted this ridiculous claim doesn’t make it so — it is pure truther woo, intended to fool those who don’t understand the subject, and in the case of many (such as the Off Guardian editorial team) demonstrate a desire to resist learning the truth.
Believing that NIST would somehow attempt to falsify their models, while explicitly noting their falsifications, takes a special kind of gullibility.
NOTE FROM ADMIN: The fact NIST set the thermal conductivity of the steel in (some of?) its models to zero is established fact, and, more importantly, you have admitted it yourself. Continued attempts at refuting things you have previously admitted or at pretending proven facts are still in dispute, will – regrettably – have to be regarded as trolling or intentional time-wasting.
I haven’t “admitted” this — I have pointed out why it is a red herring, and does not matter.
[edited for content-free ad hom]
NOTE FROM ADMIN:
Quote from the link I provided above:
Moriarty’s Left Sock:
Are you claiming it proves:
(1) NIST did NOT set the thermal conductivity of the steel in their models to zero? Or…
(2) They DID but they were correct in doing so?
Jerome Fryer
(2) They DID but they were correct in doing so.
Do NOT attempt to seed arguments or useless debate by denying your own previous statements. That is trolling. Do NOT reply to this comment.
This discussion is over.
You are genuinely unable to figure this out?
That’s an impressive ability to not understand simple stuff.
@ proximity1 “In reply to Admin:”
A)
“Rather than presenting a blizzard of irrelevant detail, a group sincerely interested in clearing up a controversy would stick to the essentials and explain concisely their compelling evidence–if they have any.”
Okay: 1) the free fall of WTC 7 and the lateral expulsion of material from both WTC 1 & 2 ; 2) the findinds of Niels Harrite et al. Is this simple enough for you?
B)
“. . .what is the value of setting up such a specious distinction in skepticism?”
Okay: Is 1) I don’t believe that the towers were brought down simply by fire and gravity because of the “fact” that WTC7 descends for 2.5 seconds at “free fall,” you could not get a debris field as large in extent as happened in the collapses of WTC 1 & 2 if only gravity was involved, and Niels Harrit et al., a team of competent and credentialed scientists, claim to have found the residue of an explosive in the WTC dust . . . is the foregoing as a mode of skepticism more or less rational than “The NIST report is true because NIST claims to be telling the truth, so I’m skeptical of ANYTHING an organization like ‘A&E for 9/11 Truth’ has to say, even if 2600 (not 1600, but two thousand six hundred) competent professionals offer “reasons” why NIST should be doubted.”
Please do explain to me why I should not draw a distinction between the form of skepticism that example 1) offers and the form of skepticism that example 2) offers.
Here is a relatively simple example for how you can fact-check (and debunk) a ‘truther’ claim.
The claim is: there was not enough energy in the WTC towers to produce the debris seen — in particular, the clouds of dust seen.
The second part of the claim, which is obviously incorrect, is that all of the dust was produced by crushed concrete. (The buildings were full of materials such as drywall. Most people know that drywall would break down easier than concrete. But ‘truthers’ seem to be special people.)
So, this claim rests on the energy required to break down concrete. Refer to this paper:
http://www.911myths.com/WTCONC1.pdf
The example is worked using WTC 1 as that had the smaller initial amount of energy available — the smaller section of the top that fell onto floors below, and also this section pivoted significantly as it collapsed.
The energy calculated comes out to 3.36 J/g. This is the ‘mass specific energy input’ to the first concrete floor below the section that initially fell.
Next we see references noted, and a summation “these data show that significant fracturing of concrete occurs at impact energy above 0.1 J/g”.
So the answer to the assertion that there was insufficient energy available, in a rough analysis, comes down to this: is 3.36 equal to or larger than 0.1?
I’ll let the ‘truther’ science and engineering experts ponder that puzzle.
Thanks for your link to Frank Greening’s paper Jerome.
Greening is a particularly interesting figure in 9/11 studies. He has authored / co-authored several well known papers, including ones with the controversial Zdenek Bazant, which involve collapse theories based on the floors above impact moving downwards as one ‘chunk’, and exerting a ‘jolt’ on the remaining floors below plane impact (as does his paper which you link to).
That particular theory has been critiqued here :-
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/TheMissingJolt7.pdf
Anyway i digress. The most pertinent thing about Greening is that he totally skewered the members of International Skeptics Forum ( referred to as JREF in following links) and accused them of smothering science, and taking others papers (including his own) as the word of God. He now openly refutes much of the official conspiracy theory, and questions much of his own earlier work.
http://911debunkers.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/bbc-caught-fabricating-dr-greenings.html
“I’ll just leave this here”
So… is 3.36 equal to or larger than 0.1?
Perhaps mathematics is part of the conspiracy?
Refer to the links Jerome. Greening’s workings are based on dubious observations, and he himself doubts them now.
I’m not referring to “dubious observations” and a ‘jolt’ theory. I’m referring to the claims about energy requirements and the debris produced not matching.
If Green’s energy calculations of 3.36 J/g are even close, and his reference to the testing results is even close to correct (“these data show that significant fracturing of concrete occurs at impact energy above 0.1 J/g”), then there is no ‘missing’ energy in the system that requires another input.
(Also Green isn’t factoring in the energy from a 767 slamming into the tower, nearly full fuel tanks, and the building contents on several floors burning. Perhaps the steel framing magically wicks all of that energy away?)
You’re illustrating the ‘truther’ shuck and jive technique of trying to ignore the argument, doing some hand-waving, and trying to move to a different argument. Was that intentional, or just a learned response?
What provided the energy requirement to initiate collapse of WTC 1? The article you base your claim on relies on the top section of WTC 1 falling as one piece, thus allegedly creating the energy required to pulverise the building materials (and human bodies).
This claim has been shown to be demonstrably false, thus rendering the rest of Greening’s (or Green as you call him) calculations irrelevant.
Rather than me using ‘truther shuck’, it seems you are basing your claims on refuted studies, no doubt sourced from ISF, which even the author of the report you cite (who used to be their darling) has exposed as rather less than the scientific titans they claim to be.
“What provided the energy requirement to initiate collapse of WTC 1?”
The fire caused by a 767 slamming into it seems a fairly strong suspect.
NIST believe it was the fire plus the structural damage from the impact. Arup seem to disagree (sort of), in coming to the conclusion that a fire alone of the scale produced would have doomed the tower to collapse.
This video is interesting:
https://youtu.be/qlYTZtkTbV4
Weird how that core that was destroyed with Harrit’s special recipe nano-thermite was still standing, eh?
Oh, wait. Perhaps they just exploded the top part, coincidentally exactly where the aircraft sliced into the building.
(Buy my new book: ‘Nano-thermite and the evil government conspiracy — third revision’. Contains twenty percent more woo!)
” ‘What provided the energy requirement to initiate collapse of WTC 1?’
The fire caused by a 767 slamming into it seems a fairly strong suspect.”
If this is all you’ve got Jerome there’s little point continuing.
@Jeromefryer
Another science-deficit moment by Jerome “I can do this longer than you so I win” Fryer.
Are you even trying to remain within the remit of the NIST report and/or accepted science any more? Or are you just reflexively hitting back to prevent the realization the jig is up?
You came here expecting to find science on one side and woo on the other. You didn’t realise ISF are all mouth and no pants whose credibility has even been denounced by the scientists they admire. Now you are dismayed and confused and angry because your expectations have proved to be wrong.
It’s time to give up on playing the ISF “huh, look at the loonies” game. It only works in their closed environment where reality is not admitted. Accept the fact there is genuine uncertainty in the science of 9/11, with reasonable things to be said on both sides, and you will stop making a fool of yourself and might even have valuable things to say.
At the moment it’s becoming increasingly embarrassing to watch you melt down like this in public.
“Accept the fact there is genuine uncertainty in the science of 9/11, with reasonable things to be said on both sides, and you will stop making a fool of yourself and might even have valuable things to say.”
