Thursday, May 25, 2006

Who Are the Scholars for 9/11 Truth?

As Pat and I get further into this subject, we will inevitably get into people not directly involved in the movie, but those that feed the frenzy of conspiratorial theory. One such organization is the "Scholars for 9/11 Truth", who pop up with increasing frequency as some type of "expert" authority for the 9/11 "truth" movement. Sort of a Jedi Council for conspiracy nutbars. So I decided to look into them further, and see just how authoritative they are.

A look at their website reveals they are certainly full of themselves. Boldfaced headlines scream out the word, "experts" at every turn:


EXPERTS CLAIM OFFICIAL 9/11 STORY IS A HOAX

Scholars for 9/11 Truth call for verification and publication by an international consortium.

Duluth, MN (PRWEB)
January 30, 2006 -- A group of distinguished experts and scholars, including Robert M. Bowman, James H. Fetzer, Wayne Madsen, John McMurtry, Morgan Reynolds, and Andreas von Buelow, have concluded that senior government officials have covered up crucial facts about what really happened on 9/11.

Their most famous member, and co-founder, is Steven Jones, a physicist at Brigham Young University. He has become famous for publishing a paper on the WTC collapse. Thus far this paper though, has only been reviewed, not in a journal on physics, or structural engineering, but in a Marxist journal of political economy. BYU itself has rejected his work. Dr. Jones primary research has been, not in structural engineering or the reaction of metals to heat, but in cold fusion, which even in the physics community is regarded as bordering on alchemy. Even more bizarrely, his other famous published work was one right out of the World Weekly News, claiming that Jesus visited Central America based on ancient Indian artwork.

So maybe the "scholars" have other "experts" from whom Dr. Jones (Indiana?) is relying on, so I decided to look over their list of "full members" described here as:


Currently, S9/11T has four categories of members: full members (FM), who have or have had academic appointments or the equivalent;

I compiled the list of members and categorized them by specialty, position and institution, which actually was rather difficult. Oddly enough many of the members don't list their qualifications or university, which is quite strange, since every professor I have ever met is more than happy to go on for hours about their academic credentials.

I came up with a list of 76 members, expecting it to be full of Ivy League engineers and distinguished Middle Eastern scholars, experts bent on proving that the US government, and not Osama bin Laden attacked the World Trade Centers. I was wrong.

Out of the 76 "experts" the most common academic discipline was philosophy, with 9 members, including a co-founder. Since 7 members did not even list an academic discipline, this was 1/7 of their credentialed membership. English/literature and psychology came in next with 5 members each. Even theology and "humanities" came in with 4 and 3 members respectively. Among actual scientific fields, physics was way in front, with 5 members, including the aforementioned Dr. Jones. I am not sure as to their academic credentials though, at least one of the "physicists", Jeffrey Farrer, isn't even a professor, he is a lab manager at BYU. One has to wonder whether Steven Jones' janitor is also listed as an associate member?

So how many engineers do they have? Out of the 76, a grand total of 2. Jean-Pierre Petit, a French aeronautical engineer, who despite the obvious handicap of being French actually seems to have a relevant qualification. Curiously enough though, he doesn't seem to have written a single word on 9/11. He has written though, on a mysterious plot by the US military to bomb Jupiter with anti-matter weapons!

The second engineer is Judy Wood, who has been mentioned in the comments here for her bizarre billiard ball from the top of the World Trade Center theory. OK, Ms. Wood is an actual Mechanical Engineer at Clemson, but thus far her work has been primarily focused on the stresses of dentistry. A fascinating field no doubt, but hardly relevant to planes crashing into buildings.

So how many structural engineers are listed? Absolutely zero. How many experts in Middle Eastern studies, or the Arabic language? Also zero. But they do have a professor of social work!

