The problem I see is that physics as it applies to 9/11 is mostly concerned with building models to explain the observed phenomena (e.g. NIST’s pancake theory). To the extent that they are models, they will always have a probability of being true, no matter how small (assuming they are built by an expert) . You will never establish with absolute certainty that a particular model (e.g. controlled demolition) is the only correct one. You could prove that it is most likely, but as long as an alternative model exists that is consistent with someone’s opinion, no matter how unlikely it is, you will never get a true believer to change his mind. And the average American has no interest (or ability) to evaluate competing models. Scientific peer review is not their thing. I agree with you that Steve Jone’s research has not been convincingly repudiated. And it’s probably the best jolt to give people who are new to this research. But even if it does prove the existence of thermite, some fallback explanation will emerge to prop up the official version, e.g. the thermite belonged to one of the government agencies in WTC7 and that’s why the residue was detected. The only thing that would prove 9/11 to the satisfaction of those who are resistant would be a whistleblower with documentation. Those of us who don’t believe the official version could wait for that person (Godot?) to appear, or we could convince others that the government story doesn’t add up. I agree that physical models have to be a major part of that, but I fear that they alone will not be sufficient to motivate those who believe the official version. The story has to be put into an historical and political context, e.g. the history of government-sponsored false flag ops. That is the catalyst that is needed to overcome the incredible activation energy of the true believer.
I don’t think I could disagree with such a statement. However, this forum is supposedly filled with rational individuals. “True believers” are not taking a rational approach to the research IMO. I’m afraid that even among the many here who could pride themselves on the depth of their logical thinking, there are those who tend to toss such thinking aside for dogma they want so badly to believe in. In that case I don’t think they qualify as being rational (in the “exercise of logic” sense of the term). “Poseurs” I think would be the proper term to describe these folks.
Again, I cannot disagree. But once again I shall put forth the response that there are supposedly “rational” individuals on this board. They should be prepared as rational beings to take the approach of actually performing the research necessary to understand the competing theories of what happened to the buildings on that day.
BTW I have a better example for you with regard to thermite from another individual on this board: The aluminum from the plane mixed with the steel in the tower created the thermite residue discovered from the debris analyzed by Dr. Jones. [:D]
I think that for the “average American” in many cases physical models would not be sufficient. Then again putting the story into historical and political context with regard to false flag ops is indeed very dangerous with regard to attempting to show how the buildings came down in the first place. Mixing these together could in fact do much harm with regard to convincing many as they are absolutely baffled by the misinformation that has spread like wildfire all over the internet. However, I am not saying that this is necessarily a bad idea. Just be careful.
But I must emphasize that the individuals who post in this forum should be held to a higher caliber than the so-called “average American.” Albeit physics and praxeology are different sciences requiring different methods for discovery of truths, they are still sciences which require rational thought by individuals to analyze and interpret discoveries. If I’m not mistaken, rational thought is where many individuals who consider themselves “Austrians” would tend to pride themselves. Now in this time of debate (and hopefully discovery), where is this rational thought?
We’re discussing the plausibility of this happening, not at the moment whether it did or did not in fact happen. What you dismiss as “falling debris” is about half a million tons of material. There’s nothing astonishing about the possibility that some of that debris hit another building in the right spot to bring it down.
Respectfully, I’M NOT EVEN DISCUSSING HOW HIGH THE PROBABILITY IS. I’m pointing out that humans’ gut estimate of probability is uniformly lousy. So unspeakably lousy, that if you took your gut to Vegas, you’d end up sleeping under a bridge. Your assertion that it’s “low enough” is just an expression of that gut feeling; you haven’t the foggiest notion what the actual probability is. And even if you were a trained, expert statistician, your gut feeling would be practically worthless. Even attempting to guess at probabilities is a fool’s game.
You need to support the claim that it’s not credible. What you’re doing right now is called an appeal to incredulity. And “elements of thermite” is an appeal to ignorance: thermite has two ingredients. One is rust, and the other is aluminum. If you said, “There was rust in the wreckage, which indicates sabotage,” you’d get people considerably less excited than if you said, “elements of thermite.”
