More On the "Scholars" for 9/11 "Truth"
The Chronicle for Higher Education has a good article on the "scholars", and Steven Jones specifically. No surprise why they are considered jokes among the academic community. H/T Michelle Malkin.
The Brigham Young college of engineering issued an even stronger statement on its Web site. "The structural engineering faculty," it read, "do not support the hypotheses of Professor Jones." However, his supporters complain, none of Mr. Jones's critics at Brigham Young have dealt with his points directly.
While there are a handful of Web sites that seek to debunk the claims of Mr. Jones and others in the movement, most mainstream scientists, in fact, have not seen fit to engage them. "There's nothing to debunk," says Zdenek P. Bazant, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University and the author of the first peer-reviewed paper on the World Trade Center collapses.
"It's a non-issue," says Sivaraj Shyam-Sunder, a lead investigator for the National Institute of Standards and Technology's study of the collapses.
Ross B. Corotis, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a member of the editorial board at the journal Structural Safety, says that most engineers are pretty settled on what happened at the World Trade Center. "There's not really disagreement as to what happened for 99 percent of the details," he says.
In keeping with their rigorous academic standards, they dismiss anything which may contradict their views, without even looking at it:
911myths.com, a Web site run by a software developer in England, is one of the few venues that offers a running scrutiny of the various claims and arguments coming out of the 9/11 Truth movement. Mr. Fetzer has heard of 911myths .com, but he has never visited the site.
"I have been dealing with disinformation and phony stories about the death of JFK for all these years. There's a huge amount of phoniness out there," he says. "You have to be very selective in how you approach these things."
posted by James B. @ 10:00 AM
31 comments
31 Comments:
It is not the US "wants to bomb Jupiter", the guy believes the US actually "has bombed" Jupiter! With those top secret anti-matter weapons, I read about them in a Dan Brown novel.
In keeping with their rigorous academic standards, they dismiss anything which may contradict their views, without even looking at it.
You might want to tweak your wording here to make sure the reader knows what this sentence is referring to, and perhaps a tad bit more context for the following paragraph.
At first, i thought the "in keeping with their rigorous academic standards..." was a quip on the academics mentioned in the prior paragraph who say 'we don't even engage them', which is something i'd think a CT would say.
Yeah, that had occured to me. There is a bit of a difference though, in the first case it is people with relevent academic standards who are arguing the general accepted view. You aren't going to find Steven Hawkings arguing gravity with "psychic" commmunity college dropout. All the evidence supports your thesis, and until someone actually credibly challenges it, it is their obligation to provide the proof.
If you are supposedly a "skeptic" who is "openminded" and dedicated to exposing the "truth", then it is ridiculous to only grab on to the 1% of the evidence that supports you and automatically dismiss the other 99%.
well i just mean, end the sentence "looking at it:" (with a colon instead of a period, to direct attention to the following paragraph). It didn't become clear that this was your intention until i read the actual chronicle article.
Whats more fun is all the CT'ers who keep trying to hand Jones' paper to the top people at NIST, assuming that they have never hread of Jones wonderful and fact-free science.
The truth of the matter is that they have read Jones' nonsense, and it has no impact. The paper is bad physics and worse engineering. Given Jones' avoidance of peer review of his paper, its also just plain bad scientific methodology.
Grammatical point taken.
You'd think these people would start to wonder why their most "realiable" sources believe in Jesus-visted-America and the-USA-wants-to-bomb-Jupiter theories.
Come now, no need to mock all Mormons because one happens to be an idiot. Brigham Young is a Mormon school and has officially disavowed Jones' claims.
"The Brigham Young college of engineering issued an even stronger statement on its Web site. "The structural engineering faculty," it read, "do not support the hypotheses of Professor Jones."
This has since been retracted and the person who wrote them bought up on charges.
This has since been retracted and the person who wrote them bought up on charges.
That's a lie. Post the retraction and evidence of charges.
911myths.com, a Web site run by a software developer in England, is one of the few venues that offers a running scrutiny of the various claims and arguments coming out of the 9/11 Truth movement. Mr. Fetzer has heard of 911myths .com, but he has never visited the site.
Again, 911myths is nothing but conjecture, opinion and faulty on the facts. In essence, all they do is echo the official propaganda without the same scrutiny they hold the supporters of the official fantasy.
That's a lie. Post the retraction and evidence of charges.
Here:
5. [The following was posted at the web site of the BYU Fulton College of Engineering and Technology from November 2005 to April 2006, when it was removed without explanation.]
As for charges, I got that wrong, but there is a call for charges to be filed for defamation and preventing the academic process of this topic:
There are additional reasons for deleting the unprofessional and unethical statement. First, although I am not a member of American Society of Civil Engineers, I am permitted, according to the ASCE code, to lodge an ethics complaint against an engineer. (The ombudsman for formal complaints to ASCE is: tsmith@asce.org).
