...the doubt about the consensus about the doubt about...

[Confuseling]

AKA a thread for LastChild's favourite point, if the mods see fit. I don't feel I'm resurrecting something banished to AAH here. I don't think this point will go away, so I seek to contain it; but obviously, do as you think best.

This is the SOLE topic for discussion in this thread, and we will agree to remain as civil as possible.

LastChild: Do I understand that your point is that we are unable to find evidence for a consensus in favour of the NIST report as the current best understanding of how the buildings collapsed?

[CHF]

Don't waste your time.

LastChild isn't sure whether the authors of the NIST report are supporters of the NIST report.

So I don't think there's any hope of him even understanding what a consensus is, let alone acknowledging that one exists.

[Confuseling]

I'm doing a philosophy degree. I'm all about tortuous argument :D

I think this debate needs to be contained and then fought out once and for all. I'm game. I hope he is too.

[twinstead]

The consensus of the world's engineering community is a given. Any rational person who is paying attention knows it. The truther's tactic of demanding that these experts personally state they support the official story or they "don't count" is an obvious method of ignoring this and is akin to an artificial shift in the burden of proof.

[Par]

I'm doing a philosophy degree. I'm all about tortuous argument.


So, you thought that Saint Anselm’s ontological argument wasn’t quite daft enough and so came searching for the mythical LastChild. You’re a masochist indeed.

[Brainache]

Would it be helpful to point out to LC and C7 what happens in the scientific community when there isn't a consensus? Are there any hotly debated scientific theories or engineering topics floating around out there at the moment?

I can think of String Theory as one possible example which has a lot of opinions either way. People have spent billions of dollars to build a particle accellerator big enough to try to answer some of these issues. Scientists argue back and forth over the merits or otherwise of various theories all the time.

No one in the scientific community is arguing about the findings of NIST beyond a few questions about adequate fireproofing and language usage.

If there was no consensus, the journals would be full of disputes about it. There is no dispute. There is a consensus.

[Confuseling]

I admit, I think their objection has no merit.

I just think that in a contained environment, where the very purpose is to pin them down on why, it can be made crystal clear.

And I'm bored already of watching other threads being dragged into it.

I guess the point is he can't really refuse. He can't not post here and then troll other threads with exactly this point without revealing once and for all that he isn't interested in discussion.

Besides, if you will forgive my hubris, I think I will eat him for breakfast.

@Brainache: That is a good angle, and I would appreciate all of your input. What I hope is for this thread to remain civil, no matter what provocation. If we can prevent it from sinking into AAH then we have a lasting monument to the bankruptcy of their position.

Assuming we win ;)

[nicepants]

The NIST report has been challenged and labeled a fraud by many qualified individuals, yet none of the contributing experts have come to the defense of the report or their contributions.

Is there any expectation that the contributors to said report would be obligated to "come to its defense" any time someone has a criticism of it?

[AZCat]

Is there any expectation that the contributors to said report would be obligated to "come to its defense" any time someone has a criticism of it?

It depends: who is criticising the report and in what forum? Wild claims and unsupported ramblings by fools on the internet are not IMO the sort of criticism that deserves a response.

[Confuseling]

I actually posted in politics for my first topic (possibly foolhardy) about the notion that the truthers are acting as perfect disinfo, 'useful idiots' if you will, deflecting attention away from relevant questions about the whole sorry affair. I can see every reason why officialdom would not want to put the conspiracy theories to rest.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=107415

But that's a shameless plug :)

[LastChild]

I made my point in the Get A Life thread. None of you had anything. Just name calling, pictures of cats, and, cartoons and whatever else to call in the moderators to save you one more time and get it moved to AAH to cover your failure.

If you started this thread to proclaim that the authors of the official versions don’t need to stand behind their work publicly well… I heard you. It’s just your opinion and I don’t buy it. I will remind you one more time that one half of your official version the 9/11 commission already tried to publicly stand behind their work and later had to write an open letter in regret.

Post your quotes if you want to make a point. Besides it's the weekend. Get A Life. lol

[Confuseling]

Hello LastChild. Thankyou for joining me here. Please, my first request was for this to remain civil. I am genuinely interested in this point, because I think it touches on a lot of the substance of the disagreement between the truth movement and the debunkers. I would like this debate to be exhaustive, and to remain here, rather than being consigned to the dustbin.

You are asserting that the authors of the NIST report need to publicly proclaim their belief in the NIST report. Wouldn't they then need to publicly proclaim their belief in the proclamation of belief in the NIST report? Wouldn't this go on forever?

It is assumed, unless something is repudiated or retracted, that it stands. The authors have doubts, certainly. They won't all stand by all of it 100%, there are many authors and many subtleties, but do you not accept that they all agree, for example, that there were no explosive charges in the towers? Would they not have said so by now if they thought that were the case?

