New st911 structural engineer member?

[Project86]

I may have missed it inside one of the several threads going here, each about a million pages long. Has anyone found out anything about one of the new st911 dot org members, Joseph M. Phelps, who is supposedly a structural engineer? I was thrashing some folks on some forum, and one of them basically came back with "look we got a structural engineer on our side! Neener neener!

I emailed the Structural Engineering Institute of ASCE, which this guy is supposedly a member of.

Quote:

Hello



I am writing to find out if it is possible to confirm membership of a person named Joseph M. Phelps. I tried searching for a directory on your website with no results. I am curious because his name appears here scholarsfor911truth dot org/WhoAreWe where he is listed as a “structural dynamicist charter member”. This is a group of people who claim the US government was directly responsible for carrying out the 911 attacks, and I find it highly unlikely that one of your members would be involved with such a conspiracy theory.



Thank you for your time

This is their answer:

Quote:

- ASCE does not release member information – including membership status – to non-members.

Regards,
Mary Ellen

So that doesn't help at all. I responded in the "debate" that I would like to see more than just this guy's name on a list: how about some writing from him, using his expertise to indicate why he supports this... ahem... "theory". But it would be nice to find out what his real story is (due to the history of st911's exaggerations).

[Shrinker]

Joseph Phelps or Jospeh Phillips?

From an ST911 'whistleblower' (lol)...
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=62643

Quote:

In THREE CASES * count them * 1, 2, 3 * that we know about * Jones has corrupted or attempted to corrupt the membership roster by getting people listed as Full Members when they did not have the necessary credentials * AND HE KNEW IT! Who are they:

Jeffrey Farrer:
a BYU Dept. of Physics lab manager; apparently a graduate student
Doyle Winterton:
a man in his 70s who worked as a civil engineer but has no advanced
degrees and never held an academic appointment
Joseph Phillips
we don’t really know, but he might be a vineyard owner who once
got a degree in construction engineering.

In the first case, Jeffrey Farrer was listed as a Full Member until Judy Wood saw that he was ‘thanked’ as one of the students who helped in preparing Jones’ PDF. (This statement, which appeared on the cover page and which I saw myself, has since been removed.) In the latter two cases Judy and I wasted an absurd amount of time preventing those individuals from being listed as Full Members -- which you were insisting that I do on Jones’ recognizance alone -* BEFORE we even had their permission to be listed in the first place, which is a legal issue!

Even if its a different person, this whole episode shows how unreliable they are.

Even then, the quickest response to 'we've got a structural engineer' is 'we've got all the rest'.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

No one here feels terribly threatened by Winterton or Phillips I think.

I am curious if anyone has dug up anything on Charles Pegelow that isn't from a nutbar site?

Are Fetzer and Jones still padding peoples resumes for them or did they finally get a real engineer this time?

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Originally Posted by Sword_Of_Truth

No one here feels terribly threatened by Winterton or Phillips I think.

I am curious if anyone has dug up anything on Charles Pegelow that isn't from a nutbar site?

Are Fetzer and Jones still padding peoples resumes for them or did they finally get a real engineer this time?

Yeah, one of the other threads I found his listing in the CA engineers registry. He is the guy in Texas and he worked for an oil rig company doing their design.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Originally Posted by Arkan_Wolfshade

Yeah, one of the other threads I found his listing in the CA engineers registry. He is the guy in Texas and he worked for an oil rig company doing their design.

So after 5 years the score has gone from 125,000 to 0 (estimated membership of the ASCE) for our side to 124,999 to 1? Is that correct?

When should we start being concerned about this slide?

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Originally Posted by Sword_Of_Truth

So after 5 years the score has gone from 125,000 to 0 (estimated membership of the ASCE) for our side to 124,999 to 1? Is that correct?

When should we start being concerned about this slide?

More importantly, has he presented any actual evidence/calculations, or has it all just been, "In my opinion..."?

[JamesB]

Originally Posted by Project86

I may have missed it inside one of the several threads going here, each about a million pages long. Has anyone found out anything about one of the new st911 dot org members, Joseph M. Phelps, who is supposedly a structural engineer? I was thrashing some folks on some forum, and one of them basically came back with "look we got a structural engineer on our side! Neener neener!