So where are these “reasonable things”? Why do the woo pushers rely on the opposite of the scientific method, where they start with a conclusion (and ‘belief’ in some form of conspiracy) then attempt to make the facts support that conclusion. Why is Hulsey, for a recent example, claiming that his model ‘disproves’ collapse due to fire, but then doesn’t back up that claim with evidence? Does he need more money?
Your argument is the exact same one made by Creationists when they claim that the Earth could be 6000 years old, and it is only evil atheist scientists with their ‘flawed’ science approach that can come up with the 4.3 billion year age.
So you’re alleging that finding problems with the NIST report and calling for a new enquiry is as irrational as believing in Creationism? Do you not think that’s a little polarised?
You have to point to the “problems” in the NIST report, and they have to be significant enough to make some form of review worthwhile.
Merely asserting that you don’t believe something is not reasonable grounds for the government to spend millions of dollars (and who would they get to do the new report?)
There is nothing wrong with trying to prove a different hypothesis, just don’t expect that the public has to pay for it. And also don’t expect to see something different come out of such a review, as all of the private sector reviews into the attacks and building failures have agreed with NIST’s base conclusion about fire damage being the cause of failure.
@Loop Garou
I entirely agree.
I could tell from my exchange with him that he was clueless. He did — in a convoluted way that shows that he himself doesn’t understand the principles involved — allude to the observation (things can go faster than ‘g’ all when the only motive force is gravity, it happens all the time) that a lever hinged at one end and left to drop from an angle less than 90 degrees will result in an angular velocity at the other end being greater than ‘g.’
Of course, he didn’t and couldn’t put it in those terms, but that’s vaguely what he had in mind and also believes accounts for the free fall (and greater than free fall) descent of WTC7.
But angular acceleration induced by gravity is something I hadn’t ever considered or thought about until Nick produced the example, but clearly, apart from the fact that there surely were a lot of pieces of debris spinning about their axes or center’s of gravity at angular accelerations greater than ‘g,’ none of this could in any way account for the observed free fall of WTC7 across its entire width and breadth. As CloudSlicer suggests, it’s pure smoke and distraction.
At this point, I really don’t know what to think about Jerome. Good to have him around, however, because he certainly incites a lot of discussion about aspects of 9/11 that should be noted and that perhaps might not have been discussed, here, in the comment section.
If his purpose is to distract, it’s backfiring.
Otherwise, he is certainly “fixed” in his ideas in precisely the way that my West Highland White Terrier is about wanting to tussle with the occasional skunk that finds its way into our backyard. He doesn’t know when to quit, no matter how badly sprayed. I’m not making that up about the terrier, and I think I’m gonna start calling him Jerome.
Regards,
–N
BTW: you wrote a great article and your comments are always both enlightening and a delight to read.
@ admin,
Is it something I’m doing, or is WordPress acting a bit weird. I’m posting replies where I think I should be posting them, but they are turning up at the top of the thread.
My apologies although it’s not my fault, eh.
Yes it’s not the first time that’s happened lately. We certainly haven’t deleted any comments. I think maybe the volume of comment we get is confusing the spam software sometimes. We do check in regularly to try and rescue any non-spam that’s been swept up.
Thank you. I thought I was having a moment as I sometimes do, but worse than usual. Phew!
Have you found out what a moment frame is yet, Norman?
Dear Jerome,
How are you? I’ve been waiting around all night for you. I was beginning to worry that something awful might have happened to you. But here you are in your usual fine form.
Look, I’d like to talk and talk all night. But you’ve now become a bore. As Chandler puts it in the video posted by Loop, you cannot have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even begin to comprehend the terms of the discussion or at best pretends that he doesn’t. This will be my last reply to you, Jerome. Others can take it from here if they wish, and I’m sure you will manage to get all the attention you crave and possibly more.
Milou, who I will nickname in your honor, waits downstairs for his usual dose of ‘happy talk.’ He’s always doggedly sincere and without the least pretense, a creature more intent on genuine communication than you can ever be, Jerome, although I will never know why that is, eh . . . and frankly, come to think of it, not that I really give a fuck.
Hats off to Norman Pilon…..
For displaying both patience and tenacity
…over and above the call of duty
🙂
Seconded!
I just thought that: since the point about the construction of WTC 7, and the moment frame that bound the outer walls together, was a significant part of b1c1jones’ argument about the rate of collapse of the outer frame — you might bother to look into it.
Instead of grandstanding over a failure to understand the argument, like an idiot.
How do you consider the “moment frame” to be significant? In your own words, if possible?
I seriously doubt that Jerome will respond honestly to your question, even if at all, because:
a) He most likely doesn’t know what a ‘moment frame’ is or what its sigificance is.
b) He’s an Obscurant.
A lot of people getting distracted by non-scientist b1c1jones’s regurgitation of non-scientist Chris Mohr’s nonsense about WTC7 falling faster than free fall.
WTC7 did NOT fall faster than free fall. NIST knows this. Every scientist who looked at NIST’s graphs knows this. The only reason Mohr claimed it did is literally because he isn’t a scientist and doesn’t know how to read data points and curves. He mistook the error fluctuations for increases and decreases of velocity! And b1c1jones, who clearly does not have even high school physics, blindly repeats these basic mistakes. David Chandler explains it better than I can here.
Dear Loop,
Did I just dream that you left me a reply, or did you? If you did, I replied to you, and you can find that reply above, which begins with “I entirely agree.” Otherwise, I’m loosing my marbles.
I did leave you a reply! No clue why it’s been canned.
Good. I’m not entirely insane, then.
Seems like no one read the article.
Absolutely right. A tsunami of pseudoskepticism awaits the unwary traveller below.
Proceed with caution!
Hi, everyone,
In the course of an exchange with b1c1jones from ISF, b1c1jones made the claim that the force of gravity on the surface of the earth could accelerate “levered” objects to speeds higher than free fall. I asked b1c1jones to send me a link proving the claim. “Nick” responded on his behalf and sent this link:
Falling Faster than ‘g’
http://sciencedemonstrations.fas.harvard.edu/presentations/falling-faster-g
The demonstration is ridiculous, of course, because a) the ball travels a vertical distance greater than the cup and b) the distance between the location of the cup on lever to the ball has been carefully chosen so that the cup rotates with the lever into the descending path of the ball. This is the sort of intellectual rigor that we find at ISF and these days, apparently, at Harvard University. Of course, the people at Harvard are not in the least mislead by this magicians trick and know perfectly well the acceleration of the end of the lever cannot and does not exceed ‘free fall’ at the surface of the Earth.
I should add, as part of the analysis of the “experiment” at hand, the slope of the lever, and not merely the distance between the cup and the ball along the lever, at the moment that it is released, must also be carefully chosen. Different angles will yield different results in terms of the ball falling in the cup, that is, in terms of the distances these objects have to travel before coming to rest.
The cup is just a gimmick Norman. The upper tip of the plank nearest the ball is the bit to watch. Vertical distance between tip of plank and ball at start position versus distance ball still has to travel once same plank tip has come to rest after the fall….
http://www.science20.com/alpha_meme/falling_faster_freefall_lesson_didactics_and_critical_thinking-75385
Btw I didn’t post that on the ISF guy’s behalf, but rather independently just to add to the debate. You make a good point above but I’m not convinced 😎
Actually, I think I may have to eat some crow. I’m looking at this now and I’m beginning to flush with embarrassment. Good. It keeps one humble. Thank you for twigging my attention to this.
No stress, you’re still in combat mode.
For myself, I don’t quite understand how the edge of the plank falling as part of a circular motion affects things re the ball.. or for that matter how this specifically relates to WTC7’s collapse theory by the ISF guy ! He thinks the exterior of the building only fell so fast as it was dragged down by the interior?
Actually, I don’t think the “free fall” component of the experiment at hand has anything at all to do with the falling end of the lever, but with the “center of gravity,” the point where gravity appears to be acting on an object. I think that point on the lever as compared to that of the ball, if what is in “free fall” or accelerating at 9.8 m/s^2. Since we are dealing with a “lever arrangement,” which in my mind remains a bit of a mystery, depending on where relative to the pivot point one applies a force, different angular accelerations result at either end of the lever. We know we can move larger masses with smaller masses with the intervening mechanisms of pivots and levers, and we understand the descriptive mathematics involved. Why that should be, however, is a mystery. Anyway, I’m going to look at this some more. It is an interesting puzzle.
