NationStates Jolt Archive

Holy cow. You two are still at it. Now we know what mods do in their spare time.

You still missed the point about hot steel

The steel DID NOT melt:headbang:
Not from any sort of normal fire, no. This makes for difficulty in explaining the claims of molten steel.

GMC keeps wandering off tangentially into the claim that a jet fuel fire is enough to melt steel. Bugs me, too. It's not. Weaken, yes; melt, no, and the office supplies burn hotter and longer than the jet fuel.

For anyone still keen on the 'freefall' argument, I suggest watching this. Remember NIST estimated only the time for the first pieces of external cladding to hit the ground. See how much of the tower is clearly still standing when they do.

http://www.911myths.com/html/freefall__video_evidence.html
Seen it before. Pure balderdash of interpretation. Nobody's saying the seismic event stops when the leading edge of the collapse impacts.

The start of the video clip is not the start of the collapse... and the scant visibility of the video shows the cladding barely ahead of the collapse. That particular freeze frame, for example, which 911myths.com claims to show "25 stories still standing" shows the cladding still 20-25 stories from impact.

You may, however, continue to kick, scream, and generally dispute the NIST model of collapse... it's just not going to score you any points.

GMC keeps wandering off tangentially into the claim that a jet fuel fire is enough to melt steel.

No, that's you misrepresenting my argument. I said that given that under certain conditions hydrocarbon combustion in an enclosed space can melt steel, it's foolish to say there's no way it could ever get hot enough to simply soften it.

Nice try, though. Also, again, the identity of the molten material at Ground Zero is pure conjecture; nobody ever confirmed it was steel, so it's pointless to hold it up as an example of anything.

The start of the video clip is not the start of the collapse..

No, the loud noise heard almost instantly after the clip starts is the sound of the collapse beginning. Why do you think everyone suddenly looks back at the towers following it?

That particular freeze frame, for example, which 911myths.com claims to show "25 stories still standing" shows the cladding still 20-25 stories from impact.

Now you're just ignoring visual evidence. That and the frames around it show that cladding has bounced off the roof of the building next to the tower base and hit the ground by that point. Here's a still showing a piece of debris that's fallen at least fifteen [i]visible stories [looking to be about 20 total] lower than the visible remains of the tower even if we ignore perspective which would make the frgament lower still, and this isn't even the lowest fragment at the time!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/GMCMA/Other%20stuff/Yes_it_is.jpg

You may, however, continue to kick, scream, and generally dispute the NIST model of collapse...

NIST never modelled the collapse after the condition where global collapse was inevitable, so I'm not disputing anything. Why do you think they only give a vague estimate of collapse initiation to first ground impact of structural debris?

You know, it really hurts your claims of reading the NIST reports when you don't even know what they actually studied.

Why? Since when would buildings reasonably be expected to suffer such a chain of events to begin with?
...
I take it I have to explain everything. The NIST collapse model has implications not just for plane impacts. Plane impacts do happen once in a while, of course – accidentally or intentionally.

More crucial is how the model applies to the general case of fires in skyscrapers and insulation damage. They're very rare – and potentially very devastating.
Oh? What do you base that claim on? Certain criticisms of pancaking as a hypothesis would be valid but others would not be, so which ones were being defended against?
Since every single criticism was “defended against,” obviously every valid criticism was “defended against.”
Correct. That was the aspect of the pancake model that was incorrect. The reason it was held in good regard anyway was it explained the rest of the collapse well, and in a case where no theory perfectly explains the facts, the best theory is the one that explains most of the facts.
It didn't match the data and they couldn't manage to figure out how on earth the fire could manage to heat the trusses to the critical temperature of 800 C to cause truss failure. (Sound familiar? 800C is pretty much the critical temperature for the core failure as well.) Even then, they took a very long time to discard it.
The thing is, fire was actually proposed as an alternative model within 48 hours of the collapse. It was considered as an alternative because it doesn't propose an unknown like demolition does.
You mean to say that the first official account was that the impact shock itself alone caused the collapse? That's been pretty thoroughly discredited by now. Nobody really had a good idea of what happened for a little while.
Yes, evident from you, TJ. Dosuun, in post #100, described the model of collapse including failure due to fire. You described it incorrectly as the original model of pancake collapse only in post #104. I quote:
As you see, he describes a single floor falling on the one below it. That was the original pancake model. The “new and improved” model still involves things falling and lower floors being unable to stop the collapse, but does not invoke a single floor series collapse.
You have continued to build this argument by citing the NIST FAQ later on post #204 by forgetting something mildly important:
You forgot that the person who called it pancaking first was you! You made this error yourself by lumping the fire and collapse together as one term and then forgetting that the original poster and the rebuttals to your point were all taking 'pancaking' in your posts to refer to what you were originally addressing: 'collapse due to fire which proceeds due to pancaking.'

You were also wrong back there, since the NIST was not saying the building didn't pancake, only that it wasn't the cause of the collapse.
... You're still trying to twist my words into something else.
If your want to dispute my claim, I recommend you quote relevant portions and make arguments
I already have. Repeatedly. You've decided to try and “interpret” them away.
Greening doesn't suggest that.
Bullshit, GMC. You don't know jack about Greening; you've just been skimming the debunking911.com website to try and get ideas to counter each argument offered.

