Truther Academics

Nick Terry · 29th July 2012, 08:05 AM

Given the fun that's been had with the AE911T Juggernaut thread, I was wondering whether we might not turn our attention to some of the older groups like Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, and also look more closely at AE911T's membership to draw up a proper roster of Truther academics.

The membership list of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice can be found here, and it's immediately obvious from a scroll-down that there are in fact very few members claiming to have doctorates, with the majority listing only a BA or BS degree. No effort is made to identify who is/was actually faculty or if they held any kind of university post.

Scholars for 9/11 Truth, meanwhile, looks marginally more coherent with a distinction between 'full members', associate members and student members. But even the circa 70 full members are padded with many names who do not claim to be professors or faculty. In fact only about 25 of the names listed state that they are/were professors, or faculty, or lectured at universities; another 1-2 dozen have blurbs so vaguely worded that one has no way of knowing if they ever actually held an academic post.

My thought was that since there is probably a certain overlap with other groups including AE911T, it should be possible to identify the real academics and rank them/order them. Thus:

- by subject
- emeritus vs other status
- full, associate, assistant, adjunct professor or other title
- by nation/region - US, Canada, European, rest of world

A separate list of supposed PhDs whose status is unclear or who worked in a non-academic sector would also likely be quite feasible, judging by a skim-through the AE911T main petition.

The point of this is not so much to "debunk" because that has been done already, but to establish how far the Twoofer madness actually penetrated into academia. Anecdotally, it is clear that many rank-and-file Twoofers were students, and we have several examples here of ex-Truthers who came to their senses some time after graduating, or during thier studies. The question is whether the professors and other academics did the same thing.

Since there are pretty decent statistics on the number of academic faculty and also some indicators on the total number of PhDs in the US (and probably also Canada, the UK, etc), we can then establish how tiny a percentage fell for this nonsense.

Judging by the few test searches, it also seems that many of the 'professors' were in fact quite marginal and are not now working in academia. Just to take the first on the list for S911T who calls himself a professor, Mark Bamberger, a google search leads to loads of pages about a lawyer who has a PhD in geology and may well have taught at a university in the past, but normally a search for a name + subject + university name would lead directly to a proper faculty page and that has not shown up straight away.

I would predict the following: it will be difficult to find many more than 50 academics who were tenured or have full academic careers among all the Truthers. Another 40-50 or so with doctorates would have taught at university at some point; there might be a few hundred PhDs in the entire 'movement' (or who signed up to petitions at some point).

N.B. it is enough that the academic in question once voiced Truther sentiments, whether or not they are now active as Truthers is not the point, since this is a retrospective-historical survey.

So, here are some of the low-hanging fruit to kick us off:

Emeriti

Associate Professor Emeritus of Chemistry Niels Harrit, University of Copenhagen
Professor Emeritus of Physics Steven Jones, Brigham Young University
Professor Emeritus of Theology David Ray Griffin, Claremont School of Theology
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy James Fetzer, University of Minnesota-Duluth
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy John McMurty, University of Guelph
Professor Emeritus of Mathematics A.K. Dewedney, University of Western Ontario
Professor Emeritus of Economics Michel Chossudovsky, University of Ottawa

These names are undoubtedly the most famous of all academic Twoofers, and they're all now retired....

Oystein · 29th July 2012, 01:12 PM

Nick,

interesting project ^^

I have a database of all (well, most) AE911Truth petition signers, both current and historic (for a total of ca. 1850 "A&E"), including close to 15,000 "Other Supporters." I have them with
- Fatergory
- Full name (first name last name, unfortunately)
- Degree
- when they first and last appeared on the signers list
- URL to profile
- for most A&E I have bio and personal statement, albeit often truncated, or not filled out.

The computer I am on right now doesn't run MS Access, so I can't do a quick search, but the vast majority of these professionals holds no more than a BS/BA, some a Masters, and very few a PhD.
I don't have a feel yet for the Other Supporters - thousands of foreign degrees, lcenses and what not.

Interested? I could dump it into an Excel-, csv-, OpenOffice-file.

Nick Terry · 29th July 2012, 01:16 PM

Originally Posted by Oystein

Nick,

interesting project ^^

I have a database of all (well, most) AE911Truth petition signers, both current and historic (for a total of ca. 1850 "A&E"), including close to 15,000 "Other Supporters." I have them with
- Fatergory
- Full name (first name last name, unfortunately)
- Degree
- when they first and last appeared on the signers list
- URL to profile
- for most A&E I have bio and personal statement, albeit often truncated, or not filled out.