And yes, I don’t know how pertinent or not this is to the WTC7 collapse. Intuitively speaking, I don’t think there is much relevance. But I’ll hedge that for the moment, eh, . . . 🙂
The important point is that the board is hinged at one end (the centre of rotation) and for such an object the ‘centre of percussion’ (COP), which is 2/3 along the board from the hinged end, is the point which will accelerate at the same rate as a freely falling object, or g.
It follows that points along the board above the COP i.e. towards the free end of the board (where the ball is at rest and not fixed to the board) will accelerate at a rate greater than g.
The cup is placed between the COP and the free end of the board (and ball) such that, when the board has completely dropped and is horizontal, the cup is in a position immediately below where the ball was at rest when the board was inclined.
When the board falls, the COP (2/3 along from the hinge) falls at g, the cup falls at a rate slightly greater than g, and the ball, falling at g (therefore at a lower rate than the cup) ends up in the cup.
It’s a very neat trick.
But it has nothing at all to do with the collapse of WTC7, and it’s just an attempt by the ISF guy to confuse and muddy the waters, which is all they’re able to do really.
b1c1jones seems to be claiming that the observed partial free fall of the building was due to the resistance met by the collapsing structure being cancelled out by the downward pull of the inner collapse (I think).
I’m really not sure what b1c1jones is trying to say. It sounds like completely meaningless gobbledegook to me.
Perhaps to help clarify and stop wasting everyone’s time, he and his ISF mates could put together some diagrams with accompanying explanations to illustrate and elucidate their hypothesis and post a link here. Then we might be able to engage in some meaningful analysis. Otherwise it’s just appears to be what it probably really is: repeated attempts to raise minutiae to confuse and disrupt.
WTC7 was a controlled demolition, (as were WTC1 & WTC2), nothing else explains what was seen, heard and measured, and anyone who understands even the basics of structural mechanics, engineering, and physics will see it if they look with a dispassionate eye. The rest is just bluff and bluster.
It would indeed be great to see his workings, as his theory (if I understand it) is rather more than minutiae.
Beautifully explained. Thank you.
You’re welcome.
This is what cooperative debate should be about – helping each other understand important topics and making some progress – instead of having to engage in time-consuming, meaningless to-and-fro with people who seem to have no real interest in clarifying anything. It’s clear that such people have their own pre-determined agenda to follow, and the whole thing descends into a kind of ‘propaganda war’. Which is what the official narrative is anyway – pure propaganda, and an absolute sham. It’s proponents have a lot of helpers here in these threads, but it won’t be enough. There is a growing awareness that the official story is nonsense and a growing number of people want a new investigation. Hopefully these numbers will reach a tipping point before the USA and it’s Western poodles drag us all into some kind of Armageddon.
I am a homoeopath and so know all too well of the activities of pseudo skeptics. I regard the term as accurate and the above description of the antics of pseudo skeptics as accurate too. I have thought long and hard about their motivation and have come to the conclusion that for many, fear is the powerful motivation. Real skepticism is about uncertainty and an unwillingness to take on board accepted explanations. In the 9/11 situation, the true skeptics are those in organisations such as ‘Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth’. They don’t claim any controversy- merely that official explanations don’t bear up to scientific scrutiny. Fear of uncertainty is so often the motivating factor, and is why some people will cling to official explanations against all evidence to the contrary.
Well,
I hope this comment is taken in the spirit it was intended.
At this point I have to agree with Chomskys attitude on this subject – that there is little point in pursuing it. All I see is endless argument by authority, whether that’s the official line or one of myriad theories. I refuse to use the mandated terms of engagement (“truthers” etc) because they are part of the problem.
The thermite evidence as presented above in various comments is entirely warrantless. Apparently it was collected from the “vicinity” of the WTC. Does that sound definitive to anyone here? Some random samples collected by an unknown source and the analysis presented in a pay to play journal. Hardly conclusive. And that was only the first problem with that “evidence”.
Let’s cut to the chase. THERE IS NO TRUTH!
Every person who has a theory that the government did it has their own argument. They are very rarely consistent with others in the group. But you attempt to discredit one and suddenly the whole warring conspiracy faction unites against you. I lost hope for rational discussion on the subject when someone posted a comment saying there were no planes and blah blah blah. That comment had 7 thumbs up at the time of reading and no rebuttals. Really? Skeptics are we?
Add to this grouping the constant trolling of people whose behaviour indicates their immature and bigoted nature, responding with insults but no evidence to rebut posted claims. The lack of real names speaks volumes here. Don’t worry, you’ll get over it. I did, it comes with age.
As a wise man once said “extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence” Well patently there has not been such evidence as the argument is ongoing. Real evidence cannot be ignored and experiments are reproducible. I believe that was Chomskys point. But apparently he’s a gatekeeper according to some here.
Regarding the 2000 plus members of the architects and engineers group, I refuse to accept any argument based on authority. Especially from a country where you can buy your expert for whatever reason you choose and 2000 people in a nation numbering over 300 million is a dwindling percentage.
Please understand, I have the opinion that something untoward happened on 9/11, what that was I don’t presume to know. But – this whole 9/11 truth thing is just a diversion. You’re fighting against each other. You’re fighting yesterday’s battles with the same troops, the same arguments, on the same ground. This approach has yielded nothing in 15 years, maybe it’s time to deal with contemporary issues, like Syria, central America, Brazil, Ukraine etc etc.
But you won’t. And because of that “they” have won.
Divide and rule. Mission accomplished.
My biggest regret is that offG ran this series. Maybe it was an honest attempt to find some clarity but all its done is expose the dishonesty of many who claim to be other than they are. Go back to exposing contemporary wrongdoing in government. At least there’s a prospect of achieving something there. This is just a waste of electrons and time.
I understand your frustrations – even on such an invaluable site such as OG, the subject of 9/11 seems to bring out unsavoury attitudes and modes of address that are frankly embarrassing, and belong in Alex Jones land.
That said, perhaps it is worth some pain to keep crawling towards this elusive truth you refuse to accept is possible. You say real evidence cannot be ignored. That’s good. All any serious 9/11 researcher / body wants is a new, independent investigation not tainted by obfuscation, poor funding, movable physics theories etc etc. Such an investigation could surely put to rest – by method of transparent, reproducible modelling and experiments – any lingering issues around many of the observed events that day. Then perhaps we could get past people making “truthful” assertions (such as yours regarding WTC dust) with vague words such as “apparently”… 😉
The uniting factor here is that the official explanation for the tower collapses doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Skeptics of the official story, don’t need to come up with an all-encompassing alternative theory that everybody agrees on; it is enough to point out the flaws in the NIST report, and based on this, the need for a new investigation.
b1c1jones said:
This is not a scientific statement or any kind of assessment that can be quantified or analysed. It’s just a personal opinion.
We would need to compare a range of footage (not just a single example) of controlled demolitions with WTC7 and see if there are valid comparisons in the number and volume of explosions, though this would still be imprecise. Do you know of such a comparison? Maybe OffGuardan would host one if you pointed to good footage?
“This is not a scientific statement or any kind of assessment that can be quantified or analysed. It’s just a personal opinion.”
All controlled demolitions use explosives that are carefully sequenced and create extremely loud noise when they detonate. They also produce spikes of energy that would be recorded by seismographs.
Each of these factors is missing.
Asserting controlled demolition has required the ‘truther’ club to invent novel claims, such as nano-thermite, that have never been used in controlled demolition.
They start with a conclusion — conspiracy involving controlled demolition — then try to cobble together arguments and invent evidence to support those arguments. It’s a farce.
“They start with a conclusion — conspiracy involving controlled demolition — then try to cobble together arguments and invent evidence to support those arguments. It’s a farce.”
NIST started with a conclusion – fire-induced structural failure – and then tried to cobble together arguments and invent evidence to support those arguments. It’s a farce.
