How facts backfire

jas wrote:

I don't know, Fidel. They seem to actually believe that the tops of buildings will be pulled through the bodies of buildings via gravity. Because one dishonest scientist calculated that 15 floors could crash through one floor, so they therefore could crash through 90 floors --- all in less time than it takes to read this post. Not only that, but that 15 floors would become 15 plus one rubble floor, and then 15 plus two rubble floors, and so on, like something we might see in the Flintstones.

We can understand that most of America doesn't realize that this is what the official collapse theory actually says, and for that we can forgive them. What's unbelievable is that several Babblers here are aware that this is the official collapse theory, and they not only believe it, they defend it.

If you've made up your mind that yours is the only valid opinion, why debate at all?

How can people debate you when you don't have the science background to debate them at a useful level? I'm not trying to put you down here, or say you're not smart enough to have the discussion...that's absolutely not the case.  However, if you want to make an argument about the science involved, you have to be able to understand the complexities of the science as proposed by those whose opinions you support, and by those whose opinions you don't support.  You have to be able to analyse the science yourself rather than just going with what someone else is saying.  I know I can't do that, I don't have the background either.  But simply tossing up someone's calculations to counter someone else's calculations, without really understanding either...well it's like playing poker without knowing the rules, and laying down your cards, hoping someone will tell you if you've got a winning hand. 

It's like trying to have a legal argument without any understanding of how the law actually works. Anyone can discuss how the law SHOULD work, and people can discuss how it appears to work, but not everyone can discuss the intricacies of estoppel.  Not with a few wiki articles, and some opinion pieces by legal scholars...not without the necessary background.

If you don't understand the science, then you need to approach it from a different angle.  When you have actually talked about your goal in a clear manner, it makes sense.  You, and Fidel, want a more comprehensive investigation.  You probably have some good arguments as to why this should happen, some ideas about how it could happen and who could be involved.  Not understanding the arguments others are making because the conversation is getting too technical, does not mean that the technical arguments are wrong.  It simply means you can't really discuss it at that level...and all of us will have topics we can't discuss technically.

So, jas, what did you learn during our recent debate?

jas wrote:

What did I learn?

One thing I learned was that the official collapse theory relies on an extra theory of vertical rubble accumulation during the hypothetical crush-down period. And that this rubble is needed for the upper block to hypothetically gain mass. I have to admit, I wasn't aware of this before, so I was pleased to discover that the theory relies on something that can also be easily refuted, and was even looking forward to getting to that discussion, before I found the video that shows that the piledriver demolishes itself.

So, you believe that what you learnt is actually untrue. Why?

jas wrote:

And, of course, as noted above, I learned that it can be shown with the videos that crush-up occurs before crush-down.

Now, I recognize that you don't agree that the video I posted shows this.

I also find it interesting that when youand I look at the videos and photos, we interpret the information in different ways. You see crush-up occuring before crush-down. I do not. Why do you think that is?

No one here is arguing that the CIA etc. is not corrupt.  I'm not even arguing (much) the CIA didn't do 9/11.  I am arguing that the buildings fell down because large airplanes crashed into them and caused massive fires.

I am further arguing that tolerating the presence of people who argue the issue way past the plausibility point damages the board.

A fact, as far as I can tell, is any objective phenomenon that is or was verifiable and observable. Of course, some things like the mass of Pluto are impossible to directly veify in a practical manner. So, we have a kind of continuum that goes from those things that we can easily and directly verify all the way to those things that we can't possibly really verify. So, I believe the fact that I will not fly away from th eground spontaneously. This is because I am verifying it every instant of my lfie by feeling gravity. Other facts, like the percentage of dark matter in the universe, I hold with far less certainty because I can not independently verify it.

So, one way of deciding what to believe is factual is by checking to see how verifiable something is.

Fidel wrote:

....If you know for certain what caused those buildings to collapse, there exists a union of architects and engineers, scientists and even aerospace engineers who would like to know, and their numbers are growing. And they will peer review your very scientific thoughts on the matter. ....

They will?

I would like to verify this claim before I accept it as a fact.

Can you please provide a link to an article discussing the collapse that has been peer-reviewed by this group?

Fidel wrote:

Pants-of-dog wrote:

Other facts, like the percentage of dark matter in the universe, I hold with far less certainty because I can not independently verify it.

So, one way of deciding what to believe is factual is by checking to see how verifiable something is.

And that's what's they hope will happen at CERN lab Switzerland in the next so many years. ...