He does. I have his paper right here, and I've given you this exact quote before. In the conclusion of his report on the WTC collapse, he states – baldly and clearly:
However, it is suggested that the total collapse of both towers would have occurred even
without the jet fuel fires.
The passive voice is the academic style. This is not a footnote, this is not a quote, this is not a reference to someone else's work. This is F R Greening himself making the suggestion. Since you so desire, here's the whole conclusion that line comes from:
From a consideration of the strength of the WTC columns, and the effective area of
support they provided, it is demonstrated that the conditions necessary for the initial floor
collapse were initiated by the aircraft impacts and made irrevocable by the subsequent
eccentric loading of the core columns. The fires that were initiated by the jet fuel spilled
within the towers certainly weakened steel in localized areas in the impact zones.
However, it is suggested that the total collapse of both towers would have occurred even
without the jet fuel fires.
He spends about two pages in his paper discussing why he thinks this to be the case. These two pages were designed to attack any criticism offered on the basis of the WTC towers being designed to be jetliner-resistant. This is in unusual and striking disagreement with Bazant and Zhou as well as the NIST and FEMA reports. The NIST report, in fact, indicates that the fire plus the impact were clearly insufficient to achieve collapse without the insulation being knocked off. They were unable to achieve a collapse model with anything short of that, and I've already mentioned just how much tinkering the model has gone through.
That's nice. Can you prove any of said reasons are valid ones? Can you prove that your inability to imagine a situation where the NIST is not acting in self-interest demonstrates no such situation exists?
Do you want me to prove that if the NIST's interests lie in sitting on their own data, they will do so? Or would you like me to prove that if the NIST sits on its data, it must be in its own interest?

Let's talk about the latter, never minding that asking me to prove motivation is ridiculous. I can suggest reasonably based on evidence – and that is all, since I cannot serve as a telepathic conduit between you and the NIST.

If the NIST sits on its data, it must have a reason for doing so. We shall therefore assume the NIST's motivation is for the good of something, as any other assumption leads to a form of self interest.

If this motivation is for the greater good, it would be reflected in benefit to society. Sitting on data does not protect society unless there is a shocking secret that would cause public unrest, and sitting on data does not further scientific investigation. No motivation for the good of others does not reflect a cause not publicized in the official model.

Therefore, the NIST's motivation is in its own good, i.e., self-interest.
Oh hell, are we really on to attacking people's emotional state based on their choices of words now? That's pretty far to go to find a personal attack.
“Oh hell,” it's angry at me. Your choice of words indicates – as much as anything can indicate over the internet – mood, i.e., emotional state.
But then why would they hang on to data if it's impossible for said data to actually make them look bad short of a great social shift?
That's the sort of suspicion that feeds conspiracy theories...

... the simple fact is that other scientists don't have to show that there was a demolition or anything like that to make the NIST look bad. You're still thinking in the grain of creating or fighting conspiracy theories. What can make the NIST look bad is if someone else finds out they did shoddy work or made mistakes in the details of their model – even a trivial mistake can be embarassing.
No, it doesn't. I imagine he's done plenty of things in his life up until now, and any one of them could potentially be the reason for his resignation. Maybe it was something entirely separate from anything he ever wrote, for that matter.
Do you really believe that his resignation had nothing to do with the enormous public flap that coincidentally sprung up right at that time?
It is. You said he wouldn't tell the truth about why he resigned. You hoisted yourself by your own petard because you called him a liar and made an attack that questioned his integrity in the process of defending him.
I did not. Saying what he did is clearly not a lie – it is, however, probably not all the information on the matter. I point again at the difficulty of conducting continuing work on the WTC collapse while fighting to keep his career and position intact.
You can't assume motivations as proof of a hypothesis without evidence of those motivations. What you think the reason is for a lack of X is irrelevant if you can't show it.
And the motivations aren't “proof” of anything; when I suggest a motivation, I'm suggesting a cause for the observed actions. Then I'm looking at other actions that fit with that. If you really want to get technical, nothing proves that I exist to you – this could be part of an elaborate machine deception. It is, however, strongly suggested, just as the motivations are strongly suggested.

Jones' resignation suggests – very publicly - that it would be difficult to remain a productive member in good standing of the faculty of a major university while trying to question scientifically the official account of the WTC collapse.

Now, I can explain this by saying that Jones was asked to resign and that this essentially amounts to a polite firing... but the simple fact is that you don't have to buy my explanation of What Really Happened (TM) between Jones and, say, some BYU administrator to accept this as support for an environment in which publication on the matter is discouraged.
And no valid legal requirements to sit on it for whatever reasons? Remember, the law won't always let you do what science would dictate you should do.
To sit on videos and structural data? Legally required to not release them to scientists not in their employ? The only such requirements I'm aware of that could lead to sitting on data are confidentiality and classification, and it's difficult to see how any of those apply to any – let alone practically all - the material evidence, or especially the inner workings of the collapse models, which critics have also demanded.

Unless, of course, there's Something to Hide (TM), but of course, we don't have any conspiracy in the NIST, right?
More attacks on motives that you have no way of demonstrating the validity of.
No? That's funny, I already showed how the NIST's estimates “drift” towards increasing impact damage for the stated motivation (stated within the NIST's reports, in fact) of fitting the existing data of the collapse happening as it did. I've also mentioned how the temperatures talked about have – if anything – increased in the models even as the data for temperature exposure has been revised downward.

Those are both clear signs of what I'm talking about with regard to the NIST's approach being kludging the model until it fits.
Try to follow basic logic here: you can't test a mechanism directly if you can't define any properties of it.
That's quite irrelevant to the question of testing for alternate causes in general. You define properties by conjecture in order to test an alternate cause.
Yes. Creating a model that fit the collapse was the entire goal of the investigation, after all.
No. No. No.

That's part of the goal – but not the whole thing.

This is the key point I've been trying to drive home to you: There's a world of difference between creating a model to fit the collapse and explaining the hows and whys of the collapse. One is what the NIST was supposed to do; the other is what the NIST has done. As you've mentioned, it would also be possible to create a model of the collapse using explosive. I've mentioned that there were previous models that were fitted to the collapse (truss failure).