I emailed the Structural Engineering Institute of ASCE, which this guy is supposedly a member of.




This is their answer:


So that doesn't help at all. I responded in the "debate" that I would like to see more than just this guy's name on a list: how about some writing from him, using his expertise to indicate why he supports this... ahem... "theory". But it would be nice to find out what his real story is (due to the history of st911's exaggerations).

I did a post on this, even beating the "scholars" to the punch.

http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com...scorecard.html

[DavidJames]

Originally Posted by Sword_Of_Truth

So after 5 years the score has gone from 125,000 to 0 (estimated membership of the ASCE) for our side to 124,999 to 1? Is that correct?

When should we start being concerned about this slide?

I've used the zero number myself in arguments, but thinking about it, the odds are pretty good that we'll find kooky CT thinking in every profession. I would expect to find less in associations like ASCE, but expecting none would defy logic.

I'll second wolf's comment.

[twinstead]

This sounds like the CT equivalent of an old-west sheriff frantically riding around deputizing everybody who can walk without a cane and has the strength to hold a pistol straight in order to catch Black Hat Bart.

[brumsen]

Originally Posted by Project86

I emailed the Structural Engineering Institute of ASCE, which this guy is supposedly a member of.

This is their answer:

Quote:

- ASCE does not release member information – including membership status – to non-members.

So that doesn't help at all.

This is weird, and it can hardly be correct.

Suppose someone pretended to be an ASCE member. One could then, say, hire their services in the assumption that they will be bound by the ASCE professional code.
Now what if that person is not an ASCE member at all? Then one ought to be able to get to know this, by writing to ASCE - right?

Furthermore: I know of a case where somebody wanted to submit a complaint against somebody he thought was an ASCE member. He wrote to ASCE to verify this, and I know for a fact that they told him that the person in question was not an ASCE member.

[Project86]

I just double checked the st911 website (still can't post a link, no big loss there) and it is definately listed as Phelps, not Phillips. And as seen on the screwloosechange blog, he does seem to be an elderly but valid SE.

I also agree that we need to see something by him to prove that he is on board. How do we know they didn't just pick some obscure person and list them as a member, hoping nobody would bother to tell him? They have done shady things several times already...

As for SEI not releasing the info... I thought that was kind of wierd myself. The only thing I can think of is that they are aware of this situation and don't want to be involved in any type of controversial issue. Or maybe they know that he is 82 years old and not quite all there, and are trying to protect his dignity. Who knows.

[T.A.M.]

I think they are trying to get you to go away. If I wanted to hire an engineer for a project, I would have to background check his credentials, and to do that i would have to write to ASCE for confirmation of his membership. If you bring this to their attention, I would say you will find out the info you are looking for.

[kevin]

asce membership is not required to be a practicing engineer, although it is a pretty good idea. Some corporations maintain a corporate subscription to ASCE standards so it's possible for non-members to have access to required documents.

If you believe a person is a member of ASCE and violated their code of ethics you should be able to report them somehow, although how isn't jumping out at me on the ASCE website. (3rd fundamental canon of the code of ethics: 'Engineers shall issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.')

https://www.asce.org/inside/codeofethics.cfm

If the person is claiming to be a professional engineer (also not required for all engineers) then the state they are licensed in should have their name on record, you can usually check that via the state's professional engineers website.

[kevin]

apparently the claim is he is a professional engineer in california. CA does list a professional civil engineer by the name of joseph m phelps.

http://www2.dca.ca.gov/pls/wllpub/WLLQRYNA$LCEV2.QueryView?P_LICENSE_NUMBER=7964&P_L TE_ID=741

additionally the california code of professional conduct states:
"A licensee shall only express professional opinions that have a basis in fact or experience or accepted engineering principles."

how to file a complaint is here:
http://www.dca.ca.gov/pels/l_enforce.htm

Of course I haven't seen any public statements made by Phelps so I'm not sure we have grounds to complain yet.