ETA: I don't really know what you're talking about with respect to the 911 commission report. Do you have a link that approximately summarises your position? If not could you just elaborate a little? What did the report say? What did they stand behind, then distance themselves from? Sorry, I'm in the dark about this bit...

[MIKILLINI]

LC wants qoutes from those who signed their name to the NIST report, because assigning their name to the report is not a quote nor is it a conformation of agreement to him. What this means is LC will have to remain unsatisfied. So get over yourself LC.

Perhaps LC, you can find some quotes from PNAC that they intentionally wanted a New Pearl Harbor.:rolleyes:

[Confuseling]

So, you thought that Saint Anselm’s ontological argument wasn’t quite daft enough and so came searching for the mythical LastChild. You’re a masochist indeed.

Well, while there's silence. I actually quite like the ontological argument for its simplicity. There's an interesting, similar argument that holds that it is not possible to imagine anything that couldn't exist; though I have to admit I don't really understand that. It's mentioned here:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/#ModArg
(really good website, I think)

I've only just started my studies really, and am much more interested in the political philosophy / sociology side of things - hence my presence here.


...
No one in the scientific community is arguing about the findings of NIST beyond a few questions about adequate fireproofing and language usage.

If there was no consensus, the journals would be full of disputes about it. There is no dispute. There is a consensus.

I have to admit that I do think it's more complicated than that. I give some credence to postmodern thought. Intersubjectivity is real in a consensus reality sort of way, although I do believe in an absolute reality too - it's just questionable to what extent it can be perceived purely.

Politics does constrain and manufacture science, as much as we hate to admit it. I just don't think it happens to quite the extent that our friends here do.

[Brainache]

Well, while there's silence. I actually quite like the ontological argument for its simplicity. There's an interesting, similar argument that holds that it is not possible to imagine anything that couldn't exist; though I have to admit I don't really understand that. It's mentioned here:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/#ModArg
(really good website, I think)

I've only just started my studies really, and am much more interested in the political philosophy / sociology side of things - hence my presence here.



I have to admit that I do think it's more complicated than that. I give some credence to postmodern thought. Intersubjectivity is real in a consensus reality sort of way, although I do believe in an absolute reality too - it's just questionable to what extent it can be perceived purely.

Politics does constrain and manufacture science, as much as we hate to admit it. I just don't think it happens to quite the extent that our friends here do.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying that politics sets the agenda for what scientists are allowed to study? Or something else?

I can understand that a scientist with a minority view on a particular subject may find it difficult to get funding, but if he is wrong, he is wrong. No amount of funding will make 3 + 3 = 259.

[Confuseling]

Well, I'm trying to stake out a nuanced position here - and what I wrote wasn't supposed to contradict what you wrote as such, but just to point to the fact that science does not exist in a vacuum.

Relativism has its limits, but it does have something important to teach us. Yes, there is a truth (ignoring solipsism, which is philosophically defensible, but pointless), and the only way to access that truth is science.

There are also social constructs about which, while immersed in them, we may know little. They don't alter the truth we are interrogating (except insofar as future social reality is built by our beliefs, and this impacts reality), but they affect our methods of interrogation - the experiments chosen and the interpretation of the results.

A good example at the moment, for me, is the medicalisation of social problems. I think there is a pernicious tendency, in psychiatry particularly, to try to apply pharmaceutical solutions to what would better be addressed by social policy.

[nicepants]

It depends: who is criticising the report and in what forum? Wild claims and unsupported ramblings by fools on the internet are not IMO the sort of criticism that deserves a response.

That's kind of where I was headed. If the criticism were to be presented by well-respected members of the scientific community in the proper forum (and I do not mean internet forum), I think that a response may be warranted. The truthers seem to want to stick to youtube, etc, instead of the proper channels for that type of criticism.

Post your quotes if you want to make a point.

LC, you still haven't specified what "quotes" it is that you're looking for. Please be specific.

[MIKILLINI]

I'm doing a philosophy degree. I'm all about tortuous argument :D

I think this debate needs to be contained and then fought out once and for all. I'm game. I hope he is too.

What your trying to find out is LC's philosophical position? He is under what I call "twoofer uncertainty".
What he wants to know is if there are any opinion/quotes from those who assigned their names in the NIST report to determine if any of them had reservations or doubts about the final consensus. Just to give a brief summary.

[R.Mackey]

With respect to Confuseling (and welcome!), this is only going to end in madness.

We've already explained to all parties concerned that there are (a) a large number of published papers, all materially agreeing with the NIST Report's core findings, and (b) no published papers of any sort disputing NIST's core findings. That's consensus. Cut and dried.

