Oh my. Did I say the patriot act does NOT entail a violation of rights ? I just pointed out that your rights have been almost non-existant for a long time. Is that controversial as well ?
I’ll reply to your other points later.
I’ll reply to your other points later.
I agree that none of us are qualified to properly judge this paper. But I’m wondering about its pedigree. To me, this doesn’t look like a proper scientific journal. For one, I’ve never seen one that ends with mag (you’re welcome to refute that null hypothesis) and I can’t find an impact factor for it. Please correct me if I’m wrong. If we’re going to be rejecting null hypotheses based on articles we don’t fully understand, I’d at least like to get a sense of how respectable the source is. Otherwise I’m going to use Scientific American to establish the existence of infinite, multiple, parallel universes and you won’t know to which board you’re supposed to post [:)]
And if you’re willing to provisionally reject the null hypothesis, when will you take it back? Haven’t you just shifted the burden of proof over to us?
Who is talking about conspiracy? Throughout this entire thread I’ve been trying to steer the debate towards how the Twin Towers fell. There are many aspects of the collapses that require examination and explanation. Sure, Occam’s razor should be applied to all of these aspects, but oversimplification is also quite troublesome. If Occam’s razor falls on the side of an “alternative” hypothesis, then by your logic it wouldn’t be invalid to consider the “alternative” hypothesis as the null hypothesis.
I would hope that in the future we could continue our conversations with at least one analysis of how the Twin Towers fell. I hope that isn’t too much to ask.
Did I mention anything about contradictions? I was just amazed that you could state that “I neither know, nor care, how much of the official version is accurate” and then just accept the official version of events. How can you “not care” about the “official version” and then accept the numerous hyptheses, thereby valuing them more highly than any other hypotheses? Of course you’re far more learned than me with regard to science and the scientific method. Perhaps you can enlighten me as to the science upon which your conclusions are based?
You’re quite right. It’s some sort of popular journal. I did point out, though, that it cites a NIST study which, I also pointed out, is either public record or gettable using FOIA. So you don’t need to let the oversimplified, popularized and probably inaccurate writeup bother you: if I were you (or were more motivated, anyway) I’d get the NIST report.
You’re right again: when I say, “I’ve tentatively rejected the null hypothesis,” I’m not telling you anything useful. All you know now is what my uneducated opinion is. It’s just coffee talk.
You might ask why I’d go “tentatively rejecting null hypotheses” based on a popular writeup that I know is oversimplified at best, and contains inaccuracies at worst?
Well, part of the “tentativeness” is that I know I’m trusting that the article reflects the NIST report with sufficient accuracy. If I’m in error, it’s a correctable error: whenever I care enough, I can check the NIST report itself. I make a point of knowing when I’m relying on checkable facts that might be incorrect. Checkability is a safety net. There’s an analogy to the scientific method: testable claims are by definition scientific, though they may be true or false. Actually checking them is pretty important, but I don’t have time to check everything. So it’s a good first-order filter at least to weed out untestable claims.
Additionally, a few specific testable facts are also plausible. One, that the substation under WTC7 was designed for a building overhead, but not one the size of WTC7, so the building supports did not line up with the substation supports. I’ve seen similar problems in construction before, and know qualitatively how problematic that can be. Two, that they compensated for this using trusses, so that some beams that aren’t over the substation supports are tied to beams that are. That’s a common approach to just such engineering problems, and it has precisely the drawback described in the article: damage to one beam adds stresses to the other through the truss–so collapse in one part of the building can pull down other parts. I don’t know for certain that these statements are true of WTC7, but they’re all quite plausible. They pass the smell test, and are also testable.
Finally, on a very qualitative level, there’s the simulation software. This is testable if the software itself can be gotten through FOIA, and I’m not sure if it can be. Hopefully it is; if I were an interested truther, the first thing I’d be doing is requesting the simulation software and data from NIST. But the test can also be verified independently using commercial engineering software. As a software engineer, I know that such software exists and is widely used in the private sector. As a mathematician I know that the math behind such a simulation is well understood–nothing like the speculative junk in climate models, say. And finally, the test of removing pillar #79, and observing that the simulated collapse mirrored the actual collapse, is exactly the right experiment. They could be lying about the whole thing, but it’s testable, and the account is consistent and plausible.
