911: What makes you suspicious - now with added extra poll option!

[trashpony]

based on a balance of probabilities?

A balance of probabilities doesn't seem to have been much of a factor thus far so I wouldn't hold your breath

 

[brixtonvilla]

Ssh! That's where I'm going with this...

 

[Jazzz]

It's no longer a subject for discussion here.

Well please remind editor of that, so I don't feel the need to defend myself further on the topic.

 

[Lock&Light]

It's interesting how soon the number of votes for the new option have reached double the number of votes than any of the original options in the poll.

 

[Jazzz]

Just wondered if you realised what a big deal it was for a university to publicly denounce a member of staff like that. It's not taken lightly - this is someone's professional reputation we're talking about. It's that person's livelihood. Are you claiming that this is an act of censorship due to a dangerous, 9-11 consensus-threatening theory, and that there are other academics who are being cowed into silence? And if so, who's doing the censorship and why? (and don't even THINK of coming up with that "I-dunno-I'm-just-asking-questions" schtick). Or are you willing to consider that maybe the research this guy did just wasn't up to the normal (yes, peer-reviewed) academic standards? Which seems more likely to you, based on a balance of probabilities?

Have you read his paper?

Put it this way; when he came out, I was fully expecting him to get in some serious hot water for it. I think he's incredibly brave, to publish that indeed means risking his career.

However, he hasn't been 'censored', so I can't really answer that question.

 

[Jazzz]

Or are you willing to consider that maybe the research this guy did just wasn't up to the normal (yes, peer-reviewed) academic standards? Which seems more likely to you, based on a balance of probabilities?

The university hasn't condemned the paper in those terms, the wording is quite careful.

My personal opinion, having not read the paper thoroughly but read some of it, is that it's bang on. Certainly, there is no refutation of his arguments that I am aware of.

 

[brixtonvilla]

On the subject of wording:

"not convinced that his analyses and hypotheses have been submitted to relevant scientific venues that would ensure rigorous technical peer review"

To me, that sounds like he put it out without checking with anyone else. That suggests it's not up to the standards that make it credible - not just in my eyes, but those of people who really know what they're talking about. And no, I haven't read it - why should I, when he can't even be arsed to submit it to scrutiny of his professionally qualified peers? Might as well ask a plasterer why he thinks about why the WTC came down...

Anyway, have you been to university? What qualifications do you have to say that it's "bang on"?

 

[editor]

My personal opinion, having not read the paper thoroughly but read some of it, is that it's bang on.

Right. So you're happy to ignore the overwhelming mass of evidence offered in peer reviewed papers by qualified experts in preference to one opinion expressed by a writer who has suffered the extremely unusual step of having his methodology publicly questioned by his own university?

Why's that, then? Why would an entire university stake their reputation by questioning his methods if they didn't have severe doubts about the quality of his work?

Oh, and I'm still waiting for you to explain this:

However, my guess about the calls from flight 93 was that they weren't faked. In fact I think the purpose of that flight may have been to generate those calls.

If you don't explain this - despite being asked by a host of posters - I can only assume you're trolling.

 

[editor]

Anyway, have you been to university? What qualifications do you have to say that it's "bang on"?

Good question. I'd love to know how he's qualifying his opinion.

 

[pk]

It's interesting how soon the number of votes for the new option have reached double the number of votes than any of the original options in the poll.

Interesting yes.

Surprising? Not on your nelly.

And from the original options I picked the WTC7 collapse, to be honest that shit smells of three day dead fish to anyone with anything approaching an openminded approach, the way that building collapsed internally, without being hit by anything other than a few bits of glass is more than fucking odd even to a sceptic as myself...

But I reckon it's less of a conspiracy and more of a PNAC "contingency plan", anyone who has visited NYC (Jazzz clearly has not) will be aware of the clearly marked nuclear bunkers and whatnot, it makes perfect sense that certain sensitive areas would be destroyed at the flick of a switch in the event of an invasion - seven hours after the Trade Center attacks everyone walking would have been evacuated, even the dying would have had time to be escorted out of there, wouldn't surprise me if they blew it down given the amount of sensitive papers involved - and not least the paper trail surrounding Enron's financial background...