The argument for causality is only as strong as the intersection of the data and the model.
False. They looked for evidence of the causes of the collapse. They did not find anything inconsistent with the idea that the towers collapsed because of fire leading to pancake collapse. That means where they looked, there cannot have been evidence that could not be explained by this hypothesis, or they could not have maintained it.

Again, they clearly were looking for evidence of the cause of collapse rather than only evidence to support their hypothesis, otherwise they would never have discarded the original model where pancake collapse alone destroyed the towers, because they would have discounted all evidence against it.
Not what I'm talking about at all... and you know it.
But we're talking an investigation with limited time and money, which isn't going to just drop everything to go off on wild goose chases, so you'd need much more than that. You'd need to generate a hypothesis that said what explosives you expected to find, why you would expect to find them there, what layout, what quantities, and how big you expected the explosions to be. If there's no rational way you can determine for explosives to be involved in the collapse, even if you found some for some reason you'd still have to prove they were part of the demolition you proposed.
Do you know how much additional time and effort it takes to – say – test for explosive residues or the effects of explosives on the samples that you're already examining carefully several times over?

Do you know how this compares with the time already spent on the project? In terms of how much it would strengthen the scientific side of the argument offered by the NIST as to the cause of the collapse, those tests would be well worthwhile.
The other problem is since the collapse is consistent with incendiary rather than explosive effects [as Jones realised, hence his penchant for thermite], you'd actually be looking for those. In other words, some sort of source of a damn great hot fire. And look, there's a burning airliner wedged in the side of the building between fireproofed, insulated floors, how about that?
When you talk about thermite vaporizing iron, you're not really talking about “incendiary”
Right, so you've accused them of manipulating the model to fit the known facts the entire time, and now you're asking if it does? You're supposed to be criticising their methodology in making the model fit the facts, not if it does.
And the fact that the model has problems fitting all the facts supports that contention nicely, doesn't it?

One of the symptoms of a problematic model is that there are little bits of interesting data lying around outside the model that aren't explained by it. Great scientific discoveries go “huh, that's funny.”
It's a shame the fire occurred in a confined space and not the open air, really. Did you forget that whole part where it was indoors?
Did you forget the part where “open air” means “the fire is getting more oxygen than when closed up in a building”? The exchange of heat with the environment is hampered less than the exchange of oxygen with the environment, and that means you get lower temperatures. You need to carefully mix fuel with oxygen to get ideal jet fuel burning temperatures, which almost reach the peak temperatures found in a house fire.

Slosh it around in liquid form around something the size of the WTC tower, and jet fuel burns at around 300 C, less if it gets oxygen starved. For the purpose of talking about the jet fuel – which doesn't last long - this is an open air burn with a restricted oxygen flow. It's hot enough to get the fire started – if I throw a big pile of office furniture together with wood and paper, and get it burning, that can burn at 800 C.

... GMC, how about you stop trying to nitpick criticism of the official model and concentrate on the issues of methodology and motivation? You're doing even worse with chemistry and physics than philosophy of science, and that's really saying something.
Ad hominem, accusing the author of that page of lying. Your experience is anecdotal evidence, and I spoke to a man the other day who said you're wrong.
And this helps your argument how? I'm not buying it at all.
So? What difference does that make to the fact that people have received not just vague attacks, but threats of actual physical harm? How does that change the creators of, say, Loose Change calling those who believe the official account 'scum?'
It doesn't make a difference to them. However, it makes a big difference in what I was talking about.
Unfortunately, it would, because they would kill anyone who moved close enough to spot them.
Nope. Seriously, people have seen molten metal before. Radiant heating is not that significant.
And it couldn't be a few puddles, because cooling is proportional to volume, so only a truly massive pool would still be glowing in the open air unless the excavator had only just uncovered it.
Cooling is slow.
It's impossible. And nobody ever said this material, whatever it was, was glowing except CTs themselves.
... and the witnesses they cite. And, of course, the famous picture of glowing, but not particularly molten, debris they have up on every website. And even the NIST acknowledges the reports of molten metal on the site. And even debunking911.com, the source of your playbook, tries to provide a neat and handy explanation for molten steel amidst the rubble.

And, of course, some of the claims are unambiguous through context that they are referring to steel, not aluminum, e.g., “In the first few weeks, sometimes when a worker would pull a steel beam from the wreckage, the end of the beam would be dripping molten steel.”

So when you say that it's impossible for there to be molten steel on site, or for the molten steel to be observed, I recommend you back that up.
Frequent CT attack is to attack pancake collapse, then when pointed out it was discarded, attack the NIST for discarding it by claiming they're just looking for something that works.
So now I'm a conspiracy theorist? Or did you have something else in mind? Let's face it: Discarding the model was the right thing to do. However, hanging on to the incorrect model for a while is what opens them to criticism.
Oh, I'm sorry. When you propose vested interest with no evidence at all it's ok, but when I do it it's terrible and wrong?
I didn't say it was terrible or wrong. I was waiting for you to make a point that meant anything.
No, not that clearly. He just isn't loony enough for the Scholars. I guess outside they now have a cardboard prop of Caligula with 'You must be at least this crazy to enter' to avoid repeats of that.
Actually, it works a little differently. For example... all of the Scholars aren't necessarily loony. It's just no longer acceptable for the non-loony ones to point out any loons, which is going to eventually drive away all non-loony members.
Then why not publish it there first? It's still not that good, since a structural engineering paper really doesn't go in research science journal rather than a structural engineering journal, but it's a damn sight better than an economic journal.
Saying that something doesn't belong in Nature is like saying it doesn't belong in scientific research. Nature is the big time... and it also has one of the broadest scopes of any journal. If a truly groundbreaking article of great public interest on structural engineering came out and it was published in Nature, nobody would find anything wrong with that.

