Does anyone here believe the 9/11 story?

[polomint38]

And they're still trying to rationalise with him! Perhaps insanity can be caught on forums?

They're all Barking.

I think that Bryan and his friends have been affected by high level radiation (should have worn their foil hats) and you don't wan't to make them angry, because you won't like them when they are angry, you will just Turnham Green.

[bindeweede]

bryan's posts have certainly made my mate Brent Cross

[Croydon Bob]

bryan's posts have certainly made my mate Brent Cross

How about your Seven Sisters, are they happy?

[brianp]

How about your Seven Sisters, are they happy?

They're Epping mad.

[bindeweede]

How about your Seven Sisters, are they happy?

Far from it. They told me he makes their Bayswater.

[Admin]

My sister's a biker from Walker and my brother's a walker from Byker.

*Putting a Geordie spin on the game*

[PaulW99]

Okay, quick quiz for Bryan to see what you're willing to believe

1) Is the Queen human?
2) Did Lee Harvey Oswald kill JFK?
3) Do aliens walk among us?
4) Did man walk on the Moon?
5) Did the Holocaust happen?
6) Did Diana die in a car accident caused by DUI?
7) Did aeroplanes crash into.... no, scrap that

[bryan]

Wikipedia says:
"any fringe theory which explains a historical or current event as the result of a secret plot by conspirators of almost superhuman power and cunning"

This definition raises more questions than it answers.

1. What is a "fringe theory"? Is it just a theory supported by a minority?

2. What is "almost superhuman power"? Would the use of gagging orders be considered "almost superhuman"?

3. How do you determine whether the theory has any merit?

4. I asked you what you meant by "conspiracy theory" and you gave me a Wikipedia definition. Can you not think for yourself?

[bryan]

And they're still trying to rationalise with him! Perhaps insanity can be caught on forums?

They're all Barking.

I think that Bryan and his friends have been affected by high level radiation (should have worn their foil hats) and you don't wan't to make them angry, because you won't like them when they are angry, you will just Turnham Green.

bryan's posts have certainly made my mate Brent Cross

How about your Seven Sisters, are they happy?

They're Epping mad.

Far from it. They told me he makes their Bayswater.

My sister's a biker from Walker and my brother's a walker from Byker.

*Putting a Geordie spin on the game*

I see you've opened another front now you're struggling with the science and the logic.

[bryan]

Okay, quick quiz for Bryan to see what you're willing to believe

Did Lee Harvey Oswald kill JFK?
Did man walk on the Moon?
Did the Holocaust happen?
Did Diana die in a car accident caused by DUI?
Did aeroplanes crash into.... no, scrap that

Your questions are back to front. It's you who's willing to believe this crap!

[Matt]

1) Random fires do not cause buildings to collapse

They can, they have and unfortunately they will
http://www.haifire.com/presentations...pse_Survey.pdf

as in a perfectly-executed controlled demolition.

Have you heard of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy?

2) Building falls as in a perfectly-executed controlled demolition.
3) Therefore building was demolished.

It was noble attempt to preclude the leading explanation but the fact reamisn that the collapse of wtc7 had only a passing similarity to a controlled demolition. It differed in a number of important places that you still haven't addressed.

We have seismic records, a the demolition charges of a controlled demolition would have been apparent in those seismic records. The records show no such thing. Therefore there were no demolition charges

We have video records, the flashes from demolition charges would have been apparent in those video records. The records show no such thing. Therefore there were no demolition charges.

We have audio records, the reports from the demolition charges would have been apparent in those audio records. The records show no such thing. Therefore there were no demolition charges.

We have an analysis of the windows breakage patterns. Demolition charges would have been betrayed by a distinctive window breakage pattern. The analysis show no such thing. Therefore there were no demolition charges.

Demolition charges need to be rigged. It is likely that some evidence of this process would be apparent in reliable witness testimony. There is no such testimony. Thereore is is unlikely that anything was rigged.

I'll grant you that there are some aspects of the collapse that make it look like a bit like some controlled demolitions.

There are two problems with that:
1) Despite your bare assertion to the contrary these characteristics could equally be explained by a different model. Uncontrolled fire can cause and has caused steel framed buildings to collapse.
2) The collapse of WTC7 has none of the distinctive characteristics of a controlled demolition mentioned above.