Falling debris hit an important structural support and took the building down. That’s a prime example of a coincidence. You’re claiming that it’s more than a coincidence, based on your belief that it’s vanishingly improbable. Which is exactly the fallacy I described.
You’re not investigating; you’re accusing. Investigation involves examining evidence, or interviewing witnesses, or performing experiments to verify hypotheses. You aren’t doing any of those things. I would never criticize anyone’s decision to investigate.
In this instance, you’re working too hard: a smoking crater in New York is more than enough to make a prima fascie case that investigation is needed. So… investigate! If you’re “calling for” an investigation, then I don’t know what you expect, exactly: presumably you want the government to investigate, but that won’t do any good since the government is also a possible suspect. So who exactly is the “they” that you expect to do “their” thing?
I haven’t a clue. If we assume it was al Qaeda, the fact remains that the US bungled the next step by imposing demands on Afghanistan rather than following standard extradition proceedings, then launched an invasion which might have been justified but was tainted by the preceding failure, then forgot all about Bin Ladin and invaded Iraq, which had nothing to do with anything, and committed high crimes against humanity. So there’s ample evidence calling for the death penalty for Bush, Cheney and quite a few others, without even touching the question who knocked down the towers. That being the case, I wish we’d see the forest for the trees and send those criminals to the gas chamber already, rather than fiddling about with details till they die of old age.
–Len.
Whether the government was responsible for the destruction of the WTC is ultimately irrelevant. I would rather focus on explaining to people that the “terrorists” are neither boogeymen hiding under our beds, nor demons who hate us for our freedom (and how that phrase is becoming more and more laughable every day); but rather an obscure group of muslims with no weapons and no country (and therefore pose us no threat), and attacked us for the US’s meddling in their affairs; and that our greatest threat is and has always been our own government.
Secondly, the federal government killing its own innocent subjects is not something that started on 09/11/01; I imagine many more have been killed in the drug war or at least certainly had their lives ruined (not to mention non-subjects killed in its wars of aggression). Indeed this behavior is all that is needed for them to stay in power.
On the other hand, for those who care about such things, here is a video I think you’ll find rather damning:
While I certainly hold that government, as a coercive monopoly, is inimical to capitalism and markets and has a holocaustic history of destruction, I certainly don’t believe that 9/11 was an intentional federal government scheme. Radical libertarians have a moral obligation, I believe, to denounce governments, but also to properly label perpetrators of crimes. Islamic totalitarians murdered approx 3,000 on 9/11 and similar jihadists are endorsed financially, materially, and spiritually by Islamic governments, chiefly Saudi Arabia and Iran. Both the Iranian and Saudi governments are enemies of the American people and ought to be eliminated. The ends are simple however. The means to doing this, of course, are complex and potentially disastrous.
Libertarians should always be suspicious and comtemptous of our government but never quarter-witted. Left-wing conspiracy theories are not subtitutes for facts. Libertarians rather should focus on how our past foreign policy has encouraged jihadism and how to end the threat of Islamic totalitarianism. Bush is a tyrant, but not a conscious advocate of what happened on 9/11.
Fantastic was perhaps a poor choice of words. Let’s go with ‘astounding’. I’m not suggesting it was supernatural, only very unlikely. There’s a big difference. When I say the official version is not credible, I mean that the likelihood of the event occuring via the manner described is sufficiently low for me to prefer alternative explanations. Hanjour executing the manoeuvre required to hit the Pentagon. Possible, but very unlikely.