Thus I tentatively accept that the analysis described in the article was done by NIST and is correct.
–Len.
I’m afraid it is: as a mathematician (and therefore a scientist), the only way I could seriously address that question is to educate myself in the relevant engineering and metallurgical principles, examine as much as possible firsthand using FOIA requests, and go from there. That would take me a solid year anyway, to brush up on the physics and learn the engineering. And I ain’t got that kind of time.
What else would you expect me to do? As I said, “no conspiracy” is the obvious null hypothesis. So is “no coverup.” If I neither know, nor care, then I’ll tentatively stick with whatever is most convenient, and the generally-accepted explanation is clearly most convenient. It spares me any need to argue, for example, except with a handful of truthers–of which I’ve encountered fewer than one offline.
Sarcasm aside, I thought I made it clear that there’s virtually no scientific basis for not rejecting the null hypothesis. It’s the default, lowest-energy position, and I take it precisely because I don’t care, and spending energy when you don’t care is silly.
–Len.
You posted this link
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_45_17/ai_80681435
"But while the towers were being built, the enviros launched one of their hysterical campaigns against the use of asbestos, and the poltroons of the New York City Council voted to ban it – in no matter what form. The direct result was that from the 64th floor up, the girders of the twin towers were deprived of the necessary fireproofing. At the time, Herbert Levine, an expert in the insulation of steel building columns, warned: “If fire breaks out above the 64th floor, the building will fall down.”
but look!
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7236
“The report says the initial collisions severely damaged several of the columns at the core of each building(??). Critically, they are also thought to have dislodged fireproofing on both the columns and the floors -”
But according to your article there was no fireproofing…so how can something that doesn’t exist be disloged ? You seem to have managed to post a clearly wrong piece of information ? I wonder if that affects your credibility ?
The article says deprived of “necessary” fireproofing: after asbestos was banned, fireproofing was still used–but an inferior spray-on ceramic, instead of asbestos.
If I’d made such a serious blunder, it would indeed reflect poorly on me. But why did you assume that without asbestos, no fireproofing at all would be used? It isn’t hard to verify that such isn’t the case.
–Len.
http://www.debunking911.com/fires.htm
“Thermal protection of the remaining floors of WTC 1 and all of WTC 2 was carried out using BLAZE-SHIELD Type DC/F, a product that contained mineral wool (glassy fibers) in place of the crystalline asbestos fibers. On the basis of tests, it was reported that the thermal properties of BLAZE-SHIELD Type DC/F were equal to or “slightly better” than those of BLAZE-SHIELD Type D”
The piece against the eco-terrorist sounded nice , but seems to be just wrong ?
Dunno; I’m not the expert. Some sources state that UL notwithstanding, it was inferior to asbestos. The NIST report states that it was dislodged from the damaged beams, which makes its effectiveness moot–and I haven’t seen any information on whether the asbestos was harder to dislodge or not.
–Len.
What does bother me though is that it appears to be based on an interim report by NIST. Has a final report ever been released? And has it been reviewed by other independent (read non-governmental) experts? My understanding is that NIST has been less than forthright in responding to challenges to discuss their initial report. That its public presentation comes via a magazine makes me wary.
Worse still would be that it summarizes a report that itself is not good. And it appears to be an interim report. Presumably, NIST doesn’t trust it enough to make it final?
Now we are testing whether the NIST report itself is consistent and factually correct. As long as this isn’t contradicted, then the rejection of the null hypothesis (namely that there was no single point of failure in WTC7 that could have led to free-fall collapse) will be allowed to stand. But it still won’t have been shown why it should have been rejected in the first place. It’s similar to me coming up with a model to describe how my driving over a penny caused my tire to puncture. As long as everything I say is true, you’re going to be stuck with my lousy theory.
