Hell No I Ain't Reading No White Paper!

Most of this interview that Richard Gage does for Skeptical Inquirer magazine isn't that interesting, and good deal is completely unintelligible, but I found the bit in the middle about whether he had read Ryan Mackey's comprehensive White Paper interesting. From 4:50 into the second video:

Have you read [Ryan Mackey's] white paper?

Gage: No, but others have. And I understand it is full of nonsense and manipulation that has been exposed very well by Jim Hoffman at the website 911research.com. He has answered all of those assertions. Jim Hoffman's response has not been responded to by Ryan Mackey. I don't have the time to look into every critique of ours, particularly when others have responded to that.

Well yeah, he has to fly to England to speak with Holocaust deniers and anti-vaccine nuts. No time for research!

Mackey Vs Szamboti Part III

This mostly just makes the rubble bounce, in Mackey's continuing controlled demolition of truther engineer Tony Szamboti, but educational never the less.

Ryan Mackey Vs. Tony Szamboti Part II

Unfortunately the audio quality was poor, but worth it for entertainment value to hear Szamboti's creative speculation. At one point he argues that the twin towers may have been brought down through hydraulics and cables.

Mackey Vs Szamboti Part I

The first part of the Hardfire debate between NASA engineer Ryan Mackey and truther mechanical engineer Tony Szamboti is up. Another good faceoff between reality and fantasy.

Ryan Mackey to Debate Troofers Szamboti, Chandler

On Hardfire, hosted by Ron Wieck. You know that we'll have the video up as soon as it is available. As I mentioned in that thread, I am confident that we are sending the right man into the arena, armed with the facts. Break a leg, Ryan!

Ryan Mackey on Hardfire: Part III

The third an final part of the Hardfire interview with Ryan Mackey is up. Enjoy.

Ryan Mackey on Hardfire: Part II

The second part of Ryan Mackey's presentation on the physics of 9/11 is up. In this part Ron Wieck gets more into his saga trying to book David Ray Griffin on to the show. I replied to Ron that he should have tried booking someone less demanding, like Barbra Streisand. I still need to do a post on that whole episode. Anyway, enjoy.

Ryan Mackey on Hardfire

NASA engineer, and David Ray Griffin's worst nightmare, Ryan Mackey appears in the first of a series of shows on Hardfire, hosted by Ron Wieck. Ron actually was trying to book Griffin originally, which didn't work out for a variety of reasons, which I may get into in a future post. In the meantime enjoy something a bit more logical.

When Religion and Science Don't Mix

The Journal of 9/11 Studies once again maintains its reputation for academic work expected of a poorly run alternative high school, this time with a paper by retired Religious Studies professor Graeme McQueen regarding the words of firefighters describing the damage to WTC7, as put forth by Ryan Mackey, Mark Roberts and others. The logic employed, is rather fascinating, to say the least.

But let us turn to the third statement I listed in my summary of Mackey’s argument. Is it true that FDNY members rationally concluded from what they perceived that the building was in danger of collapse? Only seven appear to have done so, whereas 50 accepted the collapse prediction from others, typically superiors.

With regard to the fourth point in the argument, is it true that the collapse warnings were mainly the result of a rational conclusion based on observation and training? No. As far as we can tell, no rational conclusion based on direct perception was made in the vast majority of cases.

Basically he is arguing that since not every description of the damage, and the collapse was withing the parameters that he would accept as definitive, that we should ignore all of them, despite the fact that he does not have a single witness to back up a contradicting argument. Amazing.

Waterboy Speaks

Ryan Mackey posted a rather detailed 200 page rebuttal of many of David Ray Griffin's claims several months ago, but received no response from the retired theologian, who apparently is too busy working on revisions to one of his many books on the subject. Kevin Ryan though, fresh off of losing yet another lawsuit against UL, decided to take him on, although with a much briefer 10 page "letter" to the Journal of 9/11 Studies. It is a rather bizarre letter though, that spends nearly as much time attacking him and the JREF forum as addressing any scientific issues.

Introducing himself, Mackey declares his allegiance to the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), an online forum that represents itself as “a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising public awareness of paranormal and pseudoscientific fraud.” James Randi is apparently a magician, and a leading member of the “Skeptics Society”, whose founder I recently debated on the issue of 9/11.[2]

A brief visit to Randi’s forum indicates that the participants are largely anonymous, and somewhat emotional, defenders of the official conspiracy theory. Most of their efforts appear to be focused on smearing those questioning the government’s version of 9/11, or defending that version with imaginative claims that even the government wouldn’t support. With this in mind, it’s not difficult to predict that this new work from the scientific hero of the JREF crowd is not particularly useful or informative.

Bizarrely, he even starts going off on Mackey's use of "we".

One last thing about this paper is worth noting, and that is Mackey’s continual reference to the authorship by using the term “we”. For example, he says -- “we note with amusement” the open letter Kevin Ryan sent to the President of Purdue University. It is not clear whether this use of “we” means that there was actually a group of authors involved, and only one was given credit, or if Mackey now believes himself to be something of a royal figure in the debunking effort. The gratuitous pretension of the piece suggests that the latter option is correct, but who knows.

I think he is starting to lose it.

Ryan Mackey Tackles DRG

(Bumped for Sunday Afternoon reading)

This is turning into a rather tough weekend for the Great God Griffin. First, his scheduled talk in Ireland gets sandbagged by its association with Morgan Stack, and now his deconstruction of the NIST report on the collapses of the Twin Towers gets shredded.

This first section closes without Dr. Griffin having raised a single technical criticism, either of his own or produced by any other. Of his five criticisms, three are attempts to shift the burden of proof, one is a gross mischaracterization of a designer’s opinions, and the last is simple well-poisoning. Since there is no technical criticism offered, the burden of proof remains upon Dr. Griffin to demonstrate that NIST’s conclusions about the aircraft impact damage are in any way suspect.

It's long, but extremely well-organized and tightly argued. Highly recommended!