I disagree. The reason people (compulsive gamblers, not normal people) lose their shirt in Vegas is not that the house has tricked them into playing some game where the odds are wildly against them. The house wins because the odds are ever so slightly in its favour and it can never go broke. That last bit is important. The house can always make its money back. Once you go broke, your money is gone forever. You’re saying that people are unable to form rough estimates of likelihood, which is absurd. People have an intuitive sense that a larger sample size increases the confidence of an estimate. In medieval Germany, one of the units of measure was derived by lining up the first seven men who came out of the parish church. So even at this time, before formal statistical theory was developed, people had the good sense to employ random sampling (granted, their sampling method could have been improved). People can get tricked by probability, but I would argue that these cases are relatively contrived (e.g. the Birthday Paradox). You ask what the actual probability is. I admit, I don’t have the foggiest clue what the actual probability is. But I’ll gladly sleep under a bridge if it’s above 0.05. The problem, as I’ve said before, is that it is impossible to empirically verify any probability estimate. You can’t recreate the conditions on that day. So that’s when we go to models to explain what happened. You don’t want a professional statistician, that’s like getting a pure mathematician to do your taxes. You want a structural engineer. I’m not one. But when hundreds of professional structural engineers say that the explanation being put forward is extremely unlikely, I believe them. You don’t have to, that’s your prerogative. And when NIST says that their best explanation only has a very low probability of occurence, I take them at their word. Apparently your cutoff for rejecting the null hypothesis is much lower than mine. That’s fine, I can’t make you more sceptical. We’re going to have to agree to disagree.
Ok, how about “evidence for the presence of thermite”. I’m assuming you’ve followed the research of Steve Jones. I think he’s made a good case that thermite was present at Ground Zero. I’m guessing you disagree.
For starters, this is not how you invoked the fallacy in your original post:
And let me repeat what I wrote (you can replace not credible with very unlikely if you like):
You say the assertion that the free-fall collapse of WTC7 is an unlikely event commits this fallacy, which is bogus. In your subway example, we’re always going to find a way in which we’re related because we’ll check millions of combinations if need be. Applying that logic to WTC7, you’re saying that the tower always has to go into free-fall collapse. Free-fall collapse is a rare event. You going on to the subway armed with the question ‘where was your grandfather’s dog born?’ and getting the same answer is a rare event. As you yourself said, we’re talking about a particular coincidence. Unless you are going to tell me there are a large number of ways in which free-fall collapse can occur (which I won’t accept), your charge is completely bogus.
You didn’t understand the point:
It’s not my job to investigate. The police station is congress. I am the 9/11 truth researchers. The 9/11 truth researchers have made this information about inconsistencies between the official version and the events of that day available to members of congress. Congress, after assessing the prima facie strength of the claims, needs to decide whether or not to start an investigation. And not an investigation run by friends or co-workers of the gardener (or as was the case in the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, who was a former employee of Condi Rice). I think the evidence the 9/11 truth movement has put together is strong enough to warrant re-opening the investigation. Perhaps you disagree, again your right. I would suggest, though, that you would be in the minority among people who have looked at the research (perhaps an unfair comparison though, since people are more likely to look at the research if they were sceptical in the first place. I’d like to see a controlled experiment across a whole range of socioeconomic and IQ levels, I think it would be very interesting).
Thanks for asking! What would satisfy me (and I’m guessing the majority of other people who don’t buy the official version) would be a new investigation with full subpoena powers and access to all relevant classified material, which includes people who are not Washington insiders. It should include politicians who are respected and known for being independent (e.g. Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader), members of the 9/11 truth movement (David Ray Griffin, Webster Tarpley), and members of the victims’ families. Perhaps a pipe dream, but at least admit that you’d be interested to see what skeletons they dug up.
Would you agree it is essential that we find out?
You’re attacking the symptom and not the cause. 9/11 was invoked to justify starting these wars and to pass the fascistic Patriot Act. Faux patriotism resulting from the event gives prime media real estate to noxious types like Bill O’reilly and Glenn Beck. Blaming a bunch of muslims reinforces the beliefs of some Zionist Christians that Arab Christians have no rights. I’d like to see the record set straight. Furthermore, you’re going after the puppets and not the controllers.
-KH
Did you learn that term from a radical libertarian, or a neocon?
Excellent idea! Do you think we’ll need the state’s help to do this?