@jerome fryer
Please stop using universal dismissals based on the assumed failings of those you disagree with rather than dealing with the data in a rational and objective manner. It’s unhelpful and distracting.
I’m not a “conspiracy theorist”. I have zero interest in conspiracies. I don’t believe there was a controlled demolition on 9/11. I don’t believe anything at all. I have an open mind. But I have read the NIST report and it doesn’t do what it was tasked with doing, ie explain why collapse by fire is the most “probable” explanation.
Try to clear your mind a moment. Forget the spin from either side.
Do you understand that no steel frame high rise has EVER fallen due to fire prior to or after 9/11.
Do you undertand that hundreds of buildings have been brought down by explosives?
Do you understand that, given this, the balance of probability at the outset of investigation has to be that explosives brought down the towers, not fire?
Do you understand that NIST didn’t even bother to look for any evidence of explosives even though it had to be assumed the most probable explanation? Do you understand NIST went instead straight for the assumption fires had brought down the tower and set about making a model that would show this was possible?
Do you understand this is scientifically irrational? That you NEVER begin an investigation by assuming the least probable explanation is the true one?
NIST’s report is insufficient because it dismissed the most probable cause of collapse without examination and instead constructed and tweaked a model, invoked new physical processes and denied basic physics in order to make the least probable explanation work.
Even if fire did induce collapse for the only three times in history on that one day in 2001, NIST’s investigation fell far short of proving it.
Please stop talking about “conspiracy theorists” and deal with the thousands of people like me who are not claiming conspiracies but just want a new and proper investigation!
@jerome fryer
Whether we accept the thermite findings or not (I’m not completely convinced), these guys didn’t “invent novel terms”, they did an experiment that NIST ought to have done. They looked for evidence of explosives.
NIST had more resource than Harrit et al. Why the hell didn’t they test for explosives so they could rule out the common before proceeding to the rare?
It’ a first rule of science, you don’t assume an unprecedented esoteric explanation before you have tested for and disproven the precedented and commonplace.
@Jerome Fryer:
“All controlled demolitions use explosives that are carefully sequenced and create extremely loud noise when they detonate. They also produce spikes of energy that would be recorded by seismographs.” … “Each of these factors is missing.”
It is completely untrue to say these factors are missing from the evidence. There is abundant evidence including audio, video and seismic recordings, which clearly show evidence of explosives during the destruction of the towers.
The following video is quite long (about 1 hour) but it is very revealing and educational.
Following a very brief introduction by Niels Harrit about the NIST findings, there are sections showing clear evidence of sequenced explosives in the North Tower collapse, plus upward and outward explosive ejection of heavy building components being hurled sideways hundreds of feet.
One video section (which has been carefully adjusted to compensate for the distance of the camera from the towers, so that sound and vision are synchronised) shows massive explosions at the base of the towers well before the collapse starts, as well as other large and sequenced explosions in the run up to and during the collapses.
Another section shows clearly, using high school physics (with easy to follow animations), how the observed ejections of heavy steel beams and other material cannot follow the outward and upward trajectories they did except by explosive forces.
There is a section which analyses FEMA’s own seismic recordings which show the very large energies at work during the collapse of the towers, and how these recorded energies do not match the potential energy of the buildings. They also show how the recorded seismic energy of both towers are very different from each other (one almost double the other), despite both buildings being substantially the same and therefore having very similar potential energies.
There is much to see here for anyone with an open mind who wants to see actual evidence that explosives were used.
9/11: A Scientific Look at the Evidence 2016 – The Science of 9/11
CloudSlicer,
I’m going to post this video on my blog.
With your permission, I’d like to pilfer your comment for the preamble of the post, while making proper btl attribution to one “CloudSlicer.”
Norman,
Permission granted. I am happy to oblige, and look forward to seeing it there.
Perhaps if the steel had not been immediately carted off to China, we might have something better to work with. As it stands, it is enough to point out that the NIST report is false. We don’t need a new theory to demand a new investigation.
NIST did work with steel samples taken from the tower collapses. They didn’t have samples from WTC 7 as that was more ‘standard’ construction material, and hadn’t been subjected to aircraft impact.
Claiming that the NIST report was flawed doesn’t make the assertion true. Giving your money to fraudsters to conduct their own ‘experiments’ — or just produce huge quantities of rhetorical nonsense — is entirely your right, but if you want taxpayers to fund another investigation (by whom is another question) then you have to find something worthwhile to criticise.
Reasons why the NIST report is flawed:
(1) NIST did not even bother to look for evidence of explosives, which is the only precedented method by which steel frame high rise buildings have been brought down (save one toppling due to earthquake). Instead it went straight to the unprecedented idea of fire-induced collapse and tried to produce models that verified this idea.
(2) NIST did not abandon the unprecedented hypothesis of fire-induced collapse even when initial tests (as described by Kevin Ryan) seemed to rule it out. Instead they did the scientifically egregious thing and kept changing the models until they managed to get the result.
(3) We don’t know how egregious these changes were because NIST refuses to release its models, but we know at least one of their parameters (the thermal conductivity of steel) was altered indefensibly.
This is why non-conspiracy theorist scientists and engineers and others want:
(a) NIST to release its models
(b) a new official enquiry with total transparency.
My questions (to which I’d appreciate direct non-abusive, non-generic answers):
(1) Do you think these specific statements and aims are irrational?
(2) if so, why? (please answer specifically about these aims and not about the generic wrongness of conspiracy-thinking – which I am NOT promoting)
“Reasons why the NIST report is flawed:”
(1) Is simply incorrect. The debris was checked for explosive residues by dog teams. NIST did consider the possibility, but ruled it out because there is zero evidence to support this claim.
(2) and (3) indicate that you (along with the editors / moderators here) have no idea what the process of modelling something requires. It isn’t something I do, either, but I understand that if the results match reality then it’s fit for purpose.
“This is why non-conspiracy theorist scientists and engineers and others want:
(a) NIST to release its models
(b) a new official enquiry with total transparency.
My questions (to which I’d appreciate direct non-abusive, non-generic answers):”
I have no problem with (a), but I doubt it would help anyone — and probably merely create a large increase in ‘noise’ due to incompetent people fiddling with the data.
(b) is problematic, because when I asked about this (including on the ISF forums) it turns out that ‘truthers’ cannot set out what this requirement is. If you don’t even know what you want, then you’re unlikely to get it. Also: who should pay for this? The taxpayers already paid for NIST, insurers paid for Arup — will the 0.1% of professional people who subscribe to the ‘truther’ project pay for it?
Let us assume that such an undertaking proceeds and the results come back. What happens if they agree with NIST and Arup? Is that the end of it, or will the conspiracy believers simply see this as another ‘proof’ that there really is a vast conspiracy?
What do you think? Are you willing to put your money on the table?
Jerome Fryer said:
1)”The debris was checked for explosive residues by dog teams. NIST did consider the possibility, but ruled it out because there is zero evidence to support this claim.”
if anyone ever made the claim that dog teams ruled out the presence of explosives in the WTC rubble (can you find a source?) they were idiots or deceivers. The debris field extended four storeys under ground Jerome, and was roasting hot at its core. You don’t send in some dogs to walk over the surface. You take all the infrastructure you can find to a place of safety and you spend the next year or two inspecting it minutely, microscopically, for evidence of explosives or other suspicious agents.
They did not do this, as we all know. In fact the steel was carted off and melted down before any real inspection of the crime scene had been done. NIST didn’t even test the few pieces that were left for evidence of explosives.
Jerome said:
””(2) and (3) indicate that you (along with the editors / moderators here) have no idea what the process of modelling something requires. It isn’t something I do, either, but I understand that if the results match reality then it’s fit for purpose.
Ok, I assume you to mean, since the model predicted a fire-induced collapse, and since the WTC did collapse while on fire, the model must be accurate? This is absolute nonsense, and I’ll explain why when I have more time. Suffice to say that if I input the right data I could make a collapse model that fell down due to impact with low cloud. The fact this model resulted in the WTC towers falling down, just as they did on 9/11, would indeed “match reality”, but that would not make it any less ridiculous.