And before you lay out a wild-ass claim that I'm not familiar with Nature, it started coming to my mailbox in... oh... 1995 or 1996.
Also, they can suggest it all they like, but is it actually true?
That is an interesting question. I've been trying to get to the bottom of that rumor for a while. The claim I've seen in a few news articles that it was accepted for “next year” is particularly interesting when you consider that the peer review process often takes a year or two to get through peer review – and as soon as you're run the gauntlet, you get published promptly. I suspect there was a misunderstanding somewhere in the news interview process – to put it mildly – but I haven't yet managed to find the sort of evidence that could let me rule out Jones' initial claim that the paper was going to be published in a scientific journal.
Oh? Adding a term you know nothing about and can't show any proof of [like, say, a nebulous 'explosives' term] is valid?
If you have data suggesting the term, or a failure of existing causes to show sufficiency, adding a term you have currently limited knowledge on and investigating it is a good idea.
Do the research papers, NIST or FEMA use such terms?
Of course they don't. That's one of the big difference between researchers and knee-jerk responders – Jones' paper, for example, does not contain any of the following terms:

Hoax, conspiracy, bomb, chump, deceive, deception, lie, evil.

Academics and officials do not engage in these sorts of open attacks in their professional or official capacity. Even Greening's actual paper, which I judge to be more vitriolic than Jones', only mentions “conspiracy-minded individuals” one time rather than ranting about conspiracy theorists.
Again, if the 'truth' movement judges itself to be a serious research enterprise as opposed to just countering those guy over there <points>, then they need do at least pretend they're willing to consider the main hypothesis could be truthful.
And if you want to have a serious dialogue with them, you're going to at least pretend to be willing to examine their cases on their own merits. I honestly expect any researchers involved in researching alternate theories (e.g., Jones) to be willing to consider a reworked model of collapse that doesn't involve any bombs... provided it addresses their concerns in an open manner, which the NIST (regrettably) does not.
Which means it isn't in a position to rule out alternatives out of hand because it has to examine the data first to see if it's remarkable. Ruling something out out of hand would mean that regardless of how remarkable the data was, it would be dismissed. No theory is capable of that, not even the foundation ones like the laws of thermodynamics. Sure, if you came up with something that violated conservation of energy science's first reflex would be to find out why it's wrong [assuming it can be replicated], but if it defies all such attempts, questions would have to start being asked.
Well, perhaps “out of hand” was a bad word choice, as you seem to take that in a more absolute sense than I do and want to add remarkable new data into the mix – which I wasn't really talking about. Let's put it this way:

If I published a paper in which I demonstrated that conservation of momentum did not hold, it would not be taken seriously by the scientific community at large until my results were independently duplicated – i.e., dismissed out of hand by most. After duplication, all sorts of alternate models would be tested to try and get conservation of momentum to still hold for that experiment. Conservation of momentum is strongly supported enough that others have a warrant to assume it still holds until a very solid case has been built saying otherwise.

The explanation for the WTC collapse, with more scientific investigation, could be strong enough to warrant casually dismissing alternative mechanisms in ordinary discussion... but because there's a paucity of independent research on the matter and methodological flaws in the main existing study, it doesn't have that sort of strength.
But the important thing to remember is while the Newtonian model isn't as good an explanation, it remains as good as it always was, and is quite capable of generating accurate predictions of the behaviour of macroscopic objects. In many cases, it's actually better because the extra precision of the Einsteinian model isn't useful to the situation and wastes time with pointless calculations.
It's a useful approximation ... but it's not a correct theory of physical motion. We used to think it was, but the little bits of data that didn't fit have led us to discard it.
No, he just has to worry about people issuing threats to him and trying to drag his name through the mud over half the internet.
I'm going to bet that I'm the first person you've seen “drag Greening's name through the mud.” Even then, I've been criticizing his work and questioning his motives – not calling him names.

I'm also going to bet that he hasn't received one threat from someone simply reading his paper and deciding to threaten him. (If he's running debunking911.com, I wouldn't be surprised if he's gotten a couple threats through that for that, but I'd be surprised if he's gotten many at all.)

I'm also going to bet Bazant and Zhou aren't having a big problem with threats. I googled [Bazant Zhou “death threat”] and got two hits, neither of which is talking about anybody threatening Bazant and Zhou. A couple people have asked Bazant to look at Jones' paper, and he's refused, and that's probably about the limits of the pestering he gets – Zhou probably gets less.

On the flip side, Bill O'Reilly has apparently publicly called for the murder of Kevin Barrett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Barrett) of Scholars. No... while the fact of the matter is that none of the angry people on the internet are helping the matter get studied, the pressure is very unevenly weighted.
As per your argument, why should anyone who's sure of the primary model's worth want to expose themselves to hate and harassment by writing a paper that just echoes what it says? They can just right a nice paper on the collapse of some building nobody gives a shit about and relax in their own knowledge that they can make the WTC collapse numbers work.
This is also sad. It's nowhere as bad as you're trying to paint it – or as bad as what an academic uncertain of the official model feels they will face – but it doesn't hurt my conclusion in the least.

If anything, it makes for a stronger argument that we will continue to see a dearth of scientific research until the climate changes.

I'm going with that the government planned 9/11. That is really an annoying one.

I said that given that under certain conditions hydrocarbon combustion in an enclosed space can melt steel.
"Certain conditions" meaning "carefully mixed with oxygen" and "the right kind of hydrogen-carbon compound."

Which is so much bullshit when talking about jet fuel (can't reach the temperature to melt steel when burned even carefully with oxygen) burning in a building (can't reach half the temperature needed to melt steel).

Which conspiracy theroys make your blood boil? Which ones make you wonder who could possibly believe in them? Tell us why,

That the government either allowed or perpetrated the 9/11 attacks. That has been debunked so many times it is pathetic these days.