Second, no dean has the right to represent individual faculty, much less the entire faculty of BYU’s Engineering College, on the issue of whether they do (or do not) "support" a colleague’s research, whether published or in-progress. The offending statement is a breach of collegiality, and seems as well to infringe upon Professor Jones’ academic freedom.
Most poignantly, it is inconsistent with the code of ethics of the American Society of Civil Engineers, by which you, as dean of the Engineering College, are bound, given that your web site claims to represent the opinions of an entire faculty of BYU engineers.
Sincerely yours,
Richard McGinn
… mcginn@ohio.edu
CC: ASCE Ombudsman
AAUP Committee on Academic Freedom
The whole thing is here:
http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/Comments_Jones_05May2006.html
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Several problems:
1) The letter says that he could press charges (he is wrong). Not that this was done. By all indications, this never happened.
2) There is no indication that the letter had any real effect on the statement by Fulton. The lack of an explicit retraction is key here. That being the way engineers operate.
3) Jones is not an engineer. He does not enjoy the protection of ASME. The codes that were cited in the full letter were specifically for the competitive protection of engineers from other engineers, not to protect those outside the profession who 'stray'into their field.
4) Even if Jones were an Engineer, there is no indication that anything stated by Fulton violates the ASME.
In short. There has been no retraction by Fulton, no charges filed. Merely some drum-beating by Mr. Mcginn, and some lies told by nesync.
Jones is not an engineer. He does not enjoy the protection of ASME.
Read again, that's not what McGinn is arguing. If you got that wrong, then no wonder you're lost.
Read again, that's not what McGinn is arguing. If you got that wrong, then no wonder you're lost.
He argues that and claims in his letter that what Fulton's Dean was diong was a violation of Canon 5.
Certainly he argues other things as well, none of which are relevant nor the violations he claims.
No that it matters. No ethics complaint was filed let alone acted upon. Nor was a retraction made.
Nor was a retraction made.
I would call pulling said passage from website a retraction.
I would call pulling said passage from website a retraction.
No, it is not.
I would call pulling said passage from website a retraction.
Would you not then say Dylan Avery "retracted" his stance on the pod/missile theory when he took it out of LC2E?
Let me help you out with the answer to my question Nesnec.
From LC2E:
The "Pod" is by far the most controversial aspect of the 9-11 movement.
After including it in the original Loose Change, certain groups and persons made it their personal duty to e-mail us and let us know just how bad of an idea it was.
However, much to their chagrin, the segment was not deleted because of them.
Rather, it was deleted in lieu of the new introduction.
We had all intention of including the sequence on this DVD, however, due to space limitations, it has been left on the cutting room floor.
We mean no disrespect to Phil Jayhan, Dave VonKliest, or anyone else who has stood by this evidence.
Please explain to me how that's a "retraction".
... And try to keep the Joos out of it.
Hell, the one little bit of integrity they had was just washed away. They still buy into the pod theory (which makes no sense whatsoever).
Would you not then say Dylan Avery "retracted" his stance on the pod/missile theory when he took it out of LC2E?
Yes I would. He definitely now sees the "pods" as a speculative distraction and hopefully, he'll take out other non-issues on the final cut.
Yes I would. He definitely now sees the "pods" as a speculative distraction and hopefully, he'll take out other non-issues on the final cut.
So you can retract something you still believe to be true? 'Cause retract means "disavow".
I ask again. Does this sound like a retraction:
We had all intention of including the sequence on this DVD, however, due to space limitations, it has been left on the cutting room floor.
And for the record Nesnyc, I agree with you. I think it IS a retraction.
My point in all this is that Avery doesn't appear to have the sack to admit that he's wrong.
Let's look at that letter
Second, no dean has the right to represent individual faculty, much less the entire faculty of BYU’s Engineering College, on the issue of whether they do (or do not) "support" a colleague’s research, whether published or in-progress.
While technicaly correct, all that this statement really means is that the dean should not have taken it upon himself to represent the faculty. It certainly doesn't mean that anyone disagrees with his statements though, and no actual engineers wrote any letters of complaint, which should tell you something.
The offending statement is a breach of collegiality, and seems as well to infringe upon Professor Jones’ academic freedom.
Bullshit. He's still free to spread his filth, and other faculty members are allowed to state that he's full of it. Freedom of expression by one individual is never a limitation on the freedoms of another.
What I certainly don't see a retraction of is nesync's lie:
"This has since been retracted and the person who wrote them bought up on charges. "
"WTC 7 could not have been bombed; there were fires everywhere and these would have set off the explosives. Demolitions are delicate operations"
What's wrong with any of these statements? The fires would've destroyed the mechanisms used to detonate any explosives, if not the explosives themselves.
Otherwise shut the hell up and think a little longer before calling into question the reputation of someone that specializes in a field you do not understand.
That sounds an awful lot like a priest saying "Don't question us, we know exactly what God wants!"
And we'll call anyone's reputation into question when he uses faulty logical and specious reasoning.
It should also be noted that mechanical and structural engineering are simply physics with more focus on relatively basic physical principles such as you might learn in an early college physics class.