The computer I am on right now doesn't run MS Access, so I can't do a quick search, but the vast majority of these professionals holds no more than a BS/BA, some a Masters, and very few a PhD.
I don't have a feel yet for the Other Supporters - thousands of foreign degrees, lcenses and what not.

Interested? I could dump it into an Excel-, csv-, OpenOffice-file.

Yes, please! Send me a message and I will pass on an email, or you can google me and send it to me at work (University of Exeter) after locating my staff profile. Preferably an Excel file, but will figure out whatever you can create.

Justin39640 · 29th July 2012, 04:32 PM

Originally Posted by Oystein

- Fatergory

lol
Those the ones sitting in a basement, alt-tabbing between ~~WOW~~ SWTOR and Infowars, surrounded by empty Twinkie and Ho-Ho bags?

ETA: Forgot that WOW is the new Everquest lol.

Animal · 29th July 2012, 05:19 PM

Originally Posted by Oystein

Nick,

interesting project ^^

I have a database of all (well, most) AE911Truth petition signers, both current and historic (for a total of ca. 1850 "A&E"), including close to 15,000 "Other Supporters." I have them with
- Fatergory
- Full name (first name last name, unfortunately)
- Degree
- when they first and last appeared on the signers list
- URL to profile
- for most A&E I have bio and personal statement, albeit often truncated, or not filled out.

The computer I am on right now doesn't run MS Access, so I can't do a quick search, but the vast majority of these professionals holds no more than a BS/BA, some a Masters, and very few a PhD.
I don't have a feel yet for the Other Supporters - thousands of foreign degrees, lcenses and what not.

Interested? I could dump it into an Excel-, csv-, OpenOffice-file.

You have way to much time on your hands

LSSBB · 29th July 2012, 08:16 PM

"Truther Academics" : oxymoron

Emphasis on moron.

cjnewson88 · 29th July 2012, 08:28 PM

Originally Posted by LSSBB

"Truther Academics" : oxymoron

Emphasis on moron.

Bet me to it!

Scott Sommers · 30th July 2012, 09:08 PM

Looking at the Scholars list is misleading. I believe there are some number of academic faculty involved in this sort of thing not on their list. I suspect most of these people are not Americans. For example, Tony Hall at the University of Lethbridge is not on their list. I think only some of the people here are on the Scholars list
http://911inacademia.wordpress.com/cast/

Tony Hall was involved in some sort of Truther thing in Britain.
State and Corporate Crimes Against Democracy Conference
Oct 15th 2011 - London

There are some videos of speakers here.

I suspect that finding these people is not straight forward. For example Richard Johns who is on the Zuberi and Scholars list does not really teach at the University of British Columbia. He teaches at Langara University-College and does not speak with his colleagues about his beliefs.

Also, you should check Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth. Some of them are faculty.

Dog Town · 30th July 2012, 11:08 PM

Originally Posted by cjnewson88

Bet me to it!

I'll take the over!