I'll even accept conference papers. Got any? Didn't think so.

In terms of sworn statements, if it's quotes the Truth Movement wants now, I'll give 'em two. Here's one from a first-class expert and well-known critic of the NIST Report:

Our research and that of others have shown no evidence of any conspiracy. I find it very unfair and unjustified and to blame the collapse of these towers on conspiracy , which distract the attention from the lessons that we can learn from this tragedy to make our structures more resilient to prevent such a loss of life in the future. Those 19 murderers and their organizers and supporters , who attacked us and killed so many of our loved ones, were the perpetrators of this crime. In my opinion , and in the opinion of any 9/11 victims' family members that I have talked to, the conspiracy theorists are committing a second act of injustice , perhaps unknowingly, by blaming it on some conspiracy.

Here's another, namely my own. I wholeheartedly support all of the NIST key findings in NCSTAR1. My own thorough review of NIST and competing studies leads me to conclude that the NIST Report may be incorrect in a few details, but there is absolutely no way to support any conspiracy theory on its basis. May my car snap its crankshaft if I lie.

I do not claim to be the best qualified reviewer of the NIST Report, but I am qualified. I am also at least as qualified as anyone in the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and I've written more on the subject than their entire membership combined.

If they want more quotes, let them find 'em themselves. They serve no purpose. The consensus exists even without them.

[Confuseling]

[ETA: To Mikillini's point]

Thanks, I'm aware that that is his general gist.

He's a real enigma, LastChild.

Part of me believes that he has a quite subtle understanding of the 911 issues, but, loathe to give it away, having been caught out on solid stances before, he prefers to remain slippery, prolonging the debate at all cost, lest he miss the fleeting chance to awaken us from our ideological slumber.

Part of me, in contrast, believes that he refuses to alight on any point whatsoever not so much because he doesn't have one, points utterly bereft of conviction being relatively easy to come by, but rather for fear of momentarily distracting himself, limiting his post count, and thereby reducing his effectiveness at his true objective: trolling.

Now either way, he arrived, presumably more by a process of luck than design, at the perfect weapon. The ultimate distracting tactic; a question that he could repeat, forever, without relevance to any conversation.

Any conversation, that is, except this one :D

[LashL]

He's a real enigma, LastChild.


No, he or she is just another boring, run of the mill troll - the likes of which has been seen here repeatedly. He/she offers absolutely nothing new, interesting, or innovative whatsoever, and he/she is simply parroting old, ridiculous nonsense that has been debunked and refuted here long ago.

He/she is just another dime a dozen loon.

[Confuseling]

With respect to Confuseling (and welcome!), this is only going to end in madness.
...
If they want more quotes, let them find 'em themselves. They serve no purpose. The consensus exists even without them.

I fear no madness :) (and thankyou!)

I have no intention of entering into a quote war. I don't have any quotes, I know absolutely nothing about engineering. But I know a little geopolitics, and a little philosophy, and I have some ability to sniff out dissimulation.

All I'm saying is if, hypothetically, his question is designed not to have an adequate answer, it only works in the context it was designed for: as a distraction.

I intend to meet him head on, and see what happens. Feel free to avert your eyes; it's probably the sensible option. But if you spot him polluting other threads with it, send him back here please :)

[R.Mackey]

All I'm saying is if, hypothetically, his question is designed not to have an adequate answer, it only works in the context it was designed for: as a distraction.

I intend to meet him head on, and see what happens. Feel free to avert your eyes; it's probably the sensible option. But if you spot him polluting other threads with it, send him back here please :)

Well, good luck to you. I have a feeling the Truth Movement will be just as outclassed in philosophy and formal logic as they are in engineering.

I won't be able to help corral them over here, since I have LostChild on Ignore after his last outburst (the very idea, claiming that the NIST authors don't support the NIST Report!!), and Christopher7 will soon be joining him, after hiding behind the lie of the "thermite" angle-cut columns. But I appreciate what you're trying to do.

[MIKILLINI]

I fear no madness :) (and thankyou!)

I have no intention of entering into a quote war. I don't have any quotes, I know absolutely nothing about engineering. But I know a little geopolitics, and a little philosophy, and I have some ability to sniff out dissimulation.

All I'm saying is if, hypothetically, his question is designed not to have an adequate answer, it only works in the context it was designed for: as a distraction.

I intend to meet him head on, and see what happens. Feel free to avert your eyes; it's probably the sensible option. But if you spot him polluting other threads with it, send him back here please :)

Yes welcome to the forum confuse, and if you want to pick LC's cranium, knock yourself out.
Perhaps you'll gain some insight into the troll mind. Good luck with that.:)

[ElMondoHummus]

Wow, you have some ambitious objectives. Good luck! And no, I don't mean that ironically or sarcastically at all.