Now you're just ignoring visual evidence. That and the frames around it show that cladding has bounced off the roof of the building next to the tower base and hit the ground by that point. Here's a still showing a piece of debris that's fallen at least fifteen visible stories [looking to be about 20 total] lower than the visible remains of the tower even if we ignore perspective which would make the frgament lower still, and this isn't even the lowest fragment at the time!
That's not even the same freeze frame as used on the website.

Which probably started off ahead, and still isn't very far ahead in terrms of time, which is what everybody's talking about. Do you know how much time that last 15 stories of a perfect free-fall takes? About half a second.
NIST never modelled the collapse after the condition where global collapse was inevitable, so I'm not disputing anything. Why do you think they only give a vague estimate of collapse initiation to first ground impact of structural debris?

You know, it really hurts your claims of reading the NIST reports when you don't even know what they actually studied.
The NIST did not model the collapse in their examination of the cause. That's not to say that they didn't examine the time to collapse - which they have repeatedly stated to be at free fall speeds, which you have repeatedly attempted to dispute.

Let's face it: You've got nothing on that angle. The time for the WTC to collapse in a manner somehow involving explosives is not distinguishable from the time it did take to collapse.

WTF is a theroy?

Which is so much bullshit when talking about jet fuel

Plastics are hydrocarbons too, TJ. Didn't you just ten seconds ago attack my knowledge of chemistry? The main fuel sources were all hydrocarbons. You are also again wrong about the temperatures; NIST estimated only 600 C to weaken the truss steel, with higher temperatures only needed at the core. But since you're far too busy insulting me and making appeals to motive, I really doubt you care.

You are absolutely typical of the reason 9/11 conspiracy theories annoy people. It's not enough for you to be right or wrong, you must also be smarter, better read, and attack everyone who disagrees with you for their supposed motives. You make constant and utterly hypocritical attacks, on the one hand saying people shouldn't mindlessly support the official model, but then on the other attacking anyone who does not mindlessly support the official model claiming that's what they should be doing. You treat your own interpretations of data as the data itself, and propose methods of investigation that wouldn't pass any standard at all [such as investigating the mechanics of an explosive collapse model without any data regarding explosions].

You throw personal attacks at Greening and regard any use of any argument from his website as mindless parroting on my part whether I understand it or not. You claim he supports the NIST without question despite that he has actually gone so far as to write a paper describing the NIST computer models as flawed and inaccurate [oh, you thought only Jones did that? Sorry] and pointing to contradictions within their final report. You have failed to address any specific criticism of the gaping holes that typify all CD hypothesis, which make them impossible to adequately investigate. You clearly believe that anyone supporting the official account must support it absolutely or not at all.

Cut back the personal attacks and attacks on motives, which are at present the majority of your posts. Debate the evidence and the validity of alternate theories, or don't bother replying.

I suggest we ignore all of those who believe that the government perpetrated 9/11 because these people have zero intelligence whatsoever.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.


Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.


Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.


Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness.


Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.


Gen 1:6 ¶ And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.


Gen 1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so.


Gen 1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day

...
:D
That HAS to be the most annoying conspiracy theory ever: 'Dere was dis big guy hu made TEH EVRYTHING and he pwnz joo!' This one gets first place in the annoying charts due to how many people believe it and how huge its implications are.

Still, it's no more believable than many others. I even give the faked moon landing, Diana and JFK theories more credit than this one. I need to change the subject to avoid yet another creationism debate, so second place goes to those who believe the holocaust never happened, that just makes me so mad... And third to the 9/11 conspiracy. The government may have known about it but they didn't actually organise it.

At least some theories are mildly amusing, like Bush is an alien crocodile or whatever.

"Certain conditions" meaning "carefully mixed with oxygen" and "the right kind of hydrogen-carbon compound."

Which is so much bullshit when talking about jet fuel (can't reach the temperature to melt steel when burned even carefully with oxygen) burning in a building (can't reach half the temperature needed to melt steel).

The steel didn't need to melt though; the jet fuel would have been about 825 degrees and although steel needs 1525 degrees to melt, it loses half its strength at 648 degrees, causing the building to collapse.

Also, if the government had no problem with killing all these people, why would the guys who revealed the 'conspiracy' still be alive, why would the government not have deleted all traces of their website?

http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm

Plastics are hydrocarbons too, TJ. Didn't you just ten seconds ago attack my knowledge of chemistry? The main fuel sources were all hydrocarbons. You are also again wrong about the temperatures; NIST estimated only 600 C to weaken the truss steel, with higher temperatures only needed at the core. But since you're far too busy insulting me and making appeals to motive, I really doubt you care.
The NIST doesn't hinge anything on truss failure - the idea that truss failure was critical went out the window when it became clear that the trusses weren't heated to 800 C. The far higher temperatures at the core are exactly what's important.
You are absolutely typical of the reason 9/11 conspiracy theories annoy people. It's not enough for you to be right or wrong, you must also be smarter, better read, and attack everyone who disagrees with you for their supposed motives.
As a matter of fact, I'm quite disappointed to find that I seem to be this much smarter or better read than you on the topic.
You make constant and utterly hypocritical attacks, on the one hand saying people shouldn't mindlessly support the official model, but then on the other attacking anyone who does not mindlessly support the official model claiming that's what they should be doing.
You just called me a hypocrite for criticizing the hypocritical nature of people who say they support the official account while contradicting it. And that takes the cake.
You treat your own interpretations of data as the data itself, and propose methods of investigation that wouldn't pass any standard at all [such as investigating the mechanics of an explosive collapse model without any data regarding explosions].
Now you're barking about with no basis whatsoever.
You throw personal attacks at Greening despite that he has actually gone so far as to write a paper describing the NIST computer models as flawed and inaccurate [oh, you thought only Jones did that? Sorry] and have failed to address any specific criticism of the gaping holes that typify all CD hypothesis, which make them impossible to adequately investigate. You clearly believe that anyone supporting the official account must support it absolutely or not at all.
And when exactly have I personally and directly attacked Greening? I have attacked some of his claims. I have attacked the hypocrisy of maintaining that the NIST account is correct while undercutting it. I have also spent page after page talking about how Greening and Jones are quite similar - except in terms of how much flak they've gotten thrown at them, of course.
Cut back the personal attacks and attacks on motives, which are at present the majority of your posts. Debate the evidence and the validity of alternate theories, or don't bother replying.
See to the log in thine own eye before complaining in the mote in thy neighbor's. If you can't, perhaps you should leave well enough alone.