I think there will be new forces of nature discovered by CERN scientists within the next five to ten years. Then we will begin to understand more about the rest of the neighborhood, which is absolutely huge. It's mind boggling.

Dark matter was not the point, Fidel. I was discussing verifiability.

Fidel wrote:

Oh their email addresses and contact info are all over the web everywhere. I'm friends with a couple of A&Es for truth on Facebook.  And they sometimes show up on 911blogger.com and even the very crazy JREF forum from time to time. They are more accessible than the guvmint guys. The NIST guys are a lot harder to get hold of though and rarely if ever seen blogging with grassroots groups and us ordinary slobs. And we don't wonder why.

So, the absence of any evidence for your claim suggests that this fact of yours is actually not verified . Consequently. my belief in its factuality is diminished.

Pants-of-dog wrote:

Dark matter was not the point, Fidel. I was discussing verifiability.

So, are you saying LHC scientists are wasting their time and should pursue dark matter no further? Have Hubble astronomers been wasting their time finding evidence of dark matter and mysterious dark energy? I think there are a few religious and non-science based groups saying the same thing. Their motives are not so clear.

Fidel wrote:

So, the absence of any evidence for your claim suggests that this fact of yours is actually not verified . Consequently. my belief in its factuality is diminished.

David Chandler and Steven Jones have debated Frank Greening in email and blog exchanges. David Griscom has his own blog and provided us with a critique of Manuel Garcia's proof by intimidation essay without so much as a reply from the LLNL scientist himself. 

The internet itself began as a military project and expanded into school net, which is still the way academics around the world exchange ideas and information to a large extent. Is this not good enough for you, Pants? Don't be lazy and lookup Steven Jones, Chandler, Szamboti or any of the 1200+ A&Es for truth, and get busy if you're so inclined.

Fidel wrote:

Pants-of-dog wrote:

Dark matter was not the point, Fidel. I was discussing verifiability.

So, are you saying LHC scientists are wasting their time and should pursue dark matter no further?

It seems the point has been entirely missed, mashed, and destroyed.

It's quite the thing to see.

Pants-of-dog wrote:

Fidel wrote:

...

The internet itself began as a military project and expanded into school net, which is still the way academics around the world exchange ideas and information to a large extent. Is this not good enough for you, Pants?...

No, frankly it is not. Do you understand why this is not the same as a peer reviewed article?

[url=http://www.journalof911studies.com/]The Journal of 9/11 Studies[/url]

Quote:

is a [color=blue]peer-reviewed, open-access, electronic-only journal,[/color] covering the whole of research related to the events of 11 September, 2001. Many fields of study are represented in the journal, including Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Psychology. All content is freely available online. Our mission in the past has been to provide an outlet for evidence-based research into the events of 9/11 that might not otherwise have been published, due to the resistance that many established journals and other institutions have displayed toward this topic. The intention was to provide a rapid acceptance process with full peer review. That has been achieved. It is now our belief that the case for falsity of the official explanation is so well established and demonstrated by papers in this Journal that there is little to be gained from accepting more papers here. [. . .]
Further papers are now in the peer-review cycle.

We will continue for the time being to provide a service for researchers who wish to present a new finding or a new point of view but who feel that their contribution would not be suitable for a mainstream journal. We will also be happy to receive sound, substantial work which has nevertheless been rejected by others. However, due to the volume of work, there may be substantial delays in publication here in the future. Thank you for your interest in careful research.

Sincerely,
Kevin Ryan, Frank Legge, and Steven Jones, co-editors

I'd suggest that if you are a researcher interested in contributing something to 9/11 research, then you should consider submitting it to either JEM, Bentham Open, or even The Journal of 9/11 Studies, which is a group of professionals who do peer review one another's work wrt 9/11 studies. Just remember to provide your real identity and credentials(as opposed to "Pants-of-dog", babbler and prolific poster of 9/11 commentary)  along with your paper.

jrootham wrote:

Let me be clear.  I think the NIST report is accurate.  I would describe fires sufficient to weaken the structural steel members of the WTC as massive.

And we know that it's true because [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnXeUIaYj3k]NIST's computer model[YouTube)[/url] simulating  collapse of WTC7 and video footage of the same event are so eerily similar?

Actually ... are we getting the cart before the horse? It's quite interesting that almost everyone has just participated in commenting as if the article is 'factual' - but is that a valid assumption?