By the way, I owe you an apology. I commented in your thread over in politics and promptly lost track of it amongst all the other ones around here (I should really start subscribing to threads I comment in). Anyway, the apology comes mostly because I think I let myself get distracted by the Humor subforum, including a cheeseburger meme that somehow morphed into a Kangaroo meat one (*shudder*). So that's the ultimate unintended insult: I ran away from substance to go make jokes. About food. Blech... Anyway, I'll read your response over and see if I have anything to add. Thanks for the reply, BTW.

As potential fodder for a different thread, perhaps even in a different subforum: It might be an interesting intellectual exercise to explore the statement "Politics does constrain and manufacture science, as much as we hate to admit it. I just don't think it happens to quite the extent that our friends here do." I would submit that it's necessary to say that it doesn't happen in quite the same fashion as so many others claim as well, but opening that door is revealing an attic of lessons and college debates untouched in more than a decade, so I'd better think my way through before I start or participate in any such thread. :)

Anyway, I'll set myself to "Lurk" and spectate now. Good luck!

[Confuseling]

Thankyou for the kind welcome. I don't intend this to be a sophistical debate, I really don't. I'm not suggesting that it's going to descend far into the depths of philosophy at all - and if it did, I would be chewed up and spat out. It's just patently not an engineering question, and although I don't understand the engineering threads, I find them interesting, and don't like watching them spoiled.

So here we stand or fall. I have a feeling we might come by a consensus about the doubt about the consensus, as it were.

...
By the way, I owe you an apology.
...
As potential fodder for a different thread, perhaps even in a different subforum: It might be an interesting intellectual exercise to explore the statement "Politics does constrain and manufacture science, as much as we hate to admit it. I just don't think it happens to quite the extent that our friends here do." I would submit that it's necessary to say that it doesn't happen in quite the same fashion as so many others claim as well, but opening that door is revealing an attic of lessons and college debates untouched in more than a decade, so I'd better think my way through before I start or participate in any such thread. :)

Anyway, I'll set myself to "Lurk" and spectate now. Good luck!

No, you really don't! Your response was interesting, so thanks, and if you have any more to say I'll gladly continue the thread. We are all affected by cheezburgers from time to time, you just need support to come to terms with it, one day at a time. That would be quite a cool site, actually, I reckon, if the terms in combination aren't loaded enough already - a sort of lolcats anonymous.

But yes, I'll gladly talk philosophy of science in the philosophy subforum, though I'm not very good :)

[DavidJames]

Part of me, in contrast, believes that he refuses to alight on any point whatsoever not so much because he doesn't have one, points utterly bereft of conviction being relatively easy to come by, but rather for fear of momentarily distracting himself, limiting his post count, and thereby reducing his effectiveness at his true objective: trolling.You've nailed him right there. Perhaps that was part of your intent with this tread to make it evident, which it will. Although to be honest, reviewing any 5 of his posts will also yield the same result.

His goal is to produce a reaction. Sadly each of our posts about him, help him achieve his goal. I can see valid reasons for replying to some CTists, for the "lurkers". But I see no value in "debating", LC, or RedIbis, or those like them because they offer nothing. Any lurkers who are persuaded by the antics of these trolls are lost anyway.

[Confuseling]

You're right... I'm in this for the lurkers. I think LC deliberately sabotages threads in which he is beaten, so as to consign them to AAH. Which is why I intend to remain unfailingly polite, and I request that others do the same.

So, while nothing's going on.

The truth movement are generally of the contention that there exists incontrovertible evidence that shadowy domestic forces orchestrated the terrorist attacks of 911, as a crypto-fascist coup to instill fear in the population; essentially a pretext to destroy civil liberty.

They run into a few problems here, in my opinion, beyond the evidentiary inadequacy that you have all demonstrated so ably.

Essentially, the problem is this. If this evidence exists, then all foreign governments, quasi-governmental organisations, and non-governmental organisations above a certain trivial capacity, are part of the "New World Order".

Let's take China, as a simple example. They are geopolitical rivals with the USA, with a fairly different (although arguably slowly converging) ideological stance. They would almost certainly like to see the US government fall - they would immediately assume the role of preeminent superpower. If the evidence exists, and is readily available on the internet, all it takes is for the Chinese government to prepare a dossier describing it in indubitable terms, release it to the world, and wait for the dust to settle. Let's make no bones about this, a scandal like this wouldn't put the democrats in power, it would take down the entire body politic in America, and likely much of Europe at minimum. The media and academia are complicit by silent assent at the very least, probably much guiltier. Many many heads will roll, and the West in such turmoil could not possibly retaliate.