The first bit is going to test whether NIST was honest in reporting the results of running their software. So far we’ve spent a lot of time just making sure that NIST hasn’t been sloppy or lied.
Presumably, the null hypothesis for the last test you suggest is ‘there are no models involving the removal of pillar #79 that will result in free-fall collapse’. But I could create a crappy model that simulates the collapse as described, allowing me to reject the null hypothesis. All this will do is show that crappy models can simulate the described events. You might argue ‘crappy models aren’t allowed’, but then we’ll need to decide on who judges a model to be crappy. And we’re right back to the main problem with the NIST model: it has not successfully passed critical scrutiny by independent, sceptical scientists and engineers.
One of the biggest issues with tentatively rejecting the null hypothesis right off the bat is that it allows you to avoid addressing empirical evidence. For example, that no skyscraper in history has undergone free-fall collapse due to fire and structural damage. This doesn’t prove that there are no single points of collapse, but it is evidence against their existence. It’s been argued on this thread that there are an infinite number of possible designs and the sample size is low, and thus no comparison can be made between the effects of fire and structural damage on different skyscrapers. But if this is the case then we have ticked off not only Plato, but comparative zoologists and paleontologists who are working under the assumption that theirs is a science. There can be debate as to how solid it is as evidence, but that it is evidence cannot.
I see no good reason that this null hypothesis deserves to be privileged.
If someone is willing to propose another, I’d be interested to hear about it.
Paul Craig Roberts is one example I’ve run across of someone who’s pretty well know who says that there is something very fishy with the government story. Although I’m not sure whether you could label him a libertarian, he seems to support a number of the principles held by the Austrian school. Do you know what Hoppe has said about this? Being a disciple of Rothbard, I’m wondering if he has ventured into the realm of conspiracies.
You might want to check your blood pressure [:)]
Following the news last week, I had to wonder about the timing of the Spitzer scandal with his decision to investigate Silverstein and the Carlyle Group…
I’m afraid not. We need more Hoppe on LRC.
Indeed! I’m using WAY too much salt.
Ya never know. Since all politicians are criminals, it’s always surprising when one of them is exposed. They usually cover each-others’ butts.
–Len.
If this was all part of a grand conspiracy to invade Iraq the government could have made the terrorists Iraqis, but they did not. This alone should throw your fairy tale out the door.
This was not an inside job. Their is no way a new administration could pull htis off without having anybody leak any information at all. It was a consequence of U.S imperialism in the Middle East, but it was not directly planned by the government. I dont have anything against conspiracy theorys, but this is a little too absurd for me.
Important point. At least half of government employees are Democrats, for starters. It’s also worth bearing in mind that very little of this administrations shenanigans have actually stayed secret. The no-bid contracts with Haliburton, torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, attempts to distort a routine naval encounter into a terrorist attack by Iranian speedboats–none of it stayed secret.
The kicker is that those tactics work so well even though anyone with half a brain knows the reality of it.
–Len.
I don’t think the government did it; the conspiracists give too many conflicting “proofs”.
Because it distracts good libertarians from doing something useful, and contributes to the marginalization of us all.
–Len.
I edited my post to say something more meaningful, but I agree with you.
What I don’t get it is how conspiracists believed that the USA staged such an attack, and yet was unable to persuade most of the world to help them out in their crusade to Iraq. They could have just planted WMD in Iraq or something to get the support of the UN. Their deck of evidences was very superficial, it was even mocked on TV here. In fact, why would they go to all the trouble of creating a simulated attack, when it would be much easier to make people angry about Iraq – especially when you consider that Saddam was a killer and badly regarded. They could just have exploded a chemical bomb in some village there; people would have supported a humanitarian war.
The conspiracists, the serious ones at least, do not give “proofs”. They question the official account.
These two articles should give everyone pause.
There are a lot of silly accusations out there. The 911 experts seem to put forward the best presentation for a new independent investigation into the numerous loose ends and inconsistencies.