 The writer of the original article (here if anyone is curious - http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_ba... ) is presenting the opinions or interpretations of the authors of the original study as if they were facts - but are they? Does one study, which was performed as an exercise to try to prove a point, make for 'facts'? Do we know if the authors had any particular axe to grind, or were working for any political 'think tank' when they did this which would make their 'findings' questionable? Who were the testees, and how were they picked? Do we live in a world (that is to say, the American Capitalist hegemony) in which we can rely on 'science' in general? Do we live in a world in which we can rely on what we read in newspapers in general? How do we know if the newspaper reporter is reporting accurately without checking for ourselves?  And etc etc etc.

- note the way this is reported - ".. have begun to discover.." "..deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information.." . "..don't necessarily have ... In fact, quite the opposite. ... researchers ..  found that " - and etc etc - notice the verbs etc - there is no speculation here in the writer's mind - these are factual things. On the basis of one study, by 'political scientists' who are kind of up there with economists when it comes to concern about impartiality, at least in my mind.

- says something about how deeply everyone is - ah - (some polite word meaning 'trained') - in the modern world to accept what is said in newspapers as factual - no matter how often they belatedly realise they have been lied to by these people (ie Saddam has WMD and we're 45 minutes away from a mushroom cloud!!!' - etc etc - I'll stay away from flu vaccines and massive dieoffs if if if  ... ). This is not an inconsequential point - our entire party political system is quite obviously a farce, with both major parties taking orders from Bay St, and the NDP not entirely untainted (their complete failure to talk about monetary reform or demand the very small improvement a PR voting system would give is, I think, clear enough evidence that they have accepted certain constraints in what they talk about in order to play with the big boys, and get treated like a 'real' political party in the media) - and yet there seems to be almost no ability in the 'general population' to understand this farce or take steps to try to establish some kind of real democracy in this country - the failure of 'the people' to be able to organise or act on their own, without leadership or at least approval from the mainstream media means any true movement towards real reform and improvement in our country is almost doomed before it even gets talked about, as we are not going to get meaningful reform using the current political paradigm, which is designed like any good system to first and foremost ensure its survival.

I guess, in sort of conclusion, that would mean that a better, more useful, avenue of discussion might be something like 'Why are so many people unable to recognize 'facts' if they are not first assured something is a 'fact' and it's ok to think it by the mainstream media first?' - and is there anything that can be done to get people away from this very harmful dependency?

jrootham post 58
....I am arguing that the buildings fell down because large airplanes crashed into them and caused massive fires...  I am further arguing that tolerating the presence of people who argue the issue way past the plausibility point damages the board.

In a list originally started to talk about 'facts' - it is completely beyond me how you can justify calling the fire in the south tower (left) 'massive' ???

- (and the north fires are not a lot bigger, but your contention of 'massive fire' is more obviously completely unattached to reality in regard to the south tower) - this is not a 'trick' photo - any others of this building before the collapse show the same thing, there is NO fire on the other side at all beyond a bit of smoke coming from one small area, let alone 'massive'. I really cannot understand how you can say this is a 'massive' fire, and go on to accuse others of arguing 'past the point of plausibility' who suggest this is NOT a 'massive' fire at all - here is a fire I would call 'massive' - the Madrid fire -

- or another, the Oriental Beijing

(and I might note that neither of these buildings collpased, after many hours of the steel being in the middlle of these infernos - and there are many other examples of similar fires with no collapse. Others (pants gang) protest that various factors are not the same with these fires and the OTC - but they steer clear of talking about the simple magnitude of these fires, and their failure to create temperatures hot enough to weaken this steel to the point of deformity, and yet those tiny fires in the WTC, for less than an hour, managed to weaken the huge core columns I have shown in other pictures? Any comments on 'plausibility' would be appreciated ..)

- isn't it really you arguing beyond the point of plausibility to suggest these tiny, not massive, fires could create heat hot enough, for a long enough time, to weaken any amount at all of the steel in that building, let alone weaken enough of it to lead to 'global collapse', which is surely destined to go down in history as one of the greatest and most unexplainable mass delusions in history, once sane people take over our world? (or perhaps I should say 'if' - it hardly seems a sure thing these days...)

siamdave wrote:

Actually ... are we getting the cart before the horse? It's quite interesting that almost everyone has just participated in commenting as if the article is 'factual' - but is that a valid assumption?

...

I guess, in sort of conclusion, that would mean that a better, more useful, avenue of discussion might be something like 'Why are so many people unable to recognize 'facts' if they are not first assured something is a 'fact' and it's ok to think it by the mainstream media first?' - and is there anything that can be done to get people away from this very harmful dependency?