29th July 2012, 08:05 AM	#1
Nick Terry Master Poster Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 2,288	Truther Academics Given the fun that's been had with the AE911T Juggernaut thread, I was wondering whether we might not turn our attention to some of the older groups like Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, and also look more closely at AE911T's membership to draw up a proper roster of Truther academics. The membership list of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice can be found here, and it's immediately obvious from a scroll-down that there are in fact very few members claiming to have doctorates, with the majority listing only a BA or BS degree. No effort is made to identify who is/was actually faculty or if they held any kind of university post. Scholars for 9/11 Truth, meanwhile, looks marginally more coherent with a distinction between 'full members', associate members and student members. But even the circa 70 full members are padded with many names who do not claim to be professors or faculty. In fact only about 25 of the names listed state that they are/were professors, or faculty, or lectured at universities; another 1-2 dozen have blurbs so vaguely worded that one has no way of knowing if they ever actually held an academic post. My thought was that since there is probably a certain overlap with other groups including AE911T, it should be possible to identify the real academics and rank them/order them. Thus: - by subject - emeritus vs other status - full, associate, assistant, adjunct professor or other title - by nation/region - US, Canada, European, rest of world A separate list of supposed PhDs whose status is unclear or who worked in a non-academic sector would also likely be quite feasible, judging by a skim-through the AE911T main petition. The point of this is not so much to "debunk" because that has been done already, but to establish how far the Twoofer madness actually penetrated into academia. Anecdotally, it is clear that many rank-and-file Twoofers were students, and we have several examples here of ex-Truthers who came to their senses some time after graduating, or during thier studies. The question is whether the professors and other academics did the same thing. Since there are pretty decent statistics on the number of academic faculty and also some indicators on the total number of PhDs in the US (and probably also Canada, the UK, etc), we can then establish how tiny a percentage fell for this nonsense. Judging by the few test searches, it also seems that many of the 'professors' were in fact quite marginal and are not now working in academia. Just to take the first on the list for S911T who calls himself a professor, Mark Bamberger, a google search leads to loads of pages about a lawyer who has a PhD in geology and may well have taught at a university in the past, but normally a search for a name + subject + university name would lead directly to a proper faculty page and that has not shown up straight away. I would predict the following: it will be difficult to find many more than 50 academics who were tenured or have full academic careers among all the Truthers. Another 40-50 or so with doctorates would have taught at university at some point; there might be a few hundred PhDs in the entire 'movement' (or who signed up to petitions at some point). N.B. it is enough that the academic in question once voiced Truther sentiments, whether or not they are now active as Truthers is not the point, since this is a retrospective-historical survey. So, here are some of the low-hanging fruit to kick us off: Emeriti Associate Professor Emeritus of Chemistry Niels Harrit, University of Copenhagen Professor Emeritus of Physics Steven Jones, Brigham Young University Professor Emeritus of Theology David Ray Griffin, Claremont School of Theology Professor Emeritus of Philosophy James Fetzer, University of Minnesota-Duluth Professor Emeritus of Philosophy John McMurty, University of Guelph Professor Emeritus of Mathematics A.K. Dewedney, University of Western Ontario Professor Emeritus of Economics Michel Chossudovsky, University of Ottawa These names are undoubtedly the most famous of all academic Twoofers, and they're all now retired....
	__________________ Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard. A Critique of the Falsehoods of Mattogno, Graf and Kues. (biggest ever skeptical debunking of conspiracy theorists; PDF available) Everytime one asks you holocaust deniers for positive evidence you just put your finger in the ears, dance around and sing lalala - Kevin Silbstedt

29th July 2012, 01:16 PM	#3
Nick Terry Master Poster Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 2,288	Originally Posted by Oystein Nick, interesting project ^^ I have a database of all (well, most) AE911Truth petition signers, both current and historic (for a total of ca. 1850 "A&E"), including close to 15,000 "Other Supporters." I have them with - Fatergory - Full name (first name last name, unfortunately) - Degree - when they first and last appeared on the signers list - URL to profile - for most A&E I have bio and personal statement, albeit often truncated, or not filled out. The computer I am on right now doesn't run MS Access, so I can't do a quick search, but the vast majority of these professionals holds no more than a BS/BA, some a Masters, and very few a PhD. I don't have a feel yet for the Other Supporters - thousands of foreign degrees, lcenses and what not. Interested? I could dump it into an Excel-, csv-, OpenOffice-file. Yes, please! Send me a message and I will pass on an email, or you can google me and send it to me at work (University of Exeter) after locating my staff profile. Preferably an Excel file, but will figure out whatever you can create.
	__________________ Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard. A Critique of the Falsehoods of Mattogno, Graf and Kues. (biggest ever skeptical debunking of conspiracy theorists; PDF available) Everytime one asks you holocaust deniers for positive evidence you just put your finger in the ears, dance around and sing lalala - Kevin Silbstedt

29th July 2012, 04:32 PM	#4
Justin39640 Illuminator Join Date: May 2009 Location: New York Posts: 3,646	Originally Posted by Oystein - Fatergory lol Those the ones sitting in a basement, alt-tabbing between ~~WOW~~ SWTOR and Infowars, surrounded by empty Twinkie and Ho-Ho bags? ETA: Forgot that WOW is the new Everquest lol.
	__________________ "I joined this forum to learn about the people who think that 9/11 was an inside job. I've learned that they believe nutty things and are not very good at explaining them." - FineWine "The agencies involved with studying the WTC collapse no more needed to consider explosives than the police need to consider brain cancer in a shooting death." - ElMondoHummus Last edited by Justin39640; 29th July 2012 at 04:35 PM.