I've seen Red Dawn, I know the truth. And Wag the Dog.

But missile pods under the aircraft?

Holograms in Jazzz's "Here's How They Did It!!!!" scenario?

Joe Vialls?

Fela Fan in "if you're so sure it wasn't Bugs Bunny - prove it!" mode?

Do me a favour.

Conspiranoid pricks would stamp their feet all over the evidence of their own stupidity, regardless of its importance, had they even the most remote access to the truth...

 

[editor]

And from the original options I picked the WTC7 collapse, to be honest that shit smells of three day dead fish to anyone with anything approaching an openminded approach, the way that building collapsed internally, without being hit by anything other than a few bits of glass is more than fucking odd even to a sceptic as myself...

Errr, you can't see why this building might just have been a teensy weensy bit compromised with all this catastrophic shit going on around it?

Seems a bit of a miracle that it didn't immediately collapse when one of the ten zillion ton towers collapsed right next to it, if you ask me.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html?page=5&c=y

According to NIST, there was one primary reason for the building's failure: In an unusual design, the columns near the visible kinks were carrying exceptionally large loads, roughly 2000 sq. ft. of floor area for each floor. "What our preliminary analysis has shown is that if you take out just one column on one of the lower floors," Sunder notes, "it could cause a vertical progression of collapse so that the entire section comes down."

 

[mauvais]

To be fair, I thought fela has been quite reasonable on this thread - making concessions, listening to rebuttals and generally sticking to the stuff that at least remains vaguely logical and consistent. It's a shame that his counterparts don't exhibit any such tendencies and instead go for another conspiracy claymore - anything you can hit etc...

 

[Lock&Light]

Interesting yes.

Surprising? Not on your nelly.

I also find it totally unsurprising.

 

[fela fan]

Like the fuck your opinion has ever mattered...

My opinion matters fuck all. Same as you. Same as everyone's. You're only gonna die, that's the only reason we're here.

What is repulsive though is your verbal violence.

 

[fela fan]

To be fair, I thought fela has been quite reasonable on this thread - making concessions, listening to rebuttals and generally sticking to the stuff that at least remains vaguely logical and consistent. It's a shame that his counterparts don't exhibit any such tendencies and instead go for another conspiracy claymore - anything you can hit etc...

Thank you mm. I'm really no more than a suspicious bastard when it comes to anything that those in power, who covet even more power, do. The whole thing stinks to me.

But there's no proof of anything, and until a major newspaper in the western world, ideally US or UK, breaks free and attempts a good piece of journalistic investigation, we'll never know what happened. Nobody knows, least of all those that profess to on this website.

There really are only three options: it's as the USG have told us, they let it happen, they made it happen.

If it really is the first then i am flabbergasted that no-one has been brought to book for such monumental negligence. My belief is that it is the middle one, but i'm no fan of beliefs, so accordingly must retain an open mind.

 

[Jazzz]

On the subject of wording:

"not convinced that his analyses and hypotheses have been submitted to relevant scientific venues that would ensure rigorous technical peer review"

To me, that sounds like he put it out without checking with anyone else. That suggests it's not up to the standards that make it credible - not just in my eyes, but those of people who really know what they're talking about. And no, I haven't read it - why should I, when he can't even be arsed to submit it to scrutiny of his professionally qualified peers? Might as well ask a plasterer why he thinks about why the WTC came down...

Anyway, have you been to university? What qualifications do you have to say that it's "bang on"?

I can understand you jumping to these conclusions, because it's not easy to face these difficult questions. However, your analysis is mistaken - the paper was peer reviewed, indeed papers don't get published without it as far as I am aware. The comment from the university seems to me like they are searching for a way to cast doubt upon the paper, without anyone actually being able to argue with it at all.

He (Professor Jones) said he feels “a bit awkward” that some colleagues now question the peer review process his paper initially passed through. “My paper was peer-reviewed and accepted for publication before being made available on the Web with the editor’s approval,” Jones said. “The reviewers included a physicist and an engineer, I now understand. The review has not been shown to have been inappropriate and I believe it was appropriate.” Still, Jones said he willingly submitted his paper to another publication, where he is confident it will pass peer review a second time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Jones

Personally, my university career was not at all glorious, if you must know I studied maths at Cambridge. My maths is rubbish now, due to crashing with that illness. However I don't think I've lost a very good intuitive feel for mechanics.