As to your last point – how can the phrase “a new official enquiry with total transparency” possibly need more explanation or development? If we can find the money for illegal wars we can find the money for this.
Whether or not I personally would accept the conclusions would depend solely on the data produced and if it fitted those conclusions better than any other.
An unwatched mind is easily deceived when a form of something is used to hide a different meaning or motive than its appearance. This is a kind of double-talk of form and can also operate as a wolf in sheep’s clothing or a trojan ploy. Masking cynical attack under the guise of scepticism is similar. Though it can be the gullible followers of cynical manipulators who can discover a response that does not fit their profile for nutcases and they can thus call into question their own allegiances and beliefs.
Dressing up or masking in forms that get passed off as true is part of our masking habits – such as a disarming smile that isn’t actually a smile – but a strategy of evasion. We do this much more than we recognize – but it also masks us from truly seeing what is going on – ie: it is manipulators who are in the realm or frequency of being manipulated. Releasing ad-hominem thoughts in ourself allows recognizing them when otherwise we react in like kind – for the sense of personal conflict doesn’t have to openly express in ad hominem terms to operate a desire to win in disregard for truth. Or in other terms, one can be politically or indeed scientifically ‘correct’ whilst behaving in loveless or hateful but ‘acceptable’ or ‘authorised’ ways.
Scepticism means something – including holding back from believing or accepting true until proofs or evidences are investigated and found to support the view or not.
A fake scepticism is used in defence of scientism – which is a masking of power within scientific forms of appearance and association – by attacking or outlawing rivals or threats to its market and mind capture – as if from a presumption and alignment with impartial or neutral authority. A false sense of scepticism is also employed as an identity mask by those who for their own reasons have investment in the official scientific narrative – as purveyed by a captured educational and media, and presented as consensus reality.
But it is not scepticism any more than an identity made by belief in Science is Science. But of course it may present itself as open to other views whilst in practice having no intention whatsoever.
The willingness to question what we believe or believe we know and accept as true is also the willingness to release it enough to evaluate it. To merely ask of the mind formed by its beliefs is no challenge at all.
Science as established institutionally (scientism) is very much serving political power as an institutional and educational endeavour and has operated the most fundamental shaping of mind, almost unnoticed by what is normally considered political commentary. This is not to feed an anti-Science agenda – but to set Science free of an anti-Life agenda, which I do not feel is an exaggeration.
The rising of the idea of psychopathic operation of power at very high levels at least begins to recognize that an agenda of blind and unfeeling disregard for life is operating rather than a muddled incompetence that passes off as plausible deniability. However I feel to frame my observations in terms of relational communication rather than presume scientific detachment to objectify others. There are correspondences that are hidden by the exclusive focus within physical-sight and mind to the presumption that the power and cause of existence is ‘out there’ to a private ‘in here’ rather than an inherence within a Totality of Existence that includes and is embraced by non physical or indeed non-local qualities that cannot be objectified – only partially translated into terms of physical sense – such as the mind may notice upon waking from sleep-dreaming. What does not fit the model is unseen, discarded, denied, or redefined to terms that support the consciousness. When the model is equated with the self and with power and control – in fear of loss of self and loss of control – then the ‘ego’ identification locks down against change and becomes an anti-life refusal to be in any terms but its own set.
BTW
http://www.skepticalaboutskeptics.org/
links in with ultra909 mentioning Rupert Sheldrake and scepticism
I’d like to add a couple of points to the top (for the moment) of this thread if I may.
1- Sincere apologies to Jerome for re-christening him “Jeff.” It was unforgivably lax of me. I also sincerely hope he doesn’t think I was mocking him. On the contrary, I think his obvious sincerity and ballsy preparedness to walk the walk and do the work is very admirable and very rare. His misplaced trust in a few pseudoskeptics who clearly haven’t bothered to do half the research he has done is just one of those human things we all do all the time.
2- Since we have quite a few International Skeptics dropping by here atm, could I ask them to consider addressing the ongoing issue BTL of NIST’s decision to assign a thermal conductivity of 0 to the steel in its models. We have had input from several science and technical people saying this parameter invalidated the NIST model, but so far only Jerome has ventured to try and prove this isn’t true.
We would very much like to see more input.
Does NIST’s report show validation for the 0, or not?
All contributions to this would be most welcome – BTL or ATL. But do source your claims and try to avoid the “your mom” approach.
Where in the NIST NCSTAR WTC 7 final reports does it state thermal conductivity was set to zero in all of its models?
There’s a source for NIST’s original statement in this article
https://off-guardian.org/2016/09/17/why-did-nist-decide-wtc-steel-could-not-conduct-heat/
They assigned a TC of zero or near-zero to the steel in their model of the “gas phase” of the WTC fire.
Those quoted sections are for WTC7 and 2, not WTC7. They also only apply to two very limited situations: modeling a beam before a test, and modeling gas temperatures where the floor is composite and the concrete is the layer in contact with the gas.
Am I correct in my reading that they validated the models against their physical testing?
Or am I confusing their physical testing with other models? (Are these models non-validated / in calibrated. This seems unlikely, but there may be something that I am missing.)
An irrelevant detail in the case of the ‘macro’ modelling, but I’m just curious about whether my understanding is sufficient.
They modeled a beam to set up a test, in the case at hand, then performed the test.
You can’t keep ignoring the marmalade and continue expecting us to take you seriously.
Explain what you mean by “they modeled a beam to set up a test”? How/why would they do such a thing?
Correction to my reply: WTC1 and 2, not WTC7 and 2. Phone autocorrect got me.
Correction to every single thing b1c1jones has said and implied about why NIST sets the thermal conductivity of steel to zero:
Extended quote begins:
[. . .]
NIST begins its explanation with a sleight of hand. The “initial local failure” is not a column buckling according to this new story, but is the displacement of a girder by means of the thermal expansion of up to five floor beams. It is there that we must begin our analysis of NIST’s new story, and if that is not realistic, then none of the remaining explanation for WTC 7 is realistic.
We should begin with a fact described in one of NIST’s earlier reports on WTC 7.
“Most of the beams and girders [in WTC 7] were made composite with the slabs through the use of shear studs.” NCSTAR 1-1, p 14
NIST now contradicts this earlier finding, in order to support the new story.
“In WTC 7 no studs were installed on the girders.” NCSTAR 1-9, p 346
[. . .]
For NIST’s new story, those floor beams would have had to not only expand linearly, but also break 28 high-strength shear studs, 2 seat bolts, 2 clip bolts (and seat welds), and then cause the buckling of a gigantic girder (which also had 22 shear studs) before the beams themselves buckled or even weakened. This is quite the opposite of what NIST says happened in the towers, where the official story is that the floors sagged dramatically. In WTC7, NIST now says the floors did not sag or weaken a bit, but remained fiercely rigid as high-temperature linear expansion caused them to wreak havoc on the surrounding structure.
[. . .]
To accomplish the linear expansion, the beams first had to get very hot. NIST says that its computer models suggest that “some sections” of these beams reached 600 °C.
“Due to the effectiveness of the SFRM, the highest column temperatures in WTC 7 only reached an estimated 300 °C (570 °F), and only on the east side of the building did the floor beams reach or exceed about 600 °C.” NCSTAR 1A, p 19
“The temperatures of some sections of the beams supporting Floors 8, 12, 13, and 14 exceeded 600 °C.” NCSTAR 1A, p 48
These extremely high steel temperatures would most certainly have resulted in the weakening of the beams, once the shear studs had been lost, allowing the thermal expansion to be relieved through downward sagging. This fact is supported by the experimental data produced by the Cardington tests, described in NCSTAR 1-9 (section 8.4.3), where much shorter floor beam spans experienced significant sagging. Therefore, this rigid beam linear expansion hypothesis is not realistic.
In any case, although NIST does not state it clearly in the new report, a 575 °C increase in temperature would have caused the girder end of the beams to experience a maximum of 2.2 inches of deflection. And if it were only a “section,” for example only a third of a beam length, then the increase from thermal expansion would be correspondingly smaller (or 0.7 inches). This makes NIST’s story of all those bolts and studs breaking in unison, and that critical girder buckling, quite unbelievable.