So if the evidence exists, China doesn't want America to fall. Perhaps they are playing a long game, some kind of balance of power assessment that says that perversely, they are better off leaving America in place. Fine, that's possible. So now we ask why Iran, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea and so forth haven't acted. Quasi-governmental groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, and FARC, and many non-governmental groups such as Al-Qaeda and MEND would gladly see the back of the USA, and easily have the capacity to commission competent analysts in any field. Islamist groups are particularly noteworthy by their silence - exonerating their coreligionists would improve their global image, destroy the Great Satan, and utterly redraw the balance of power with respect to Israel, overnight.

They are part of the New World Order, if the evidence exists. It really is that simple. Every group, no matter their apparent allegiance or intent, is controlled from the top by a cabal of evil Svengalis who make Cheney look like Santa Claus. The control is absolute - if it was done subtly, we would expect factions to emerge not realising the game, and attempt to displace the USA. They would have to be co-opted or destroyed with maximum prejudice, invisibly, and how this is done is far from clear.

The only group aware of this, it seems, is the truth movement. Oddly, this diabolical organisation is at one and the same time so monolithic that the most competent person to break ranks has been Steven Jones, and yet not monolithic enough to stop Dylan Avery - the only viable conclusion is that they deliberately refrain from killing those exposing them to remain obscure; to manage dissent. In fact, as any truther will tell you, large parts of the truth movement are also part of the NWO, sent to spread disinformation and discredit the tireless infowarriors. This must be rather annoying.

The New World Order, it seems, encompasses absolutely everything that happens. Every unwitting pawn, whether journalist, scientist, nation-state or terrorist group, marches lock-step to their devious plan. Whichever group of truthers you happen to be in discourse with constitute the sole palladiums of freedom; so please treat them gently.

In fact, we have all had a perfectly adequate phrase for describing 'whatever happens' for a long time. Reality. May their struggle against it end happily.
:rolleyes:

[R.Mackey]

Yup, that's well summarized. Once you start accepting "coverups" as evidence of conspiracies, there's no limit to its growth. I once described this property as "inflation." This behavior is a clear indication that a theory is nonsense, even if the evidence against wasn't enough to convince people.

Being a philosopher, you might appreciate the abstract formulation of my Inflationary (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2320446#post2320446) Theory (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2323813#post2323813). I approached it from a mathematical and systems perspective, but the outcome is the same.

[Confuseling]

...
Being a philosopher, you might appreciate the abstract formulation of my Inflationary (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2320446#post2320446) Theory (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2323813#post2323813). I approached it from a mathematical and systems perspective, but the outcome is the same.

A philosopher :p let's not be hasty. What I possess in talent I more than compensate for in inattentiveness.

But yes, a pair of bravura posts, well done! :clap:

It is about the same point, and without being impertinent, it's a better and worse expression of it for different discussions.

It's better because it's generalised to any situation, written as close to a formal exposition as possible while still being intelligible to lay readership, and thereby done with elegance and precision.

It's worse for exactly the same reasons - don't get me wrong, it is a better post, but I just don't think an argument like that will hit certain people, because it seems too detached. Although that's their problem not yours, I think my approach has the merit of humanising the situation more.

It can be very hard, as you state, to work our what a simplifying assumption is. This is my problem with Ockam's razor - the popularisation of it makes sense, the simplest solution is usually the best. But as classically formulated, it's just plain bad advice. Do not multiply entities beyond necessity. Well hang on, haven't theoretical physicists been doing that for ages? Don't they sometimes more or less literally pluck a particle out of the air, decide what it would look like for mathematical elegance, and then often find that it actually exists?

I guess what I was thinking is, i wanted to strip as much 'logic' out of it as possible, because there is a sense in which logic can be subsumed and corrupted. A lot of the Nazis said that what they were doing, at the time, seemed to make sense - groupthink, a kind of controlled mass psychosis. Now truthers often argue that people are just too ideologically blinkered to see what's going on "Wake up, sheeple!", and I suppose I was gunning for exactly that point, putting a human face on why it doesn't make sense. You can imagine all Americans and Europeans being brainwashed by their tellies... just... then you introduce the Central Committee of the People's Republic and the Taleban right along side, and the image just dissolves into madness. It's krystalnacht in technicolour, pored over interminably for 7 years by the whole planet, and nobody spotting anything.

Yes, once you start trying to say that some people operate with different conceptions of logic, you more or less can prove anything. You're back to immovable object meets irresistible force kind of territory. If Cheney personally injects every newborn baby with a sekrit microchip so we can't see the lizards, then no argument suffices. I guess that was the objective of both our posts - to push the opponent into a corner in which we were quite happy to let them wallow, reductio ad absurdum.