I note that no-one has yet ventured a force by which the 47 huge central steels, below the impact/fire floors, could be shattered into relatively small bits and not left standing - other than by explosive charges.

 

[fela fan]

For those that may be interested here is a link that uncovers just how much intelligence the US were getting before september 11, 2001. This is the dodgiest thing about the whole event because so much of the intelligence painted rather a specific picture, rather than just being a load of random bits and pieces.

For those whose job it is to decipher and deal with intelligence, i contend it would have been obvious what kind of thing was upcoming.

Yet, in the face of all these warnings, when the attacks began, negligence and inaction was the order of the day. Even allowing for the ability of americans to fuck things up, and that is well documented, it is too much for me to accept.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.net/project.jsp?project=911_project

Incidentally, this link uses only stories from mainstream media sources.

 

[MikeMcc]

I can understand you jumping to these conclusions, because it's not easy to face these difficult questions. However, your analysis is mistaken - the paper was peer reviewed, indeed papers don't get published without it as far as I am aware. The comment from the university seems to me like they are searching for a way to cast doubt upon the paper, without anyone actually being able to argue with it at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Jones

Personally, my university career was not at all glorious, if you must know I studied maths at Cambridge. My maths is rubbish now, due to crashing with that illness. However I don't think I've lost a very good intuitive feel for mechanics.

I note that no-one has yet ventured a force by which the 47 huge central steels, below the impact/fire floors, could be shattered into relatively small bits and not left standing - other than by explosive charges.

Try a few thousand tons of the upper stories collapsing 5-10 storeys, calculate the the velocity it would reach in that time, calculate the momentum it would have reached, then apply that as an impulse. There is no steel on earth that is designed to withstand those sorts of stresses. Your "relatively small bits" were actually guite large for a hell of a lot of the structure (as in upwards to 40-50 feet long), there are pictures out there to prove that. The guys clearing the site had to spend alot of time cutting up the debris into more manageable sizes.

 

[brixtonvilla]

Fair enough, thanks for answering my (admittedly personal) question honestly.

I'm still not in any way convinced though - it comes down to that phrase I used earlier - balance of probability. Yes, it's POSSIBLE (not shouting, btw, just I don't know how to do italics on vbulletin) that Mr Jones is right and every other similarly-or-better-qualified structural engineer is wrong, but it's just not very likely, and that's what I think your analysis of this whole thing is missing. It's Occam's Razor all the way for me, I'm afraid...

 

[editor]

I can understand you jumping to these conclusions, because it's not easy to face these difficult questions. However, your analysis is mistaken - the paper was peer reviewed, indeed papers don't get published without it as far as I am aware. The comment from the university seems to me like they are searching for a way to cast doubt upon the paper, without anyone actually being able to argue with it at all.

So why would they do that then?

And could you explain why you choose to believe this sole example of rather tainted research in preference to proper, peer-reviewed research like this:

http://enr.construction.com/news/buildings/archives/041021.asp
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3354
http://www.construction.com/NewsCenter/Headlines/ENR/20021025b.asp
http://enr.construction.com/news/buildings/archives/040119.asp
http://www.construction.com/NewsCenter/Headlines/ENR/20021209g.asp
http://www.house.gov/science/hot/wtc/wtcreport.htm
http://www.archrecord.com/InTheCause/0402FDNY/fdny.asp
http://www.construction.com/NewsCenter/Headlines/AR/20020110r.asp
www.asce.org/emerg_document_pub.cfm
http://www.architectureweek.com/2001/1024/news_2-1.html

 

[Techno303]

Where is this paper published?

 

[editor]

he comment from the university seems to me like they are searching for a way to cast doubt upon the paper, without anyone actually being able to argue with it at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Jones

And here's the rest of that article that you conveniently forgot to mention - you know, the bit where university departments are lining up to cast big doubts on the quality of his research...