The steel didn't need to melt though; the jet fuel would have been about 825 degrees and although steel needs 1525 degrees to melt, it loses half its strength at 648 degrees, causing the building to collapse.
No, the steel doesn't need to melt in the collapse...

... I haven't said it does.

Let's make sure this is perfectly clear.
The core steel supports need to be heated to around 800 C to no longer provide enough support. Molten steel is not required for collapse.
This heating is done by burning office supplies. Jet fuel is a red herring past starting the fires.
The reason why molten steel keeps coming up isn't because of beams melting causing the collapse; it's because of reports of molten steel in the wreckage, which the NIST report does not address.
We were talking about it yet again because GMC mistakenly claimed that jet fuel can melt steel. Or so I thought. Now he's saying that he said that hydrocarbon fires are enough with the really general kind, e.g., oxyacetylene torches.

Also, if the government had no problem with killing all these people, why would the guys who revealed the 'conspiracy' still be alive, why would the government not have deleted all traces of their website?
Why on Earth...

... are you serious? Haero, why would conspirators try to silence a gaggle of conspiracy theorists that aren't being taken very seriously?

Ok, let's run through this one more time, this time without the personal attacks. Things have got a little heated, so take a step back, take a breath, and get back to arguments rather than the other guy.

The problem with controlled demolition theories is their total lack of adequate evidence to be investigated in a mechanical sense. Since no CD theory can predict the location and magnitude of the explosions without appealing to knowledge it does not predict [such as the exact floor] it's impossible to define a test that would falsify these claims.

For example, Jones claims RDX, HMX and thermite as the explosives and incendiary responsible respectively. Since it isn't possible to test for thermite generally as the materials in thermite are present in the building [aluminium and iron] you're left with looking for thermite damage of which there is no evidence. That leaves explosives. Now, this may seem odd to say, but the presence of explosives itself is not proof of controlled demolition either. Why? Because the recordings from the hijacked planes indicated the terrorists on board claimed to have bombs on the planes. So, even if you find explosives you'd still have to prove their origin. And what if you found the wrong explosives? What if rather than RDX you found Dynamite, or something you'd never see a CD outfit using like Torpex or Cordite?

Look at the NIST report's section on fire (http://wtc.nist.gov/oct05NCSTAR1-5index.htm) for a minute: notice how they require accurate data on all elements of the fire, to the point of testing workstations and getting data from aircraft manufacturers about masses of combustibles. This kind of standard of proof makes testing explosives impossible, as none have been identified; they'd require type, charge weight, location and shape of charges to even start analysing a possible controlled demolition scenario, and there's no evidence of explosive failure of anything to allow the hypothesis.

Remember, the scientific method runs observation-hypothesis-test-analysis-conclusion. There's no observation yet for explosives. Jones argues we should maintain what is essentially an agnostic position, but there is clear evidence of fire, impact damage and collapse, which is what the NIST worked on. While their models of the exact early collapse have been criticised rightly for flaws in language and contradictions this doesn't mean their statements on the mechanical failures due to heating or their fire and impact models are equally flawed; they have essentially demonstrated a plausible scenario where no additional factors are required to produce a collapse condition. This means it's valid to say Jones' hypothesis is falsified until such time as adequate data exists to come up with an accurate model of his controlled demolition rig, assuming this ever occurs. After all, if there were no explosives, there will never be any such data.

Also, remember the NIST was working with computer simulations designed to test the impact, fire, and structural failure. You [i]can't just stuff explosives into one of these without adding an entire other project, because they have no software designed to simulate explosions in the WTC. This means any evidence found would have to be compelling enough to justify the expense and time of another project.

Have you ever seen a modern 3-D animated movie, TJ? You'll notice that while they can simulate dynamic hair and fur, water, grass and sometimes even fire, explosions tend to be post-process practical effects added in later. Why? Because they're really difficult to accurately simulate, and to do so requires very, very exact data.

'Looking for explosives' without any evidence of them would be a time-consuming and pointless task; given the crazies in Scholars, they'd not be satisfied until you'd tested for everything from flour-based fuel-air bombs to antimatter and corbomite. Doing so would be pointless anyway, since even finding them somewhere wouldn't help the CD hypothesis much, since there are other ways for them to get there. If you wanted to be facetious, you could even suggest that evil villains had them there and were busy setting up a controlled demolition to be carried out with fake airliners that were actually military planes when two real airliners hit the towers. In other words, even the demonstrated existence of a complete or near-complete demolition rig isn't proof said rig was ever triggered.

As for why a government department would be nervous about releasing information, there's every likelihood they do plan to release it at some stage; apparently, a lot of the data they used is available for a small fee, and the idea of them doing so to protect themselves is essentially just the generation of a multiple out (http://www.csicop.org/si/9012/critical-thinking.html) excuse; in other words, no matter how much data is now released by them, it can be claimed to be modified or incomplete because they would never release the full and complete evidence after holding on to it. This is unhelpful, and it's better to simply assume they have a valid reason, since attacks on their motives are unlikely to encourage them to release the data any faster.