[chillzero]

I understand that this thread is based on a statement by a specific member. However, I do not want to see any further personalisation of this thread. You can discuss the topic at hand without making comments about a member, and whether they choose to participate or not. If you don't want the thread binned to AAH, stay civil, stay on topic, and no more posts along the lines of "so-and-so is just a troll and won't answer because s/he is a loon".

[applecorped]

Explosives weren't needed, those big planes and raging fires were quite sufficient. NIST also didn't look into the possibility that Aliens were involved either. I guess we'll never know for sure.

[LastChild]

With respect to Confuseling (and welcome!), this is only going to end in madness.

We've already explained to all parties concerned that there are (a) a large number of published papers, all materially agreeing with the NIST Report's core findings, and (b) no published papers of any sort disputing NIST's core findings. That's consensus. Cut and dried.

I'll even accept conference papers. Got any? Didn't think so.

In terms of sworn statements, if it's quotes the Truth Movement wants now, I'll give 'em two. Here's one from a first-class expert and well-known critic of the NIST Report:



Here's another, namely my own. I wholeheartedly support all of the NIST key findings in NCSTAR1. My own thorough review of NIST and competing studies leads me to conclude that the NIST Report may be incorrect in a few details, but there is absolutely no way to support any conspiracy theory on its basis. May my car snap its crankshaft if I lie.

I do not claim to be the best qualified reviewer of the NIST Report, but I am qualified. I am also at least as qualified as anyone in the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and I've written more on the subject than their entire membership combined.

If they want more quotes, let them find 'em themselves. They serve no purpose. The consensus exists even without them.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E6DC123DF931A35753C1A9679C8B 63

Scarred Steel Holds Clues, And Remedies

By KENNETH CHANG
Published: October 2, 2001
Dr. Astaneh-Asl hopes to conduct what is, in essence, an autopsy of the buildings felled by the terrorist attacks, to understand precisely how they fell apart.
Dr. Astaneh-Asl and other engineers had assumed that the estimated 310,000 tons of steel columns and beams were being taken to Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island with the rest of the debris, to be sifted by investigators.

But because the steel provides no clues to the criminal investigation, New York City started sending it to recyclers.

Here’s are the best quotes from Dr. Astaneh-Asl …

The steel scrap is worth only a few million dollars, a tiny fraction of the billions of dollars the cleanup will cost, Dr. Astaneh-Asl said. The knowledge that can be gained from it could save lives in a future disaster.

''For the sake of those 6,000 people,'' he said, ''we should learn something about it.''

http://wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1-3.pdf

NISTNCSTAR1-3
E.2 Inventory of recovered steel.
A total of 236 recovered pieces of WTC steel were cataloged;
These samples represented a quarter to a half percent of the 200,000 tons of structural steel used in the construction of the two towers.


Oh well…so much for “The knowledge that can be gained from it could save lives in a future disaster” and ''we should learn something about it.''

Read the article Mackey Dr. Astaneh-Asl had to get out of his pajamas in the middle of the night after seeing the steel from his hotel room window. He got dressed and went down to look at it before they carted it off in the middle of the night to be recycled.

Got any other quotes? Do you need me to post two to counter his? Oh... and yours?

"Approximately 50% of my work is forensic. I am licensed in 9 States. In addition to my forensic work, a good portion of my work is in the design of structural fireproofing systems. All three [WTC] collapses were very uniform in nature. Natural collapses due to unplanned events are not uniform." - Scott C. Grainger, BS CE, PE

"Even if Newton’s Law is ignored, the prevailing theory would have us believe that each of the Twin Towers inexplicably collapsed upon itself crushing all 287 massive columns on each floor while maintaining a free-fall speed as if the 100,000, or more, tons of supporting structural-steel framework underneath didn't exist." - William Rice, BS CE, MS CE, PE

[Confuseling]

I never claimed to know that there were explosives in the towers. I never claimed anyone involved with NIST suspected there might have been explosives in the towers. In fact I don't think they ever really looked to considered it at all.

Let me ask you this. If it were found to be true that there were no explosives used on 9/11 how would that one fact validate the official version as a whole or the NIST report for that matter? No explosives means NIST got it right?

And don't get me wrong because I also haven't counted out explosives either. They have never really been investigated so how could anyone know?

My understanding of the situation is that the use of conventional explosives would have left very obvious tell-tales. You would have needed quite a lot of them, which, aside from the impracticality of placing them in the first place, would have resulted in large bangs, flashes and seismic signatures, chemical residue, and physical evidence of the explosions (torn and thoroughly smashed up girders, corpses and office equipment with blast damage).

