Voodoo Histories

I picked up a copy of David Aaronovitch's Voodoo Histories, and skipped to the 9/11 section. While much of it is pretty good, I am a bit annoyed by the fact that the author references work by myself and other 9/11 debunkers on the Internet, but never actually credits us. In fact much of one section, including the title "The Structural Engineers with a Special Place in Hell" is taken from this blog.

He concludes the chapter with:

Depite the ambivalence, the website for the Scholars gave evidence of something approaching hyperactivity, as its leading members addressed meetings, wrote articles, did interviews, attended symposia, and organized conferences. But who, exactly, were they? What were they scholars of? A researcher following up on the names discovered that, as of late 2006, out of seventy-six named Scholars for Truth there were no Middle Eastern experts and only two engineers, one of whom thought the United States was plotting to bomb the planet Jupiter with antimatter weapons while the other devoted himself [sic] to studying the mechanics of dentistry. Nine (the largest number) were philosophers, five were English experts, five were psychologists, five were physicists, and four were theologians.

So who exactly is this unnamed researcher? Well from a May 25th, 2006 post of mine titled Who are the Scholars for 9/11 Truth? :

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!

Yes, I know in general journalists and researchers (truthers aside) are reluctant to cite blog posts in academic writing, but given that entire sections are based on our work, could you show a little love here?

Voodoo Histories

I just ordered a bunch of books from Amazon, I am going to have to add Voodoo Histories by David Aaronovitch to my order. The author gives a bit of a preview to it in Salon.

What, in your opinion, is the most implausible conspiracy theory to gain wide acceptance?

I think 9/11 is the most baroque. I can’t tell you what it feels like to see videos on YouTube of David Ray Griffin addressing people about it — one of America’s leading theologians expressing with absolute certainty the existence of a conspiracy so ludicrous it takes your breath away.