But how did the beams reach 600 °C in the first place? In the real world, this would have required very hot fires for a very long time. In NIST’s computer, of course, this was not a problem. As with the report for the towers, these cyber-space investigators only needed to fudge a few numbers, like the thermal conductivity of the materials involved. Structural steel has a thermal conductivity of 46 W/m/K, which means that any heat applied is easily wicked away. But if that value were set to zero, or near zero, any heat applied would allow the temperature to rise dramatically at the point of application.
“The steel was assumed in the FDS model to be thermally-thin, thus, no thermal conductivity was used.” NCSTAR 1-5F, p 20
“The interior walls [including insulated steel columns] were assumed to have the properties of gypsum board [0.5 W/m/K].” NCSTAR 1-5F, p 52
“Although the floor slab actually consisted of a metal deck topped with a concrete slab…the thermal properties of the entire floor slab were assumed to be that of concrete [1.0 W/m/K].” NCSTAR 1-5F, p 52
Fudging the thermal conductivity values, and extrapolating the localized computer results across vast sections of the building, appears to be how NIST scientists convinced themselves that they could promote the high steel temperatures.
But also note that raising those five floor beams to a temperature of 600 °C would require an enormous amount of energy, far more than was available from the burning of the office furnishings underneath the floor beams. Of course, NIST has not had any trouble selling such leaps of imagination before, as its media sponsors don’t ask detailed questions and NIST does not discuss its reports with independent investigators.
Extended quote ends.
source of the foregoing extended quote:
http://911review.com/articles/ryan/NIST_WTC7.html
That quote appears to be pulled from a draft report (2004?). This was amended to:
Then the accusation:
If you compare a draft report with a final report, you might find discrepancies.
This is a good example of why some people really ought to stay within their field of competence. (Ryan’s is water quality testing, apparently.)
How about the ‘discrepancy’ of not admitting partial freefall? Would that have been amended in the final report had it not been proven by Chandler?
Why do you believe that free fall is important?
Do you believe that free fall implies controlled demolition?
What kind of clueless idiot could possibly come to that conclusion?
Great comedy Fryer.
This is the only way (apart from personal abuse) to try and disguise the totally obvious re WTC7. To engage others in extremely detailed debate about non-issues and drag the unwary into irrelevant disputes that amount to no more than gibbering nonsense.
WTC was a controlled demolition.
Totally obvious. Period.
@ Jerome
Whether or not I believe free fall proves controlled demolition is not the point.
The failure on NIST’s part to correctly analyse the collapse sequence – surely one of the bedrocks of their remit – shows (at best) a deeply flawed working method including basic errors. That, coupled with their refusal to release their workings relegates their report to the waste bin.
Oh, b1c1jones has read the NIST report in its entirety and understands it in depth, technicalities and everything . . .
[edited for typo – OffG ed]
Have you, Norman?
Claim:
“I fully understand NIST, I was just warning about the level of technical detail and obtaining clarification on a question.”
Question:
“Where in the NIST NCSTAR WTC 7 final reports does it state thermal conductivity was set to zero in all of its models?”
Does that suggest to you a full understanding of NIST, Jerome?
You see, you don’t have to read ALL of NIST’s reports to point to some of the flaws in the reports. But if you claim that there are flaws, then you should be able to point to the one’s you have in mind or to the one’s you claimed were in the reports. Have I done less?
The question is where does NIST state they set thermal conductivity for steel to zero in all of their models.
Reading comprehension, attention to detail, careful analysis, critical thinking: all aspects required to ensure credible discussion, and all are severely lacking amongst the ‘truthers’.
Thank you Jerome. I’ve always been challenged with print.
We don’t know about most of NIST’s parameters because it won’t release its models. But can you think of any honest motive for giving any steel in the model a thermal conductivity of zero?
If the thermal conductivity isn’t a factor in the model you would not enter a parameter at all, there is no legitimate circumstance in which you would be justified in entering false data.
It only makes sense if you were trying to skew your results .
I have explained this multiple times already.
Try to wrap your head around the model being designed to replicate the physical tests.
It does not matter at all if the model is ‘wrong’ (by some person’s estimation) — what matters is whether it correctly predicts the real world results.
“His misplaced trust in a few pseudoskeptics who clearly haven’t bothered to do half the research he has done”
Opinion stated as fact, and also wildly incorrect.
I didn’t suggest that the posters on ISL might be worth bringing in because they post clever rhetoric and can engage in world-class sophistry. They know how to analyse and debunk pseudo-scientific crap and — more importantly — apply basic critical thinking to absurd hypotheses.
The second point is the most important: do the claims put forward by ‘truthers’ make any sense?
C’mon Jerome. You asked them to give you an authoritative back-up to your view NIST was correct to set the thermal conductivity of the steel to zero. They couldn’t answer you. They didn’t know. They obviously had no clue what you were even talking about.
Word of advice – anyone from either camp who tries to tell you the science of 9/11 is a done deal and only idiots have doubts is either a liar or an idiot who’s been taken in by other liars.
Once again, just for you, Loop:
The second point is the most important: do the claims put forward by ‘truthers’ make any sense?
Some of the claims make sense others don’t. Much like NIST. I support a call for a new investigation. I don’t support stupid anti-scientific ideas from truthers or non-truthers.
That question is so broad it’s almost meaningless. How do you define “truthers”? What claims do you mean?
Does the claim of “directed energy weapons” make sense? No.
Does the claim of holograms make any sense? No.
Does the claim it was a controlled demolition make any sense? Yes, it’s certainly completely rational and nothing in the evidence so far rules it out.
Does the claim the NIST report is insufficient make any sense? Yes. In fact it’s self-evidently true.
The idea of “truthers” as a monolith is just a convenient lie put out by those trying to pretend there’s nothing to see here. Some “truthers” are absolutely nuts. Let’s agree to ignore them and discuss the rational science, yes?
The “truthers” didn’t get $15million to investigate the how and why the towers collapsed, NIST did. NISTS’s claims are the ones on trial here. I highly recommend Kevin Ryan’s presentation at the Toronto hearings available on youtube to see how unscientific their claims are. (Though all you really have to do is look at their ridiculous WTC7 collapse model that looks nothing like the actual thing).
9/11 Journalists cannot investigate legitimately – they ‘if honest’ can only report an authentic investigative engineering report unless they are PhD level Structural Engineers of course with access to the raw data?
The problem is motivation of the true scientific engineering community that has an authoritative voice to step outside the comfort zone of Govt funding & tell the truth so logically skeptical observers put forward amateur skeptical opinions many of which have a great content of truth.
Like a great many qualified engineers I can do the calculations with what open-source data is available, as many have done but the results & their interpretations will be subject to a Bellingcat’esque unqualified scrutiny coupled with the bought & paid for Academic line. BUT WE DON’T HAVE THE RAW DATA so what is said can be ripped & conjectured. Raw Data means the precise engineering design with modifications & architect Minoru Yamasaki’s full file – WHICH NOBODY CAN GET !
Until a recognised science house outside the realms of pressure publishes in layman’s terms the factual concise reasons why the 3 towers fell like they did this argument has an everlasting lifespan.
Data sets for climate measurement are easily available. Do you believe that this availability has assisted with general understanding?
The data, and models, are just another distraction. There is no logic to the various hypotheses about the 9/11 events that diverge from the ‘official’ version.
Just because government bodies lie sometimes, it does not follow that they always lie concerning everything. (And in any case, there has been plenty of cover-up of the negligence and stupidity that allowed the attacks to occur. But the public are still being given the circus of conspiracy theory about the terrorist attacks.)
“The data, and models, are just another distraction.”
Do you mean NIST’s data and models?
You think the entire body of physical evidence and research upon which the official explanation of collapse by fire is based is a “distraction”?
A distraction from what? Breezy ad homs? Proof through certitude?
That “distraction” is literally the only physical evidence ever adduced.
A distraction from thinking about the nonsensical assertions behind ‘controlled demolition’ and other such invention.