So I thought, maybe I am being too narrow minded? Maybe these are just America's best and brightest minds, even if they are working out of their fields of specialty. Noam Chomsky at least, regardless of what you think of his kooky politics, is a respected professor of linguistics at MIT. So I looked up this list of the top 20 universities in the world (17 located in the US) from the Economist, expecting to find the schools of our distinguished scholars to be well represented on it.

Wrong. A total of one professor, Kevin Barrett, a Professor of Folk Lore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was represented.

Total number of "scholars" from the Ivy League, zero. Total number of "scholars" from Tunxcis Community College, one.

43 Comments:

At 25 May, 2006 13:41, Blogger Unknown said...

Wow, I 100% agree with you that the Scholars are, overall, an unimpressive lot.

 
At 25 May, 2006 13:44, Blogger Unknown said...

The good news is that, as interesting as topics such as UFO's and Reptilians are, the Scholars for 9/11 Truth has so far managed to stay away from mixing in those fascinating topics.

 
At 25 May, 2006 13:48, Blogger shawn said...

The good news is that, as interesting as topics such as UFO's and Reptilians are, the Scholars for 9/11 Truth has so far managed to stay away from mixing in those fascinating topics.

That's the one thing I admire about them, they at least shoot down the most ridiculous theories.

 
At 25 May, 2006 13:52, Blogger shawn said...

despite the obvious handicap of being French

I lol'ed.

 
At 25 May, 2006 14:00, Blogger Unknown said...

debunking,

I think it's a fair question to ask: do you have any connection with the web page link you provided earlier?

 
At 25 May, 2006 14:00, Blogger shawn said...

SwiftBoat Scholars for misrepresenting 911 truth

Well, you don't have any type of political bias, now do ya?

Anyhow, out of all the people peddling conspiracy theories, the Scholars are the cream of the crop. They still get everything wrong, but at least they have less to be wrong about.

 
At 25 May, 2006 14:02, Blogger shawn said...

Debunking911, I'm assuming you think the Scholars were strawmen created by the neocons to suppress discussion of 9/11. If I'm wrong in my assumption, I apologize.

 
At 25 May, 2006 14:04, Blogger Unknown said...

shawn...
debunk is on the "all the doubt about 9/11 is hooey" side...

 
At 25 May, 2006 14:06, Blogger shawn said...

shawn...
debunk is on the "all the doubt about 9/11 is hooey" side...


His attaching the Swift Boat label to the Scholars seemed to connote a belief they were created by the Republicans to discredit a reliable source.

 
At 25 May, 2006 14:08, Blogger shawn said...

Shawn, if you mean I'm republican then NO. I'm a PROUD liberal. See the thread before this one.

Well, Republicans and liberals aren't opposites, just most of our ignorant countryfolk think so.

As I've said, attaching the Swift Boat label to the Scholars seems to me that you're trying to say they're some prop to shoot down any valid conspiracies.

 
At 25 May, 2006 14:13, Blogger shawn said...

I believe they are a swiftboat type group created to make liberals look loony and split the democrat vote on this issue. I have seen some of these people running third party candidates on this issue.

Err most Democrats don't buy into this garbage.

In fact, the looniest of the bunch isn't even a Leftie (there's a difference between conservative/liberal, right/left but most Americans don't understand that), he's an old-fashioned capitalist.

 
At 25 May, 2006 14:14, Blogger shawn said...

Debunking, you're using the same logic the conspiracy theorists use now.

 
At 25 May, 2006 14:17, Blogger Unknown said...

ScottSl,

Good point.

There's quite a bit to Reynold's discussion along those lines. I am familiar with some of it, and although I realise exactly how discrediting it can be in terms of John Q. Public's evaluation, I need to indicate that I think the evidence that this view is based on should be taken seriously.

The entire explanation is anything but simple. If you are or anybody is wanting to debate that particular theory, or you want more information about why I think it is worthy of consideration, please contact me at my email.

 
At 25 May, 2006 14:22, Blogger Unknown said...

debunking,

I think you have a lot of thoughts that are pertinent, and I think we may agree on many things in life.