Maintaining that there's a climate of repression of alternate theories based on people shouting them down on the internet isn't valid; one need only look at this scientifically valid theory (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19) to realise why taking the internet as a valid sample of reality isn't a good idea. Jones' dismissal [along with, say, that of Kevin Ryan, which you thankfully haven't bought up] doesn't prove anything in isolation; there are many reasons a professor might be dismissed from his post that have nothing to do with his writings, so that's essentially guesswork. One could also note his very dubious citations of David Ray Griffin as authority for his claims and citing as a source of photos a book by Holocaust denier Eric Hufschmid, and that his paper attacks Greening in a somewhat less than professional manner. He claims to cite thirteen reasons to reject the official account [i]in favour of the controlled demolition account, a fallacy of bifurcation since most of his reasons do not naturally lead to controlled demolition as an alternate conclusion. To briefly run through his thirteen points:

1. Molten metal. His photographs show red-hot debris trailing fire [which he claims is molten metal, but there's a glowing fully intact rebar visible right next to it] as it is removed by an excavator; this excavator would not function if it was lifting molten steel. All reports of molten metal are unqualified as to what the metal was, or at most are guesswork. His claim that molten thermite would survive for six weeks is impossible, and molten iron from a thermite reaction would still not be molten steel. The photograph he claims is a lump of once-molten metal is actually a set of pancaked floors and appears to be mostly concrete. The sample in question contains intact rebars, carpet, and even paper fragments; why would thin rebars have remained whole next to this huge mass if it really was molten steel?

The experiments cited don't even attempt to accurately replicate the conditions of what they're supposed to simulate; in particular, the experiments with pouring molten aluminium don't make any attempt to accurately replicate the path of the trail from the airliner to the outer wall and what it would encounter, or that there would be massive fires surrounding it.

2. 1,000C temperatures in WTC 7 and 'sulfidation of steel.' Sulphur was already present in the building in drywall, so Jones' puzzlement at its origin is bizarre to say the least; the claim is also based on just one column. High temperatures are taken to imply thermite [or rather thermate], which is one hell of a leap in logic. It's much like Marx's claims in The Communist Manifesto; attack something, then claim that nationalisation will fix it without any sort of proof.

Actual study (http://www.wpi.edu/News/Transformations/2002Spring/steel.html) has shown the mysterious source of sulphur could be as simple as acid rain. They posited 1,000 degrees fahrenheit, not Celsius.

3. Near-symmetrical fall of WTC 7. WTC 7 fell over backwards onto its damaged south side, as can be seen by any shot of the later wreckage that showed the north face lying on top of the rubble pile. Jones nails his colours to the mast by using the utterly discredited 'pulling' argument. Pulling may be a demolition term, but it's used to describe attaching hawser cables to a large vehicle and literally pulling the building away from another. This would be more than a little obvious had it happened.

4. No previous complete skyscraper collapse due to fires. Appeal to ignorance. Ignores that several fires have resulted in partial collapses, for example, the Windsor Tower (http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/project/research/structures/strucfire/CaseStudy/HistoricFires/BuildingFires/default.htm) suffered perimeter floor collapses all the way down to the massive floor 17 support structure. Had it lacked this structure as the WTC towers did, it may have collapsed entirely.

5. Squibs. How many times do these have to be debunked before people stop talking about them?

6. Early collapse of the North Tower Antenna. Of course, he can't say why a controlled demolition would want to make the North Tower's antenna fall first, so he's reduced to 'that's weird, it must be due to cutter charges.'

7. Eyewitness testimony of explosions. Explosions are not proof of the existence of bombs; explosions were, for example, reported by the survivors of the sinking of the Titanic, as said earlier. Quotes Edward Cachia, who is explaining how the building collapsed by saying it was 'like' an internal explosion, which doesn't mean it was one. Uses the accent fallacy on Stephen Gregory's statements about explosions. Jones discounts electrical explosions as the cause of the sounds by claiming:

'"Electrical explosions" would clearly be insufficient to bring a steel-frame skyscraper down, in any building built to code.'

This is farcical reasoning; he dismisses alternative causes of the sounds because they would not cause the building to collapse, thus making the explicit assumption that the sounds were cause, rather than effect, of the collapse. He goes on to claim that people thinking they heard explosions means:

'This serious matter needs to be treated as a plausible scientific hypothesis and thoroughly investigated.'

On the basis of a few quotes. With that standard of proof, Elvis not being dead is also a plausible scientific hypothesis.

8. Ejection of debris. Cites David Ray Griffin regarding 'squibs,' again. Really only states that his hypothesis 'should be seriously considered' in spite of being pure conjecture. Is basically just interpretation with a dubious source as backup.

9. Collapse speed. Again cites David Ray Griffin for its estimate of collapse time; the NIST collapse time is an estimate made in such a way as to establish a lower limit for the collapse times, by stopping the clock when the first piece of structural debris hits the ground regardless of how much of the tower is still standing. Times above 12 seconds for total collapse are frequently suggested. Jones suggests that the problem:

'Is easily resolved by the explosive demolition hypothesis, whereby explosives quickly remove lower-floor material including steel support columns and allow near free-fall-speed collapses.'

This is nonsense; the half-dozen or so 'squibs' CTs have found would not be nearly enough to remove any large portion of the lower floor support structure. Such a demolition would be obvious by large explosions blowing out all the windows on the lower floors, not tiny single-direction 'squibs.' Such a demolition is the full-scale one you have railed against, TJ, requiring tons upon tons of explosives. If you do not have this, Jones' point about the tower collapse speed actually undermines you, as the towers should have collapsed at much less than freefall speed.

He also says:

'The Towers’ collapses are not typical random collapses, but quite possibly a series of “shock-and-awe” explosions coupled with the use of thermate-incendiaries – at least the evidence points strongly in this direction.'