The texas sharpshooter fallacy relates to a story about a man who shoots at the side of a barn. Examining where he has struck he then paints a bullseye around the bullet holes.

I think you may have done something similar (or the people who you got your ideas from) having seen the characteristics of the WTC7 collapse you've declared these to be the characteristics of controlled demolition.

This despite the fact that it did not fall into it's own footprint or that symetry is not a universal feature of CD.

I'll accept it here for the sake of argument, because what happens later makes the intial column failure look like an everyday event.

What exactly are you accepting, that the progression progressed as NIST described? Because in your very next sentance you cast doubt on that..

Get on with it and explain how the progression could have reached the inner columns near the west wall without affecting the outer columns of the east wall that were right next to the first column to fail.

Because the way the inner columns were connected to one another is different to the way they were connected to the outer columns. Just as NIST described.

Theoretically, extremely unlikely.

For all intents and purposes, totally impossible.

And may I ask how you arrived that that conclusion?

Don't forget the possibility that 81 unicorns could have pushed over one column each.

;-)

What a pity NIST didn't even look for answers to these questions!

Are you sure? Haven't I already pointed you to where NIST raised those question looked for answers and came to the obvious conclusion. There were no demolition charges.

You seem more sceptical of hi-tech weaponry than of ghost and aliens.

I'm sceptical of most things bryan. However there's a difference between scepticism and disbelief. I've subjected the NIST report to sceptiscm, and their hypothesis remains robustly plausible. I've subjected your fragmentary hypotheses to scepticism and they tumble.

[bryan]

Dead wrong.

For a start, 2. covers a huge range of people - those who have looked in detail and don't disagree with the NIST, those who have looked superficially and don't disagree with the NIST, those who haven't really examined the report significantly (maybe too busy working on making sure their current projects are competently designed) and who have maybe decided to trust the opinion of people they respect, and various other categories of people.
Even among the people who have examined the report in detail, even if they'd done their best, they're necessarily placing some trust in the NIST not to have lied about factual details which they wouldn't be in a position to check.

It's hardly sensible to say all such people would be discredited if the NIST explanation was shown to be wrong, especially given the numerous possible ways the NIST could be wrong, including (in your world) being fed false information by the Evil Conspiracy yet doing an honest job given what they had been led to believe.

Mr Hypocrite strikes again! All through this thread you've assumed the 99.994% of structural engineers who haven't expressed a view on the subject are supporting NIST's findings. Now, when it suits you, they suddenly become floating votes.

Since there are various possible ways in which the NIST explanation might be wrong, only people shown to have correctly explained how it was wrong could really claim any credit, otherwise anyone who signed a petition could claim to be a justified expert even if they understood neither the NIST report nor any argument against it at a technical level.

Architects & Engineers have two petitions, one for professionals (1194) and one for concerned citizens (8084).

They explain how NIST are wrong by listing some typical characteristics of destruction by fire that are not observed in the WTC collapses:

Slow onset with large visible deformations
Asymmetrical collapse which follows the path of least resistance (laws of conservation of momentum would cause a falling, intact, from the point of plane impact, to the side most damaged by the fires)
Evidence of fire temperatures capable of softening steel
High-rise buildings with much larger, hotter, and longer lasting fires have never “collapsed”

http://cms.ae911truth.org/

I entirely understand your desperation to argue that if the NIST explanation is shown to be wrong, that proves demolition, but your desperation doesn't seem to be born out of logic or sincerity, merely an overwhelming desire to ignore any other possible explanations apart from the one you wish to be true.
However many ways you try to argue your failed point, you can't stop its failure showing through.

Someone who actually had a desire to know the truth (which should cover most experts) would surely argue that if one explanation failed, that would be the time to look at all the other possible explanations and see how they fared in the light of current evidence, not leap to some pre-decided conclusion.

In theory, there might be any number of alternative explanations. In practice, none of them are plausible.

That's a still-born analogy - you're attempting (as usual) to rule out from the start any alternative explanation to the likely one apart from your alternative, without providing any evidence to support your ruling out the possibility of alternatives.

Shift of burden of proof. I could spend the rest of my life ruling out the possibility of things like aliens and ghosts.

Also, you're totally missing the point of the original analogy, which was merely to point out how assessments of probabilities can change as knowledge changes, and how in some hypothetical future with different knowledge, initial assessments of probability can be of limited use.
Your deliberate missing the point is understandable, since it shows how vacuous it is for you to keep asking for current assessments of plausibility/probability which you would then try to dishonestly misapply to your hypothetical future world, a world in which such assessments would necessarily be outdated.