Chairman of the BYU department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Dr. Miller, is on record stating in an e-mail, "I think without exception, the structural engineering professors in our department are not in agreement with the claims made by Jones in his paper, and they don't think there is accuracy and validity to these claims".

The BYU physics department has also issued a statement: "The university is aware that Professor Steven Jones's hypotheses and interpretations of evidence regarding the collapse of World Trade Center buildings are being questioned by a number of scholars and practitioners, including many of BYU's own faculty members. Professor Jones's department and college administrators are not convinced that his analyses and hypotheses have been submitted to relevant scientific venues that would ensure rigorous technical peer review."

The College of Engineering and Technology department has also added, "The structural engineering faculty in the Fulton College of Engineering and Technology do not support the hypotheses of Professor Jones."

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

Interview with Jones on Google Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6847324943129125224

Where is this paper published?

http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html

 

[Techno303]

Interview with Jones on Google Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6847324943129125224http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html

No, that is a link to a draft of the manuscript. There is no published paper is there?

 

[fela fan]

And here's the rest of that article that you conveniently forgot to mention - you know, the bit where university departments are lining up to cast big doubts on the quality of his research...

You write things off far too quickly. Earlier you talked about an 'entire' univesity (whatever that means), now you're referring to departments of a university 'lining up' to cast 'big' doubts.

You always take refuge in language. Who are you to write off this jones person? How can you simply dismiss the concerns of people far more qualified than you? What do you know compared to a physics man who works for a university?

I mean, you're just a website writer. What do you know? How can you be so cynically dismissive of what this jones says? Where's your evidence and peer-reviewed proof that jones is wrong?

 

[fela fan]

Jones clearly says, when he's not being rudely interupted by that tucker man, that his paper is a hypotheses, not a conclusion.

Posters need to be aware of this before they jump to their own conclusions, based on their own conjecture and preconceived understandings.

I find it interesting how this tucker man says time is limited and jones will have to stop talking coz there is no more time. Fuck that. A story of this importance, where someone is hypothesising what jones is, and there's no more time?

That seems to sum up the pathetic american and british media.

 

[tarannau]

I mean, you're just a website writer. What do you know? How can you be so cynically dismissive of what this jones says? Where's your evidence and peer-reviewed proof that jones is wrong?

I think the cynicism of Jones' peers is quite apparent in the statement:

I think without exception, the structural engineering professors in our department are not in agreement with the claims made by Jones in his paper, and they don't think there is accuracy and validity to these claims".

Which seems unbelievably harsh considering they're his own colleagues and academic facility placing so much doubt on Jones' ideas. Isn't the issue more that an academic like Jones - well accustomed to the idea of peer-reviewed work and having his evidence checked - for some reason didn't feel confident or able enough to submit this work to such rigorous checks?

I'm not qualified to really rip apart technical theses like these, but it speaks volumes to me that his work is seemingly being discredited by his own peers and university. At the very least - with my layman's knowledge on the technical side - I'm not going to give him the benefit of the doubt and prioritise his research over all others when there seems so much doubt from folks much more qualified than you or I.

 

[editor]

I mean, you're just a website writer. What do you know?

1. Internationally published author, actually. 2. Loads more than you.

 

[fela fan]

1. Internationally published author, actually. 2. Loads more than you.

1. Well, if you're internationally known, then i've got nothing on you. You must be some sort of VIP or something. Mind you, i don't think anyone in thailand knows you. In fact you better steady on there mate, perhaps your ego is getting ahead of itself. I mean, does france know you? Togo? Argentina? On second thoughts maybe you're just as much a nobody as i am eh?

2. Bullshit. Compared to me you know fuck all. When it comes down to it, you're just a youngster. It's patently obvious that i know fucking shedloads about life compared to your little self.

Do let me know when you wake up mate.

 

[editor]

1. Well, if you're internationally known, then i've got nothing on you.

I said "internationally published". actually. Try sticking to the facts.

Compared to me you know fuck all. When it comes down to it, you're just a youngster. It's patently obvious that i know fucking shedloads about life compared to your little self.

Bless.