This infeasibly huge web of conspirators was clever enough to manage to perform what would be considered by most rational people to be impossible physical feats. However, they left some paperwork behind in their secret control bunker in WTC 7, so obviously they had to completely destroy that entire building. The paper-shredder must have been jammed, and they’re a PITA to un-jam, so… Meh… Destroy another high-rise.
This makes sense to ‘truthers’.
Let’s confine ourselves to discussing the science. What can or can’t be proven there is the first step. Speculating about conspiracies doesn’t interest me.
Government funding is a false disqualification. It presumes government guilt in the events, and presumes any level of funds from the government will make a conclusion invalid.
The evidence is out there for all to see that 19 terrorists committed the acts of 9/11. There is no evidence that bears up under scrutiny of any other involvement, and certainly no evidence of fantasy conclusions of demolition, when no Controlled Demolition sounds were recorded, no detonators found, no money trail or purchases of equipment, no technicians identified. The building collapses occurred after fire and damage – collapse mechanisms due to weakened members have been modelled and are plausable, with similar alternate mechanisms identified by non-government industry groups.
Freefall, symmetry in the eye of the observer are not controlled demolition evidence. WTC7 collapsed from the inside out, so sufficient leverage was applied to the moment framed exterior to result in downward acceleration that at times exceeded 9.81 m/s2 (gravity acceleratio), as the exterior of the WTC7 was shown to exhibit during precise measurement. That moment frame also explains the apparent “symmetry ” of the collapse, as it held the exterior of a symmetrical building intact during collapse.
The so called nanothermite find was independently identified professionally as paint primer on metal chips. The Harrit experiment was also flawed in concept and presentation, not showing test rules in parallel between paint and so called nanothermite with comparative statistics to clearly identify materials, and was not carried out in an inert atmosphere. The study itself was “peer reviewed ” by a fellow Truther.
A true skeptic questions ALL claims. I have seen evidence of the Al Qaeda attack. Fantasy demolition claims have no evidence, so as a skeptic I dismiss them.
LSSBB
We don’t need to touch upon the possibility of direct government involvement in order to recognise the desirability of a truly independent inquiry, or the potential for abuse. Government always have a preferred narrative and will pressure inquiries to favour those narratives. NIST’s failures, if failures there were, don’t have to point to direct government involvement in 9/11 in order to be regarded as egregious and requiring additional investigation.
Don’t fall into binary thinking. Rejection of insane ideas about space beams, nukes or evil cabals does not necessitate endorsing everything NIST says without question.
And I think you’re failing to do as you advocate and equally critique both sides. You decide to reject the thermite finding and accept the paint finding, on what basis? I’ve read both Harrit et al and Millette and it seems Millette’s findings are really no more conclusive than Harrit’s. Harrit even produced a rebuttal of Millette, which Millette has not in turn rebutted. So, how concluive is this debate in reality?
No evidence? Are you practising for a performance at the comedy club. [edited for content-free ad hom -OffG ed.]
Explosives go boom. Thermite burns bright. At every location they are used.
Buildings collapsed after fire. A lattice of beams, girders and columns was distorted under heat from uncontrolled fires, and gave way at a weak spot. A building collapsed from the inside out and brought down it’s shell. Controlled demolition is a fantasy. The only non-fantasy government involoved scenario is listening to data such as the Aug. 6th PDB, and saying “Let’s see how this plays out”, and there is no evidence that happened.
Was the Bush administration gunning for Iraq? Yes – and the hijackers were not affiliated with Sadam. Did the Bush administration make mistakes? Yes. Didn’t take threat of non-state actors seriously. Covered up Pat Tillman. Caught being too cozy to Saudis. Enacted heavy handed security measures. Did they kill nearly 3000 people using planes PLUS super secret demolition ninjas? No evidence.
Yes they do. And there are many eyewitnesses of things going boom that day;
https://off-guardian.org/2016/09/11/the-toronto-hearings-on-911-graeme-macqueen/
I agree this isn’t conclusive proof of explosives, there are other things that might be going boom in a burning building. But the claim of “no booms therefore no explosives” is invalid as a first premise.
Yes it does. But this is a hard one to quantify. Whether or not the bright flashes of thermite shape charges would be visible would depend on where they were located.
And ultimately arguments for probability can’t override data. If (and only if of course) the finding of thermite in the WTC dust can be validated then all other questions are moot.
But just as thermite burns bright and explosives go boom, steel frame high rise buildings DON’T collapse due to fire. You have to allow the improbabilities of all sides equal weight.
If WTC 1, 2 and 7 collapsed due to fire (I’m not claiming they definitely did or didn’t, since we have insufficient data) they would have been the first and last such buildings ever to do so in the history of architecture. This means before we accept this explanation we need very good data and to be very sure to exclude other more plausible explanations.
No comparable buildings have previously been brought down by fire. Hundreds have been brought down by explosives. Ergo on simply probability considerations explosives had to be the first likelihood explored.
Yet NIST did not even examine the debris for signs of explosive charges! This is why we need a new investigation.
Sporadic reports of explosions by eyewitnesses does not make up for no timed sequence of high decibel demolition explosikns.
Whoa wait a minute.
1) We don’t know there was no timed sequence do we?
2) We have very little data about the decibels of the explosions heard.
We can’t rule out explosive charges on this basis. They must remain one possible and on the face of it plausible explanation of the booms heard.
There weren’t ANY explosions even randomly sequenced that matched demolition even closely.Watch a real explosive building demolition, with sound, if you are confused.
Did WTC7, at any point in its descent, ever drop at “free fall?”
It bounced around an acceleration of free fall for a brief time, behavior fully explainable by the inside leveraging the exterior to the point of collapse.
What does “bounced around an acceleration of free fall for a brief time” mean, exactly.\?
The acceleration was not constant. It was sometime above g, sometimes below, according to precision analysis by ISF members pgimemo and femr2. NIST and others only did an imprecise average. There is a detailed highly technical thread concerning the analysis, at ISF. Join, and learn.
[a link to the detailed highly technical thread would be very helpful – OffG ed]
Okay. What about this:
This is the first known instance where fire-induced local damage (i.e., buckling failure of Column 79; one of 82 columns in WTC 7) led to the collapse of an entire tall building. P.62.
A detailed analysis of the descent of the north face found 3 stages: • A slow descent at less than gravitational acceleration, corresponding to column buckling • A free fall descent at gravitational acceleration over approximately 8 stories • A decreasing acceleration, as the north face encountered resistance from the structure below. P.64. [Norm’s emphasis]
ource of the foregoing two quotes: NIST Response to the World Trade Center Disaster: Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster — November 19, 2008, here:
http://www.nist.gov/el/disasterstudies/wtc/upload/WTC7RevisedTechnicalBriefing_111908.pdf
Is 2.5 seconds of virtually constant free fall an imprecise average, in your opinion? A height of over approximately 8 stories, certainly well over 7, eh.
It is not virtually constant free fall, and it is fully explainable by the additional load applied by the internal structure on the exterior. Simple, Newtonian, physics.
Interesting. In terms of the available gravitational potential, speaking in Newtonian terms, how much of it is being converted into kinetic energy if an object is in “free fall?”
The building exterior was accelerating downward under load from the interior collapse. All gravitational potential was being converted to kinetic energy.
Okay. Is the interior collapse being powered by gravity?
@ b1c1jones,
Not to pick a nits, but you clearly state:
“The acceleration was not constant. It was sometime above g, sometimes below . . .”
In simple Newtonian mechanical terms, can you explain to us how, if gravity is the only source of the building’s motion, it could ever at any point in its descent “… sometime[s] [be] above 9.8 meters per second squared, or what you call “g?”
Resistance at bottom of exterior is, let’s say, .3g equivalent. Force applied by interior onto exterior is .3g. Force of gravity is g.
.3g – .3g + g = g. Resulting acceleration is g, counteracting forces balance out. This is dynamic, so it changes throughout the fall as applied force goes up the down, resistance is low, then increases.