And you're deliberately missing the point that if your source of knowledge turns out to be compromised, you can't base your reassessment on the same source.

'The logically obvious' being that if one explanation was shown to be wrong, there could only possibly be one alternative even when it's clear that there aren't.

Don't forget the alternative you're defending was just an idea from a brainstorming session. You're supposed to go through your list and ditch any ideas that are implausible, not cling on to them as though your life depended on it.

If you actually had any honour, and any argument worth making, you'd explain why my analogies don't work by engaging with them, rather than trying to dishonestly frame analogies that effectively put words in my mouth I didn't say.

I can understand why you didn't like my pointing out that my current assessment of the likelihood of a future state of the world (whether that's the weather tomorrow, or the possibility the NISt is shown to be wrong) has no bearing on whether I'm qualified to point out alternative possibilities for those future states.
Whether I think it's going to rain tomorrow or not has no bearing on whether I'm 'allowed' to point out possible things to do if it does rain.
Whether or not I think the NIST report likely to be shown significantly wrong has no bearing on whether I'm 'qualified' to speculate about possible explanations in a hypothetical future world where the NIST had been shown to be wrong.

My analogies relate to the situation we're discussing:

Met Office = Owner's Manual = NIST

If you want to use them as an authority, you need to be consistent.

So, are you still trying to argue that people would happily cover up for a conspiracy murdering thousands of their fellow citizens, but would clearly refuse to ignore construction failings even if those failings had led to no loss of life?

Compromised is compromised.

Which can presumably be demonstrated by someone shown to have excellent skills at modelling all kinds of structural failures, who not merely demonstrates how the NIST model fails to collapse the way the NIST say it does, but who also shows that it's not feasible for WTC7 to ever collapse in a way like it did, across the whole range of plausible fire and initial structure conditions, and also shows how many explosive charges and how much pre-weakening would be necessary to deliberately collapse WTC7 the way it collapsed.

That's exactly what they are doing and that's why more and more qualified experts are signing up to A&E.

But you're doing worse than nothing.
If your experts do have a technical case, you're really not making their job at getting it across any easier.
If I had a minority view which I thought I could logically convince people of, the last thing I'd want is someone like you as a self-appointed cheerleader.

There's no point in qualified experts wasting time on debunker forums debating with people who would swear on their mother's death that black is white. Their time is better spent presenting the arguments to those among their peers and the public who value the truth. Truthers who debate 'skeptics' need to have a different approach because it's not a case of trying to convince you but of exposing your lies.

[tolman]

Mr Hypocrite strikes again! All through this thread you've assumed the 99.994% of structural engineers who haven't expressed a view on the subject are supporting NIST's findings. Now, when it suits you, they suddenly become floating votes.

I haven't been assuming that everyone not yet signed up to oppose the NIST is necessarily a supporter.
However, I have been pointing out that people opposing the NIST really need to have more than tiny numbers on their side, and that if they actually have a good technical case, they shouldn't have too much hassle getting much more support (though obviously, the fewer people around like you, the better for them).
Either there are masses of uncommitted people out there (in which case people with a good technical argument might have an easy ride if they are correct) or there aren't (in which case the NIST opponents have a problem.

It's not up to me to say how many people are in any particular subgroup, merely to correctly point out that your categories were far too general for the reasoning you wish to base on them.
Indeed, you seemed happy to condemn anyone not signed up to your petition as not being fit to contemplate possible explanations in a hypothetical post-NIST world, which presumably means that the very people you are now praising as signing up to you, you would have condemned yesterday.
I wonder when your cut-off date will be between the Damned and the Righteous?

They explain how NIST are wrong by listing some typical characteristics of destruction by fire that are not observed in the WTC collapses:

In the case of a specific building, they'd be best served by showing an understanding of that specific building, and the various ways it could be shown to collapse in different damage/fire scenarios.
If they could show they had run good models across a range of initial building conditions and fire scenarios, and always ended up with results that looked unlike what happened, they'd probably have an easier job convincing other experts than making general comments about different fires in different buildings.

Also, if someone has done calculations, and someone else doesn't like the result, the best way to the first person wrong is to show exactly where their calculations are wrong, not merely to criticise the results.