This is a strawman; nobody is claiming that the tower collapses were typical random collapses, as those usually don't involve airliners and 110-storey buildings.

10. Implosions require skill. But he isn't describing an implosion at all. He uses a hasty generalisation on a quote about controlled demolition to claim that if it's easy to make some buildings fall over sideways, it must be easy to make all buildings fall over sideways. Jones makes a very specific allegation that an investigation 'should question' the president of Controlled Demolition Inc, based on a really strange argument that there were 'explosives in the basement' of the towers.

He makes a comparison to the Landmark Tower demolition, and, hilariously, scales the explosive load by just multiplying by the difference in the number of floors, therefore proposing 3.6 times the amount of explosives. After all, it's not like buildings have volume.

He then uses a picture of a cut column during the clean-up, claiming it couldn't have been cut with a torch due to visible slag around the base. This is an odd contention, to say the least, given there's a picture in the very same place he got it of such a thing happening.

11. Claims steel could not reach air temperature despite losing fireproofing. Appeals to ignorance by claiming that since no steel analysed by the NIST reached over 600 degrees, no steel could have been heated further, in spite of accepting the NIST's 1000 degree maximum air temperature estimates.

12. More attacks on the NIST model. He's supposed to be describing evidence for his own theory in this paper if we remember the abstract, and citing problems in other models is not proof of your own: see ID 'theory.' Cites the same objection cited by Greening regarding the very low estimates of downward displacement. Criticises the NIST for discarding simulations of less severe cases, despite that NIST claims these cases were discarded after analysis and not just because they failed to result in building collapse.

Jones misreads a report to add to this; a UK fire science report pointing out 'the core columns cannot pull the exterior columns in via the floor.' This isn't what the NIST suggested: they suggested the floor pulled the exterior columns in. He cites Kevin Ryan, a guy fired from UL's water testing laboratory after lying that UL had 'certified WTC steel' when steel in US construction is not certified at all, and rather dishonestly cites the NIST tests conducted at UL, stating:

'That models of WTC trusses at Underwriter Laboratories (UL) subjected to fires did NOT fail is
also admitted in the final NIST report:'

Without bothering to note that all these tests were to demonstrate was if the WTC assemblies were up to the relevant standard and all of the assemblies were tested with intact fireproofing. He criticises them for failing to model the collapse despite that they arrived at a point where no further factors were necessary to cause it in their simulation, and makes a vague suggestion that Occam's Razor supports his entirely incoherent hypothesis.

13. More attacks in the NIST model. Where the hell is Jones' theory in all this? He criticises the NIST failure to show visualisations of their structural collapse model [note that similar concerns have not been raised over the impact and fire models]. Bear in mind, no matter how bad the NIST model is, it doesn't mean any other theory is more valid, or that the NIST conclusion is wrong.

And then we get really bad.

'He joined the others in hoping that the 6,899 photographs and 6,977 segments of video footage held by NIST plus others held by the FBI would be released for independent scrutiny; photos largely from private photographers (NIST, 2005, p. 81).'

The problem is, if this is the 'evidence' Jones wants he is obviously partaking in sophistry: the FBI and NIST have no ability to release privately owned data because they do not own it. You must ask the private owners of this data to release it, and railing against the NIST for doing what the law demands is pointless. Note their third disclaimer in the preface to reports:

In addition, a substantial portion of the evidence collected by NIST in the course of the Investigation has been
provided to NIST under nondisclosure agreements.

So, as said, a lot of the evidence can only be released by the will of third parties, not the NIST itself. Also bear in mind the complaints about NIST peer-review being mainly 'in house' are misleading; only 85 of the 210 people involved in their investigation actually work for the NIST.

In other words, even if he was fired, it may well have been for his methods rather than his views. This paper isn't an alternate theory; it simply attacks the main theory while occasionally exclaiming 'see? Controlled demolition!' with only the vaguest evidence. It has no numbers aside from a ludicrously poor linear scaling of explosive requirement done simply by multiplying by 3.6, the difference in the number of floors of the buildings in question [30 vs 110]. You talked about how he had authority regarding physics, but there is no real physics here, just vague claims.

I've noted already that you thesis claiming that support of the NIST model to the exclusion of all else is responsible for a lack of original research is not only invalid, being pretexted on appeals to motive and rather dubious other evidence, but also fully reversible. One can blame conspiracy theorists not only for a climate where acceptance of the official account is seen as supportive of mass murder, but also for the status of alternative theories. Why? Well, given that most of the louder voices speaking for the major CT theories are proponents of the 'big theory' [global police state / new world order] as opposed to the 'small theory' [war for oil], CTs are generally judged by these people rather than their more reasonable membership.

Other: Ford owns Cummins.

No, the steel doesn't need to melt in the collapse...

... I haven't said it does.

Let's make sure this is perfectly clear.
[list] The core steel supports need to be heated to around 800 C to no longer provide enough support. Molten steel is not required for collapse.
This heating is done by burning office supplies. Jet fuel is a red herring past starting the fires.
The reason why molten steel keeps coming up isn't because of beams melting causing the collapse; it's because of reports of molten steel in the wreckage, which the NIST report does not address.

The appearance of melted steel in the wreckage is easily explained by the heat brought about by the pressure after the collapse of the towers, a situation that could provide far higher potential temperatures for prolonged periods of time.




... are you serious? Haero, why would conspirators try to silence a gaggle of conspiracy theorists that aren't being taken very seriously?

Why not?

Anything about princess Diana. :headbang:

Well, the Jew ones are more offensive than annoying and the others are more silly than anything. I would say the most annoying is the "We didn't land on the moon" one.

WTF is a theroy?

He used to work with a thesiegfried