I accept, fully, that NIST does not appear to have investigated directly the possibility of bombs being used. The thing is, if an investigation like this normally set out to disprove that kind of thing, and NIST deliberately dodged it, that would look really deeply suspicious. My conclusion is that explosives would have been so obvious to the clean up crew and initial investigation that they dismissed it immediately, in much the same was as a car crash investigation doesn't explicitly dismiss the possibility that the driver was shot in the head before the crash, unless something points that way.

The reason NIST seems valid, from my perspective, is simply that it would be very politically expedient for some group, somewhere, to tear it apart if they could. Sure, you can cite publication bias and ideological shepherding in the West, but I don't see how, if it contained obvious mistakes, some country somewhere wouldn't be crowing about them.

The 'official' version, as far as the politics goes, is much more complicated, but I think the questions around the mechanism of the collapse distract attention from that. I think the US government was probably incompetent in some areas prior to the attacks, and I don't explicitly rule out the possibility that some element let it happen - the so called LIHOP theory.

But in order to get answers to the flaws in the political side, such as the 911 commission report, I think it's important to accept that NIST is the best hypothesis we have. Sure, it'll contain inaccuracies, and sure, its remit is limited. But anything glaring would have been picked up by now by those with a vested interest in picking it up.

[LastChild]

double

[LastChild]

My understanding of the situation is that the use of conventional explosives would have left very obvious tell-tales. You would have needed quite a lot of them, which, aside from the impracticality of placing them in the first place, would have resulted in large bangs, flashes and seismic signatures, chemical residue, and physical evidence of the explosions (torn and thoroughly smashed up girders, corpses and office equipment with blast damage).

I accept, fully, that NIST does not appear to have investigated directly the possibility of bombs being used. The thing is, if an investigation like this normally set out to disprove that kind of thing, and NIST deliberately dodged it, that would look really deeply suspicious. My conclusion is that explosives would have been so obvious to the clean up crew and initial investigation that they dismissed it immediately, in much the same was as a car crash investigation doesn't explicitly dismiss the possibility that the driver was shot in the head before the crash, unless something points that way.

The reason NIST seems valid, from my perspective, is simply that it would be very politically expedient for some group, somewhere, to tear it apart if they could. Sure, you can cite publication bias and ideological shepherding in the West, but I don't see how, if it contained obvious mistakes, some country somewhere wouldn't be crowing about them.

The 'official' version, as far as the politics goes, is much more complicated, but I think the questions around the mechanism of the collapse distract attention from that. I think the US government was probably incompetent in some areas prior to the attacks, and I don't explicitly rule out the possibility that some element let it happen - the so called LIHOP theory.

But in order to get answers to the flaws in the political side, such as the 911 commission report, I think it's important to accept that NIST is the best hypothesis we have. Sure, it'll contain inaccuracies, and sure, its remit is limited. But anything glaring would have been picked up by now by those with a vested interest in picking it up.

I'm not married to any specific conspiracy theory so I don't particularly have a problem with this except for the fact that NIST has to be sure about what it is they are reporting if for only the fact of the very reason they are claiming to investigate the collapse of the WTC in the first place. Safety.

As far as the 9/11 commission report goes something more is needed other then a declaration of who wasn't accountable for protecting the US on 9/11.

[Confuseling]

I agree entirely, and I think NIST needs to be questioned - several people, including the estimable R.Mackey have pointed to Dr. Astaneh-Asl as a good example of somebody not toeing the line, but directing focused criticism at them.

I guess the point is though that the basic hypothesis has to be considered sound, at the moment. I don't know jack about engineering, and I'm fully prepared to eat my words, even to say that explosives brought the towers down. But the only way I'll know that is if experts tell me that; I simply don't know how to examine the raw information I have in front of me.

I don't think AE for truth count, because if they were onto something, I can't see how foreign hostile groups, who would dearly love them to be right, wouldn't back them.

ETA: I really don't know anything about the 911 commission report. Do you have a link that roughly mirrors your position? Would you elaborate?

[Confuseling]

...
Oh well…so much for “The knowledge that can be gained from it could save lives in a future disaster” and ''we should learn something about it.''

Read the article Mackey Dr. Astaneh-Asl had to get out of his pajamas in the middle of the night after seeing the steel from his hotel room window. He got dressed and went down to look at it before they carted it off in the middle of the night to be recycled.
...


The point here is that there would be questions whatever happened. If they'd spent 100 billion dollars investigating it, or 10 dollars investigating it (maybe have a few pints, and draw a diagram on the back of a beer coaster :D) people would still be asking questions.

The amount of material you retain, and the amount of testing and simulating you conduct is a judgement call. Now it seems that we have near unanimity across the board (across every board! across the whole political spectrum of the planet, more or less) over what happened, so if anything, this almost points to them having collected more information than was strictly necessary.