I definitely had a 'tude with you, since I hadn't seen you here before.

I'm hoping to be more laid back from now on....

 
At 25 May, 2006 14:23, Blogger shawn said...

To many of the people I meet on the internet who proselytize for rev Jones ARE on the left. THey hate Bush and WANT to believe this nonsense.

This is just an anecdote, so it's not actual evidence, but interesting:

I went to Emerson College in Boston (it's one of the farthest Left schools you can go to), whci was real fun around the last election. Anyhow, my RA was a big Bush fan and voted for him. Later that week a bunch of students had an showing of a 9/11 video, I don't think it could've been Loose Change, but it did contain all the stuff the first version of that video had. He went and saw it.

Afterwards I asked him how it went. He said "If had seen that a week ago I wouldn't have voted for Bush."

Just to be clear, this is one of those videos that talks about the "pods" on the planes and the projectiles they fired before they hit the towers and such.

 
At 25 May, 2006 14:24, Blogger Unknown said...

I just got an alert that Tony Blair landed in the US to meet with Bush. I'm not trying to change the subject or post off topic, but I'm curious if any of you think Blair coming here means anything... are we about to decide to do something about Iran?

 
At 25 May, 2006 14:25, Blogger Unknown said...

Interesting Anecdote about your RA, Shawn

 
At 25 May, 2006 14:44, Blogger Unknown said...

scotts,

fair enough (about Reynolds, noplaners)

I would like to point out to anyone who cares that Noplaners not = no flying "objects" of any kind.

Nor do noplaners necessarily say people are alive that are declared dead.

Nor do noplaners say that Commercial Jetliners didn't even taken off at the Airport according to the official story.

I realise that distinctions such as this may seem about as significant as the idea that space aliens are Marians versus some other species of space alien.

 
At 25 May, 2006 14:52, Blogger Unknown said...

Does anybody here commenting have strong opinions on the Nadet vid?

 
At 25 May, 2006 14:57, Blogger Unknown said...

Debunking,

I may be asking the obvious, do you think it was just normal US govt. bungling that let 9/11 happen?

 
At 25 May, 2006 14:58, Blogger shawn said...

People saw Bin Ladin say things liberals said and many voted for Bush on that alone.

Well, one of his videos does seem like he'd been reading a lot of Leftist blogs.

But I'd like to point something out - Democrat =/= liberal. I'm a liberal, like the Founding Fathers. I support small government (neither party seems to want this anymore), power to the people, and free market economy (the radical elements in the Democratic party seem to hate this aspect of traditional liberalism).

 
At 25 May, 2006 15:01, Blogger shawn said...

I may be asking the obvious, do you think it was just normal US govt. bungling that let 9/11 happen?

Speaking for myself, I see it as a lack of imagination. If someone had told me during my first period class that morning that a group of extremists would hijack planes and crash them into buildings, and that in my second period class I would watch LIVE as the second tower was hit, I would've just laughed at them. Hell, for most of the day I couldn't come to grips with it happening.

Unlike some people, I did eventually come to grips with it.

 
At 25 May, 2006 15:02, Blogger Unknown said...

undense,

you might be surprised how much I agree with your commentary here.

 
At 25 May, 2006 15:02, Blogger shawn said...

I believe we have to wait for the UN to dick around for 12+ years

Even by the most conservative estimates, the Islamic Republic will have the Bomb by then.

 
At 25 May, 2006 15:03, Blogger Unknown said...

Shawn,

I appreciate your thoughts.

 
At 25 May, 2006 15:10, Blogger Unknown said...

Shawn,

This might surprise, or maybe not.

It's not that I think that the UN is the active arm of the New World Order (NWO). I'm not even sure there is a NWO that has the right to a label.

In general, I guess I'm an idealist. It doesn't seem to me to be that hazardous to our health to just say: we don't recognize the UN as a functioning body and we are withdrawing. That would be a principled stance.