So you concede that the theoretical limit of acceleration of any part of the building is 9.8 m/s^2. If the interior is pulling the exterior, the exterior is pulling the interior — equally. Therefore, if the exterior is falling at an observable 9.8 m/s^2, it must be that the interior is . . . I’ll let you finish that sentence . . .
The “scientific”exchanges on this thread are bullsh*t squared. It is as though a couple of arseholes from an office populated by number-blind retards in the MI6 building has gone out on the piss and, returning the worse for wear, have decided to have a little monkey-brained fun.
Don’t think you are confusing anyone with this crap. Go home and reflect on something that matters. Your spiritual destiny, perhaps.
The point, my dear physicsandmathsrevision, is to demonstrate that the other MI6 operative, who works at the desk beside me, has no fucking clue what he is talking about. Would that be a fair assessment of the direction in which this “exchange” is going? And who shit in your cornflakes, this morning? If the “exchange” is pointless in your view, why do you even bother reading it? Why do you even bother commenting on it? Take a fucking pill and chill out. And yes, I have to decided to have a bit of monkey-brained fun. Not to confuse anyone, but to demonstrate to smug ignorance that that’s what it is, smug ignorance, eh. So could you kindly fuck off, physicsandmathrevision?
Fair do’s. Like the reply. Unfortunately most of my mental energies on this rather good website are wasted in trying to work out who is and who is not sincere. It can be hard to tell. Sincere response. Thank you.
I do not concede the limit is 9.81 m/s2. At any time the force balance equation could be 0.35 g+ g – .3g = 1.05g.
What does your reply even mean? At most it can be taken to mean this: without specifying where the additional .05g is to come from, the balance of forces can theoretically be at any moment what you specify. But then more force than “g” must be involved by an increment of .05g, as expressed in terms of “g,” and that increment cannot be supplied by the available gravitational potential of the building.
If that isn’t what you mean to imply, you show that you have no understanding whatsoever of even the most elementary concepts of Newtonian Mechanics, of neither Newton’s 3rd nor Antoine Lavoisier’s law of the conservation of energy.
If an object is moving toward the ground at “less” than free fall, more than the force of gravity must be involved, and the direction of the additional force on the object must be opposite that of the force of gravity; by the same token, if an object is falling at “more” than free fall, a force greater than gravity must also be involved, and the direction of the additional force on the object must be identical to that of the force of gravity.
Anyone claiming that under conditions of gravitational collapse any part of WTC7 could fall at a rate of acceleration greater than 9.8 m/s^2 betrays an ignorance of elementary physics.
Since you already have made that claim, you don’t know what you are talking about. Period.
F=ma. Forces add up to make for net force. F1 + F2 + F3 = total force.
The additional. 05g in this case comes from the yanking down load applied by the interior of the building onto the exterior.
Acceleration of a falling object can exceed g if sufficient net force is applied in a downward direction in addition to the force of gravity. There is no physical law preventing an acceleration greater than g. It happens all the time.
“If the interior is pulling the exterior, the exterior is pulling the interior — equally. Therefore, if the exterior is falling at an observable 9.8 m/s^2, it must be that the interior is . . . I’ll let you finish that sentence . .”
Let me help b1c1jones complete the sentence and elaborate a little upon it:
Therefore, if the exterior is falling at an observable 9.8 m/s^2, it must be that the interior is either falling at the same rate of acceleration or the interior is not connected to the exterior. For if the interior, which cannot fall faster than gravity will permit, i.e., 9.8 m/s^2, is connected and the exterior is falling at 9.8 m/s^2, the interior cannot be either pulling or pushing because otherwise, the exterior would be falling at a higher rate of acceleration (an impossibility) or at less than free fall. If, on the other hand, the interior is unconnected, it a can’t possibly be having an impact on the exterior regardless of what it may be doing. These are the ONLY possibilities at hand consistent with Newtonian Mechanics.
You can add up all the forces you like, you will never get more out of a building what it had in terms of its original gravitational potential. That is an invariant magnitude. Period.
Any collapse with acceleration remotely close to ‘g’ proves demolition. When that collapse is through the line of maximum resistance and symettrical (i.e. all supports at every level being sequentially destroyed) then the question becomes a No-Brainer.
WTC7 (and WTC’s 1 & 2) were demolitions.
Period.
Nothing could be more obvious on brief examination of the provable facts.
The interior falls at or below gravity, and in doing so applies a load to the exterior, because the exterior remains motionless until applied force exceeds resistance. The exterior can fall at or above g as a result. Total energy is conserved. No magic. Basic physics, free body problem. Do the math.
When can the interior fall at free fall while connected to the exterior?
Initially, or locally. It’s a big collapsing building with lots of columns, girders and beams.
Look, it’s a simple question with a simple answer. If the exterior is not moving and the interior, however you want to define that zone, is connected to the exterior with steel girders, not rubber bands, will it possibly fall at free fall — yes or no?
Look, if you want to continue to debate this, please continue it at ISF. I don’t have a lot of time to devote to posting here AND there. I’m done in this particular echo chamber.
Yes, you’ve actually been done a while ago.
Absolute nonsense! You’ve forgotten the marmalade in wall cavities.
b1c1jones isn’t claiming conditions of gravitational collapse alone acted on WTC 7. Do you know what he is referring to when he mentions the ‘moment frame’ that held the exterior of that building together?
The principle of leverage always works, Norman, and can convert g into g plus something with any amount present.
@ b1c1jones
“There is no physical law preventing an acceleration greater than g. It happens all the time.”
What are you mumbling? That sometimes the earth attracts objects at an acceleration rate of 9.8 m/s^2 and some other days its what, 12 m/s^2 ? It happens all the time? Please cite us a couple of examples where the only occult force presumed to be acting is that of gravity.
http://sciencedemonstrations.fas.harvard.edu/presentations/falling-faster-g
Ridiculous! The ball falls into the cup because a) the distance the balls falls is longer than the cup, so it must reach the surface of the table latter than the cup and b) as the lever rotates, the position of the cup aligns with the path of the ball. Anything position downward on the slope of the lever MUST arrive at the table before any that is upward. Why? Because the distance is shorter, eh. Why not just measure the speed at which the end of the lever falls? I guarantee that it does not exceed free fall.
Debunking the 9/11 Myths: Special Report
The following content is from an in-depth investigation of the conspiracy theories surround the attacks of 9/11, which was published in the March 2005 issue of Popular Mechanics. That cover story was expanded and published in August 2006 as a book titled Debunking 9/11 Myths. The fully revised and updated 2011 edition of the book is now on sale. | Feb 2, 2005 | 17.9k
This is a detailed rebuttal, point by point of the Truthers’ 9/11 conspiracy claims.
Once the facts as known were laid out with arguments, proofs, etc., the onus was then on the conspiracists to show why the official version is faulty- They have never done so. Your effort here is deplorable and just may be sufficient to write this site off as a lost cause–a true shame since your original mission, showing up the wild bias and irresponsibilities which now make their home at The Guardian.com is serious and important work.
With this episode, you imperil that needlessly, uselessly.
Your “real-” versus “pseudo-” skepticism is seriously flawed in its premises and conclusions. If I’m allowed to, I might bother to point out why. The treatment and the scoldings which moderators/admins here have dealt out to Jerome Fryer for posting reasonable questions, claims and arguments leave me embarrassed for you, so shabby was your treatment of his efforts to participate and raise objections.
I’d take your opening line and complete it this way,
“The 9/11 series here has proved interesting in a number of ways. Among other things, it has shown that this site’s editors are quite capable of behaving very much like some of the worst of what they established this site to expose and deplore about The Guardian newspaper of London’s work.
This series has been an eye-opener and, in my opinion, pitiful.
The only point I’d add is that there should be different standards of professionalism required of a mainstream media organisation, and a site like this one.
I don’t expect “off Guardian” to do a similar level of work as a well-funded and highly skilled organisation. That would be unrealistic.
The MSM never engage people like myself in any way, unless they can’t avoid it. Consider the lack of interest in dissenters of the caliber of Noam Chomsky or the late Howard Zinn.
Popular Mechanics, you say.