29th July 2012, 08:16 PM	#6
LSSBB Devilish Dictionarian Join Date: Oct 2011 Location: An elusive house at Bachelor's Grove Cemetery Posts: 4,490	"Truther Academics" : oxymoron Emphasis on moron.
	__________________ "Things that never happened before happen all the time." (Scott Sagan, 1993) "Put down the Wite-Out and step away from the dictionary." (000063, 2012) "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof." (John Kenneth Galbraith, 1971)

29th July 2012, 08:28 PM	#7
cjnewson88 Graduate Poster Join Date: Oct 2011 Location: The van with the big antenna Posts: 1,284	Originally Posted by LSSBB "Truther Academics" : oxymoron Emphasis on moron. Bet me to it!
	__________________ Common sense has clearly been snuck up on from behind beaten several times on the head and left to bleed. Over 140 pieces of evidence showing American 77 hit the Pentagon http://therightbloggerbastard.blogspot.co.nz/ http://www.youtube.com/user/cjnewson88

29th July 2012, 01:12 PM	#2
Oystein Philosopher Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Germany Posts: 9,731	Nick, interesting project ^^ I have a database of all (well, most) AE911Truth petition signers, both current and historic (for a total of ca. 1850 "A&E"), including close to 15,000 "Other Supporters." I have them with - Fatergory - Full name (first name last name, unfortunately) - Degree - when they first and last appeared on the signers list - URL to profile - for most A&E I have bio and personal statement, albeit often truncated, or not filled out. The computer I am on right now doesn't run MS Access, so I can't do a quick search, but the vast majority of these professionals holds no more than a BS/BA, some a Masters, and very few a PhD. I don't have a feel yet for the Other Supporters - thousands of foreign degrees, lcenses and what not. Interested? I could dump it into an Excel-, csv-, OpenOffice-file.

29th July 2012, 05:19 PM	#5
Animal Graduate Poster Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: SE Michigan Posts: 1,368	Originally Posted by Oystein Nick, interesting project ^^ I have a database of all (well, most) AE911Truth petition signers, both current and historic (for a total of ca. 1850 "A&E"), including close to 15,000 "Other Supporters." I have them with - Fatergory - Full name (first name last name, unfortunately) - Degree - when they first and last appeared on the signers list - URL to profile - for most A&E I have bio and personal statement, albeit often truncated, or not filled out. The computer I am on right now doesn't run MS Access, so I can't do a quick search, but the vast majority of these professionals holds no more than a BS/BA, some a Masters, and very few a PhD. I don't have a feel yet for the Other Supporters - thousands of foreign degrees, lcenses and what not. Interested? I could dump it into an Excel-, csv-, OpenOffice-file. You have way to much time on your hands

30th July 2012, 09:08 PM	#8
Scott Sommers Illuminator Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 3,641	Looking at the Scholars list is misleading. I believe there are some number of academic faculty involved in this sort of thing not on their list. I suspect most of these people are not Americans. For example, Tony Hall at the University of Lethbridge is not on their list. I think only some of the people here are on the Scholars list http://911inacademia.wordpress.com/cast/ Tony Hall was involved in some sort of Truther thing in Britain. State and Corporate Crimes Against Democracy Conference Oct 15th 2011 - London There are some videos of speakers here. I suspect that finding these people is not straight forward. For example Richard Johns who is on the Zuberi and Scholars list does not really teach at the University of British Columbia. He teaches at Langara University-College and does not speak with his colleagues about his beliefs. Also, you should check Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth. Some of them are faculty.
	__________________ for the original publication Who Still Believes in 9/11 Conspiracies? for Google Books Becoming Taiwan: From Colonialism to Democracy

30th July 2012, 11:08 PM	#9
Dog Town Space for Rent Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Sunny blue sky, cold water. Posts: 4,461	Originally Posted by cjnewson88 Bet me to it! I'll take the over!
	__________________ "Yes. I often wonder why it is that the nutjobs, who clearly think they're among a tiny handful of people who "get it", are wholly incapable of communicating effectively enough so that other people can understand them and "get it", too." Gee Mack, JREF 5/15/09