Not I realise the libs would go bonkers, and of course they did about Bolton. However, I think the real reason that we don't do that is that there are many special interests, some ours, some that overlap ours, that won't stand for losing the UN, because it serves some purposes very well.

But the idea that we respect the UN when we feel like it, and we don't respect at other times, seems to be a unsupportable philisophical position, unless you just say we are going to do pragmatically whatever we damn well please as the situation warrants.

I guess we can behave that way, and it's understandable why we wouldn't necessary announce it to the world.

 
At 25 May, 2006 15:17, Blogger Unknown said...

undense,

Blair met with Bush to discuss the possibility of expedited troop withdrawals from Iraq and turning over security in 16 of the 18 provinces to the Iraqis.


Should I have known this just by reading the newspapers? Do you have other sources that let you know any of the story behind the story?

 
At 25 May, 2006 15:35, Blogger shawn said...

It doesn't seem to me to be that hazardous to our health to just say: we don't recognize the UN as a functioning body and we are withdrawing. That would be a principled stance.

The UN is a disgusting organization. It has failed at its mission at every turn, Rwanda being its largest lapse.

But the idea that we respect the UN when we feel like it, and we don't respect at other times, seems to be a unsupportable philisophical position, unless you just say we are going to do pragmatically whatever we damn well please as the situation warrants.

I agree with you here. The problem is politicians have to pander to be effective, and they have to play nice with the international folk. I'd rather we just completely withdraw from the organization, it's a toothless tiger. What would they do to us if we left? Send us a nasty letter?

Noam Chomsky's field at MIT is linguistics and he's considered the greatest intellectual alive, can talk for hours about geo-political events without a single credential in the field, but maybe you've never read any of his work or even heard about him.

If you read his work or listened to his lectures, you'd be more than aware that the man has no credentials in the field of geopolitics.

 
At 25 May, 2006 15:36, Blogger James B. said...

Noam Chomsky's field at MIT is linguistics and he's considered the greatest intellectual alive, can talk for hours about geo-political events without a single credential in the field, but maybe you've never read any of his work or even heard about him.


Maybe you didn't even read the article you are talking about.

 
At 25 May, 2006 15:38, Blogger Chad said...

Little late to the convo, but I'll only buy the "lack of imagination" thing in regards to the scale of 9/11.

Suicide bombings aren't a new fad. Hijacking planes isn't either. I find it hard to believe that no one in our government over the past decade or so was able to put two and two together. Hell, Tom Clancy put the scenario of a hijacked plane being piloted into the White House in one of his novels.

So I think people figured it could happen. But 4 planes with 4 targets on one morning? I don't think anyone saw that. I also think there was the whole "U.S. as invincible teenager" syndrome. The only time terrorists tried something on our soil, they failed.

 
At 25 May, 2006 15:44, Blogger shawn said...

Little late to the convo, but I'll only buy the "lack of imagination" thing in regards to the scale of 9/11.

It was the scale of it. Heck, when we turned on the Tv and saw the first hole we thought it was an accident.

Hell, Tom Clancy put the scenario of a hijacked plane being piloted into the White House in one of his novels.

Stephen King's Running Man ends with the protagonist hijacking a plane and crashing it into the headquarters (a skyscraper) of the game show company.

 
At 25 May, 2006 16:47, Blogger shawn said...

Oh, I'm not a Republican, but it's ridiculous to assume they're behind the Scholars. It's pretty much conspiracy thinking to say otherwise.

 
At 25 May, 2006 17:01, Blogger shawn said...

The evidence of this administration's handling of terrorism pre-911 (and every issue they touch not to mention Bush's life in general) tells me the only conspiracy of 911 is the cover up of their ineptitude.

And what of Clinton's eight years?

 
At 25 May, 2006 17:08, Blogger shawn said...