The man you’ve quoted in your signature believed in conspiracy theories.
Belief in a 9/11 conspiracy is not unique to leftists. Alex Jones and David Duke are by no stretch of the imagination leftists.
Left-wingers are more likely to entertain unofficial (conspiracy) theories because they are largely immune to jingoistic exhortations to patriotism.
My point, once again, is twofold. First, you have no idea what the likelihood is; you’re only guessing based on your uninformed sense of incredulity. Here “uninformed” is not an insult, but a simple observation that you don’t have any of the relevant knowledge in engineering, physics, demolition, explosives or chemistry. Neither have I, which is why I’m not tossing guesses around.
Your incredulity is what’s amazing: most buildings have critical support structures. I recently visited the log cabin I lived in as a teenager, and the owner rather bitterly showed me the massive cracks in the foundation. Apparently the house shifts every winter and the cracks widen more than an inch. Rain, snow and cold winds blow into the basement. It was only after leaving that I realized what was so wrong: there was an eight-foot-long timber missing. It used to be supported on both ends by lally columns, and it was completely gone. The wall above it was a bearing wall. The middle of the building sags downward, and the foundation bows outward dramatically. It will probably collapse if it isn’t fixed. I’ve seen any number of similar cases, where knocking out the wrong beam or pillar partially or wholly destroys the structure. You’re making it sound like this is the least bit surprising.
So is having two humongous neighboring structures hit by jet planes and collapse around your ears. WTC7 didn’t just fall flat one fine sunny day; it was pelted by debris from half a million tons of nearby structure.
Subpoena power comes from the government. You’re asking for the government either to investigate itself, or to empower others to investigate it. Dream on. I see no point in demanding that, any more than there’s a point in demanding a mafia don hire “independent” people to investigate himself, ordering his underlings to cooperate and empowering them to arrest or whack him when they’re finished. Um, ain’t gonna happen.
As for “independent” politicians, at bast you’re asking the Bonanos to investigate the Fratellis. They’re all criminals up to their eyeballs.
And finally, subpoena power itself is un-libertarian. I’d rather demand a free-market justice system, than ask the existing coercive institution to do my bidding.
The patriot act would still be a crime against humanity, not to mention high treason, even if the official story were 100% proven. It’s a crime regardless of the facts on 9/11, let alone what people think about it. So why would you stake anything on an investigation that’s likely to disappoint you anyway? Supposing your worst nightmares come true, and the Fedgov was taken completely by surprise and Bin Ladin was completely responsible, would you start endorsing the Patriot Act? No? Then apparently it’s you who is misdirecting your effort.
Here’s where we get onto solid ground: Jones is an idiot. Thermite doesn’t make clean cuts; it makes rough cuts with considerably slag. It doesn’t make long cuts; it makes relatively small holes. And it doesn’t normally make horizontal cuts at all; the energy is directed up and down. Devices to direct the heat horizontally would leave evidence. The quantity needed to cut the famous beam is ridiculously large. For reasons such as these, military applications use thermite enhanced with other incendiary ingredients, such as barium nitrate and sulfer, which would leave behind detectable residue by the way. Basic online reasearch debunks Jones’s frivolous theory.
–Len.
What are these alternative explanations? Further, what are their implications? Where do the experts and executers of CD stand? How do you have any inclination what so ever of the low probability that the events would unravel in the fashion they did? Do you have a large sample of instances where planes crashed into buildings of the same height, structure, etc? Because if you don’t, I don’t see where you can develop any sort of ‘intuitive’ probability of the events unraveling as they did.
You adress this partially below, but go on to say that you really can’t develop any sort of reliable probability estimate. Does this not contradict your statement above?
So the house has the better end. I don’t see where Len contradicted this. If people intuitively understood this, and took it too its logical conclusion, why would they gamble in the first place?
So we can’t develop a probability estimate but we can develop a model capable of capturing a complex phenomena such as 9/11? Quite a leap of faith.