In theory, there might be any number of alternative explanations. In practice, none of them are plausible.

You're only discounting alternatives as implausible because you're desperate that people don't even consider alternatives, an approach which is deeply antithetical to a search for truth.
If it was shown that the NIST explanation was wrong, then real seekers for truth would need to consider all possible explanations, with the plausibility of any explanation being based on all the knowledge then available.

Shift of burden of proof. I could spend the rest of my life ruling out the possibility of things like aliens and ghosts.

The fact that you're desperate to 'fix' an analogy from the start to give the answer you want only demonstrates your prejudice and stupidity.

And you're deliberately missing the point that if your source of knowledge turns out to be compromised, you can't base your reassessment on the same source.

But I wasn't attempting to base a reassessment on the same source - you were.
Were the NIST shown in your hypothetical future world to be generally accepted as being so wrong as to be untrustworthy, then neither you nor I could automatically rely on their statements as to the building's initial integrity.
However, that would be precisely what you'd try to do in claiming that the building couldn't have been poorly designed/built/maintained
I'm the person pointing out that a demonstration of serious NIST failure would actually put things back much closer to square one than you would wish them to be put.

Don't forget the alternative you're defending was just an idea from a brainstorming session. You're supposed to go through your list and ditch any ideas that are implausible, not cling on to them as though your life depended on it.

I'm merely pointing out that dismissing any idea based on current thinking of how likely it seems is stupid and intellectually dishonest, not that that prevents you relentlessly trying to dismiss the idea in pursuance of your goal of ignoring any alternatives but the one you've already decided upon.

You really do seem to be projecting your own obsession and closed-mindedness.
One of the main reasons for pointing out that there are alternatives is that the idea of alternatives is clearly anathema to you, and it's fun to see you get so wound up and desperate trying to attack the possibility of an explanation which to everyone else is not obviously any more implausible than the Huge Conspiracy Of Incompetence that you propose.

My analogies relate to the situation we're discussing:
Met Office = Owner's Manual = NIST
If you want to use them as an authority, you need to be consistent.

In my weather analogy, I wasn't relying at all on any forecast. Indeed, I was specifically pointing out that my view about the probability of rain would have no bearing at all on my ability to point out that there would be more than just one thing that could be done if it did rain.
It was you who was desperate to ignore that obvious fact, and try and pretend that my views on the weather actually did matter

And anyway, I don't rely on the NIST as an authority as such, more that I expect that if they were seriously wrong, they'd probably have more effective critics than they do have.
If their modelling was flawed, someone would have duplicated their work and got different results, etc

It's the same in science - generally it's less a case of believing in someone's assertions based on their authority, more the comforting knowledge that if the claims were wrong, then relatively soon that would be shown by people who could actually convince enough other people to make a difference.

You might argue that that is a lazy position to adopt, but in a world where you assure me that there are experts who know much more than I do who are doing their level best to prove the NIST wrong, it would seem that all that might need to be done is being done.

Compromised is compromised.

But that's not how you were arguing earlier - you were trying to rubbish the idea that the NIST could possibly cover up building flaws while confidently asserting they would co-operate with the mass murder of their fellow citizens.
Don't forget the asymmetry here - you're the one desperate to prove there are no alternatives to your alternative. I'm just pointing out that you're wrong, and that you're failing epically to convince anyone.

That's exactly what they are doing and that's why more and more qualified experts are signing up to A&E.

Well then, they might as well stop making general comments about different buildings and different fires, and concentrate specifically on modelling WTC7 and show how asymmetric any possible collapse of that particular structure would be across a whole range of possible starting points.
Then they can show their choices of starting points to other experts, who can make their own mind up how open-minded the choices were.

Truthers who debate 'skeptics' need to have a different approach because it's not a case of trying to convince you but of exposing your lies.

Says the person who believes it's 'hypocritical' for someone to have a current view of what probably happened, but to be prepared to change that view if new information arose.

[PaulW99]

Your questions are back to front. It's you who's willing to believe this crap!

Progress! So I can assume you don't think aliens are among us, and you do think the Queen is human?

That answers my question - some things are even too outlandish for bryan.
There's hope for you yet.

[bryan]

Progress! So I can assume you don't think aliens are among us, and you do think the Queen is human?

I haven't looked into these issues and, unlike you, I like to know what I'm talking about.