It's not even the money, it's the focus. Clinton had several times when he knew exactly where Osama was and did nothing. (I don't even dislike Clinton for these reasons, my hatred for him stems from his inaction in Rwanda, something more evil than anything Bush has done).

 
At 25 May, 2006 17:24, Blogger shawn said...

And what about when Clinton could've had bin Laden had a silver platter? (And iIdon't want Osama killed, that's the worst scenario.)

Oh, I never liked Ashcroft. Always came off as a nut.

 
At 25 May, 2006 17:31, Blogger Alex said...

Enough of the partisan politics boys. No matter how you look at it, it's disingenius to blame Bush for something that happened 9 months into his term. If it makes you feel better to blame "Republicans", have at 'er. It's rather like re-arranging deck chairs on the titanic, but whatever makes you happy.

 
At 25 May, 2006 17:33, Blogger shawn said...

Enough of the partisan politics boys. No matter how you look at it, it's disingenius to blame Bush for something that happened 9 months into his term. If it makes you feel better to blame "Republicans", have at 'er. It's rather like re-arranging deck chairs on the titanic, but whatever makes you happy.

That was my point in mentioning Clinton's eight years. Even had it been a Republican then I'd say the same. Bush had nine months to stop an attack, and Clinton had eight years. Hell, Ramzi had a plan to crash a plane into an American landmark long before Bush ran for the highest office.

 
At 26 May, 2006 09:25, Blogger James B. said...

Maybe you missed the point that I had already cited Chomsky on that account in my post, and contrasted it to the "scholars".

 
At 26 May, 2006 16:10, Blogger shawn said...

If anyone destroyed classical liberalism (Of which I'm very fond) it was Chomsky, and I'll always despise him for it.

Chomsky is much to blame (along with his buddy Zinn) for the destruction of classical/traditional liberalism as a viable ideology in this country (it's the one I'm most closely aligned to), although the Left at large has hijacked the term "liberal" and made it into a joke.

 
At 26 May, 2006 16:10, Blogger shawn said...

mate, if you actually read what I said, that was exactly my point, though he has no "credentials in the field [of geopolitics]", he can still talk about it and is indeed frequently asked to do so.

But it seemed as if you were insinuating that he had no credentials in the field, but was someone who was "go-to" in that field.

 
At 04 August, 2006 21:43, Blogger MedullaPancreasOblongata said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

 
At 04 August, 2006 22:05, Blogger MedullaPancreasOblongata said...

Why can't “Pat” and “James B.” own their convictions by signing their surnames on the dotted lines? I want to know more about the guys who pick apart scientists with such dismissive lines as “Dr. Jones primary research has been, not in structural engineering or the reaction of metals to heat, but in cold fusion, which even in the physics community is regarded as bordering on alchemy.

So you guys hang with the physics community?

You guys engineers?

According to your blog bios one of you does nothing and the other collects software, has a lot of hobbies/interests and a major in European and Rusian studies. We, the reader, need to cross reference your ethos, to speak critically on such a subject matter, against those you are critiquing.

Thank you.

 
At 06 August, 2006 17:28, Blogger the clicker said...

"The scholars are, overall, an unimpressive lot", eh? Let's see:

Dr. Robert Bowman -- Director of SDI ("Star Wars") space-weapons programs under Presidents Carter and Ford, PhD. in Aeronautics and Nuclear Engineering from CalTech, retired USAF Lt. Colonel with 101 combat missions over Vietnam.

Andreas von Bulow, JD -- Former German Defense Secretary and Member of the German Parliament for 25 years, during which he served on intelligence committees, and has written a number of respected books on the international intelligence community.

Seven physics professors, dozens of professors in other scientific fields, a number of retired politicians and national-level governmental appointees, etc.

I don't think you can automatically dismiss this group as a bunch of crackpots. But at least you can take some comfort from knowing that your government would never try to mislead the public with what it claims. Like--er--WMDs or "yellow cake".

 

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