The two fields are related, but they are not transposable. Stephen Hawkins is perhaps the smartest physicist in the world today, but I would not want to enter a skyscraper designed by him. Conversely, I would not expect a good exploration of stellar death from a structural engineer.
Jones' work is terrible physics and horrible engineering. He makes mistakes a high school student can see through (The 2nd law of thermodynamics does NOT mean 'Things topple over'). Add to that a serious misunderstanding of basic concepts like the amount of masses invovled, (and what kept them from moving in the first place), his attempt to sell a picture of concrete with rebar sticking out of it as being cooled, formerly molten steel, and his misunderstanding of how buildings fail, well, I can safely say the man is way off base.
The guy says:
"This is the way it works IRW for engineers; if your credibility is in question for any statement you represent as factual that is in fact not factual, your entire body of work is then regarded as potentially unreliable."
then IN THE VERY NEXT SENTENCE he says
"In closing I would like to say that unless you can categorically refute everything that Professor Jones claims in his paper and are in possession of the credentials to do so credibly (e.g. Mechanical Engineering degree/CivEng degree/Structural Eng degree or happen to be an explosive demolition expert) then your argument is handicapped considerably from the outset."
Buddy! Make up your mind! Which is it? Do we only have to disprove one of the things he says in order to cast doubt on his work? Or do we have to "categoricaly disprove" EVERYTHING he says? You can't have it both ways, unless, ofcourse, you're a CT'er, in which case you only need one rumour to disprove the "official story", whereas your opposition needs massive tomes of evidence before you'll even admit that they may be right.
Oh, and Shawn:
What's wrong with any of these statements? The fires would've destroyed the mechanisms used to detonate any explosives, if not the explosives themselves.
What's wrong with the statement is that it makes it seem as if the C4 charges would detonate due to fire. That's, ofcourse, not the case, they'd simply burn up. That's actually a mistake I also noticed when I watched screw loose change. There's a few more mistakes, but nothing major. The main point in this case - that fire would impede the accurate demolition of the buildings - is still valid.
And, in the interest of accuracy, MarkyX:
"C4s are a very powerful substance and would probably cause a lot more damage then it should."
C4 IS a very powerfull substance, however, when used for demolition purposes, the charges are quite small. All that's required is to cut the support to the structure and then let gravity do the rest. In some circumstances you don't even need to cut all the supports, you can just cause vibrations which will basicaly shatter the structure. All of that takes a lot more skill with the stuff than I've got. My idea of blowing up a bridge is parking a truck full of C4 on top of it, pulling the pin, and running like hell. However, I've seen army engineers do the same job with about one pound of C4. You hear a little "crack" and the thing just falls apart.
Long story short, a demolition wouldn't neccesarily look much different. However, the accuracy required to plant C4 on a couple floors, and then have the aircraft fly into those exact floors? Highly unlikely. Add to that the fact that the fire would have more than likely ignited the C4, rendering it useless, and there's really no question that C4 wasn't used. Thermite is more likely, however, you've got the same problem as far as accuracy goes, and the fire would have destroyed any detonators/igniters, meaning that either the thermite itself would never ignite if the temperatures weren't high enough, or that you'd have no way of controlling WHEN each bit of thermite ignites if the temperatures did get high enough. Either way, the CT claims make no sense, but you can't disprove their nonsense by saying a demolition would have looked different.
I'm not going to argue too much because you're the engineer, not me.
Sorry if you got the wrong impression, but I'm not an engineer either. I've used C4 in the performance of my job, meaning I understand it's properties and effects, but when I need something professionaly blown up I call in the real engineers. If I demolish something, it's like using a sledge-hammer to pound in a finishing-nail. It'll get the job done, but it'll be messy, create lots of damage, and it's generaly overkill. The engineers are the proper tool for the job.
But from what I understand is that demolishing a building isn't just slapping bombs in random places (like LC suggests) and everything falls into place. It's a very calculated procedure that involves drilling, wiring and so forth.
Absolutely correct - that's the way the proffesionals do it, and that's why they call it a controlled demolition. You CAN bring down a building with randomly (or almost randomly) placed charges, but only if you don't really care how it comes down. The biggest flaw in the CT argument is that they claim it was a CONTROLLED demolition. An uncontrolled demolition would have been much easier, would have achieved the same effect as far as the public reaction is concerned, and would more closely resemble the effects of an aircraft hit if you had pilots capable of flying the aircraft accurately enough. Yet the CT clowns maniacly cling to the one phrase which you can discredit just by watching the collapse. Or just by understanding the nightmare in logistics and security arrangements that a controlled demo would require. Wiring up a building for a controlled demo takes a LONG time. Wiring it up to collapse the way the WTC did would take a lot less, and would only require the evacuation of about 5 floors for a few weeks before 9/11.
I almost feel bad for explaining all this because I'm fairly sure some CT nut somewhere will latch on to it and start an entirely new theory.
More than likely yeah. For one thing you also wouldn't have seen the perimiter columns bending inwards. A demolition by explosive would be instantaneous, it wouldn't cause bending.
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