Hundreds?!! I need to see a list or something. What about those who actually execute CD? How many physicists, as a percentage of the total, adhere to Jones? I need some evidence here. That sort of statement is lousy. You’re so deep into the movement that you’ve lost perspective of the general population and their opinions.
Is thermite the agent used for CD? Is it effective in demolishing vertical beams? Have you watched the buidling collapse? It collapses from the top and sequentially comes down on itself. How is this consistent with CD? I have watched many “truth” videos and they all seem to ignore the most substantive and irrefutable arguments against their bizarre hypotheses. Have you read the bulk of literature which debunks the thermite and CD hypotheses?
Oh no!! A pilot was judged incompetent to fly a Cessna, ergo, he can’t fly a plane into a building? One, he didn’t have to take off. Two, he didn’t have to land, but rather, fly into an object. Three, he actually hit the ground just b/f the pentagon. Four, to be judged incompetent does not necessitate the inability to do something; this is a bizarre line of argument you’re using (it’s rather telling to the strength of your argument in fact). If I apply for driver’s licence and fail, does that necessitate that I can’t drive into a specific target? Please, the logic you use is ridiculous.
Haha, the last part is most essential. I too would like to see the controlled experiment.
Haha, guilty of your own accusation. The cause of 9/11 goes much deeper than a government conspiracy theory to justify a war. The reason behind Al-Queda attacking the US is itself of consequence of statism; the simple “conspiracy theory” statism that you continually propound, is the least of our worries as regards the state. It’s power does not lie in a few rogue individuals plotting grand schemes but in it’s inherent nature to grow via the continual struggle for power of those groups politicians pander to.
I seriously doubt your level of literacy with regard to the debunking material.
http://stj911.org/jones/docs/cuttingthrough_patent.png
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4186920967571123147&hl=en
Perfect example! The cutting device in that patent application would leave substantial evidence behind.
–Len.
Unfortunately the ability to collect evidence from the scene was hindered to the point where it is now impossible to go searching for this evidence of whether or not these charges were actually planted in the building. Yet to assume that such devices were not planted in the building is just as unscientific as to assume that they were because the ability to perform an investigation into the debris was hindered due to the fact the debris that was on site was removed in short order.
Yet the evidence for thermite in the debris that was collected still remains. And the explanation of the cutter charge is plausible.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4186920967571123147&hl=en
I don’t assume either way. The burden of proof in this case, though, rests on the ones making the claim. There’s no burden on me, because I’m not making any claims.
You’re apparently ignoring the fact that the amount needed to cut the beam in question would be massive. The “evidence” to which you allude doesn’t begin to meet the burden of proof.
–Len.
There is your claim.
As an aside I’d like to have some links to pages showing the extent of the damage caused by debris to WTC7.
The videos I saw show that the debris hiting WTC7 was minimal.
And the claim that damaging one column/structural member causes the collapse of a whole builiding just as if it were CD is a claim that needs proof. Except that it can’t be proved because it defies physics.
Do you realize the absurdity of that statement? The effect of taking out a particular structural member will be vastly different depending which member, and which structure. Since you don’t have the foggiest notion how WTC7 was engineered, you haven’t any idea what’s plausible in that regard. Nor have I, by the way: it’s possible that the structure was so designed that what they’re claiming is unlikely, or even extremely so. But for all you or I know–which is exactly nothing–it’s equally possible that the building had just such a structural member.
That you don’t realize this damages your credibility significantly. That you don’t address your hunch by looking at the actual design of that actual building (which I’m confident is public information), illustrates exactly why sensible libertarians do tend to distance themselves from truthers. You’re speculating about a fact that can easily be looked up, and that any one of millions of engineers in the country could assess for plausibility. But instead of looking it up, you’d rather jaw about it.
–Len.
Hope this helps:
http://www.studyof911.com/articles/winstonwtc701/
I am not attesting to the accuracy of the claims in this article, but it might help you find answers to some of your questions.
That page, wich I already knew, claims that the damage was minimal. What I’d like is evidence for the other side of the ‘argument’.