It's perverse, but it might be true, cos information costs money. It's kinda the same as if you have a train company that has no crashes ever, they might actually be spending too much on safety. Hard to say like that without it sticking in your throat, but if you think about it, the effort that they're spending beyond a 100% record is just resources that could be put to something more useful.

Could someone please tell me if there's a way to post nested quotes?

[ktesibios]

It can be very hard, as you state, to work our what a simplifying assumption is. This is my problem with Ockam's razor - the popularisation of it makes sense, the simplest solution is usually the best. But as classically formulated, it's just plain bad advice. Do not multiply entities beyond necessity. Well hang on, haven't theoretical physicists been doing that for ages? Don't they sometimes more or less literally pluck a particle out of the air, decide what it would look like for mathematical elegance, and then often find that it actually exists?


I suspect that you might be making a mistake about the "without necessity" part. A case in point might be the neutrino.

The neutrino was first postulated in December 1930 by Wolfgang Pauli (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Pauli) to preserve conservation of energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy), conservation of momentum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_momentum), and conservation of angular momentum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_angular_momentum) in beta decay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_decay), the decay of a neutron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron) into a proton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton), an electron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron) and an antineutrino. Pauli theorized that an undetected particle was carrying away the observed difference between the energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy), momentum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum), and angular momentum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_momentum) of the initial and final particles. source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino)

In this case, preserving conservation of momentum, energy and angular momentum isn't an issue of "mathematical elegance". If any one of those are violated, it's a case of "our exsisting understanding of the physical universe, such as it is, is completely trashed". Making a testable hypothesis about an additional entity which will preserve previously well-tested principles isn't "without necessity".

What Mackey's Inflationary Theory observes is that the conspiracist model never, to borrow a term from the engineers, converges. Instead it tends to diverge through the addition of more and more layers of untestable ad hoc excuses for the failure of the previous version of the model until it reaches a limiting value of "everyone in the world except me is in on it".

Somewhere in that process, the "without necessity" line is inevitably crossed, if in fact the conspiracist explanation was ever on the right side of it.

[Confuseling]

I might be entirely wrong, physics isn't my bag (also, sorry, the post you quoted was a bit sloppily written, I got caught up in a phone call and couldn't clean it up before the edit window elapsed)

What about antimatter? Wasn't that introduced speculatively, and then discovered?

As I said, I'm ready to be corrected on this, and I'd appreciate any further thoughts you have. But the point I was trying to get at, and which I still stand by, is that which assumptions serve to simplify isn't always clear (and this is particularly true in politics and sociology). Largely, as you say, it's to do with the vagaries of beyond necessity. It's also, I suppose, a question of what legitimately constitutes an entity, and this would be where the physics example comes in if it's correct. If you can simplify your theory hugely by 'creating' a new particle, then you have reduced the number of entities by stripping out mathematical terms. I don't think Ockham's razor is wrong, I just think you have to be careful how you wield it.

A clearer example is perhaps a system like neo-Marxism. Whatever you think of Marxist politics, many sociologists find the basic framework useful as a model. It elevates 'class' to an ontological category, but in doing so makes a fairly robust description of the net behaviour of masses of people united by their material interests.

Anyway, the upshot of all of this was that I was trying to make the case that although Mackey's post makes this 'divergent' characteristic of conspiracism beautifully clear, I still think mine has a little niche, because there is a certain mindset that will think that the simplest explanation is that - for example - the Jews control international politics, and that our conception of logic has been co-opted by the conspiracy. I'm just emphasising a little more directly, in social rather than logical terms, what that would actually entail. Talking about subjective logic does risk you ending up covered in a big stinking pile of postmodernism, but I think it's an angle that has to be tentatively dealt with.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

What about antimatter? Wasn't that introduced speculatively, and then discovered?


Nope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter#History

In the case of antimatter, as I understand it, it wasn't something "made up" to explain some odd observations. It was a door that was only revealed after someone set about trying to mathematically describe certain particles; completely unintentional.

You might have a better case using things like "dark matter" and "dark energy", but I'm less familiar with those concepts.

[Confuseling]

That it wasn't theorized to explain errant observations is exactly my point, I think - although as I said I am out of my depth here.

Dark matter and dark energy strike me as more like fudge factors, necessary to preserve the logic of the system.

But was antimatter not, contra a certain reading of Ockham's razor, an entity created beyond necessity - essentially because the maths was cleaner that way?

How about complex numbers?

I admit, my point is pretty fuzzy. I'm just trying to illustrate that it's not always clear what simplifies and what doesn't.

[LastChild]

Nope. Still no vast consensus of expert quotes to support the official conspiracy theory.

Oh well.

[Par]

Nope. Still no vast consensus of expert quotes to support the official conspiracy theory. Oh well.


Stop attention-seeking. It’s silly.