To be honest, I did not want to believe that presenting people with facts would cause them to be more entrenched their beliefs. But after going through a specific discussion where I personally observed it happening, I now accept that it occurs in certain situations. Mainstream media has nothing to do with it.

jrootham wrote:

Let me be clear.  I think the NISTbe report is accurate.  I would describe fires sufficient to weaken the structural steel members of the WTC as massive.

NIST guesses that 15% of the steel columns on two or three upper floors were taken out by the jets. The rest of the fires that occurred were all in the upper block - the one needed to crush through 80 and 90 storeys of concrete and structural steel. Let's just be clear on that.

And in case you missed the latter part of the last thread, I posted a video that shows that the upper block "crushes up", losing half its mass, before the rest of the building begins to fall. Its descent is a consequence of the building's fall, not the cause. As Gordon Ross and David Chandler and others note in their debunking, using accepted principles of physics, of Bazant's "crush-down, crush-up" hypothesis.

Pants-of-dog wrote:

t would be a logical fallacy to asume that everything the MSM says is wrong.

That's true. And the truth of the matter is that 9/11 issues are increasingly described not as conspiracy theorists versus hard science, but as a legitimate controversial issue resting on unanswered questions and a search for truth. This is especially true of European news agencies, the CBC, and even such newspapers as The New York Times. Fox Newz reporters have attemped to stamp out the fires of the search for truth with their commentaries of such TV drama shows as "Rescue Me" [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/business/media/02fx.html?_r=3&ref=busi... Sunjata's character[/url] delivers a two-minute monologue...describing a "neoconservative government effort" to control the world's oil, drastically increase military spending and "change the definition of pre-emptive attack."

There are very many Americans and Canadians from all walks of life who do not accept the US Government's version of events and believe they are hiding the truth about 9/11 from the public.

siamdave wrote:

- are you by any chance looking in a mirror as you make this comment? You seem to be ever more convinced of the 'truth' of the official conspiracy theory as you soldier bravely on in the face of essentially overwhelming evidence it is nothing more than a fairy tale, no matter how many facts you have to overcome to maintain that belief ...

I think this is the best example of precisely the problem.  You, Jas, and Fidel, consistently claim your argument is based on evidence which is 'overwhelming', 'obvious', 'clearly true' etc. 

If it were so obvious, clearly true, and overwhelming...if it actually has definitively squashed any opposing theories, then why the need to constantly declare victory?  Why pretend to debate at all?  If you cannot answer the criticisms, and respond to the flaws that are pointed out...if you cannot even accept that there ARE any 'legitimate' criticisms or flaws, then you are not engaging in a conversation...you are engaging in demagoguery. You could avoid all this unnecessary back-patting and self-aggrandisement, and stick to the argument.

All the personal attacks about being pawns of the MSM, being fooled by "Dubya" and so on...all the claims about being the only ones who 'see the truth' is nothing more than pretentious puffery.  Frankly such tactics undermine your argument, and if your intention really is to open up people's eyes, then you'd think you'd want to avoid that.

Fidel wrote:

That's right. There are a number of investigative news journalists in North America and Europe who have presented the truth seekers side of the argument in a number of news broadcasts. This has become somewhat of a trend in news reporting since just the late 2000s.

I bet they get good ratings.

Fidel wrote:

Yiwah wrote:

Though as I said earlier...you might have to be very clear how you are going to debate the issue...if you don't have the ability to argue the science, you're going to be somewhat limited and that should be recognised.

I think these kinds of comments are deigned to intimidate truthers more than anything.

 

I think the term 'truther' is a distortion that is unecessary if you actually want a debate.  I also think it's obvious that you do need a certain technical background to discuss technical matters, regardless of which theory you support.

If you disagree, you might try explaining how it is you can discuss technical matters without an appropriate level of technical understanding?

Fidel wrote:

Yiwah wrote:

Though as I said earlier...you might have to be very clear how you are going to debate the issue...if you don't have the ability to argue the science, you're going to be somewhat limited and that should be recognised.

I think these kinds of comments are designed to intimidate truth seekers more than anything. It suggests that if we are not scientists, then we have no business discussing science. We might as well say that all the people who are not lawyers should never become enthusiasts of the law,  and we should therefore avoid discussing legal cases in general.

 

To answer your third edit:

If you do not have a training in law, you don't have the requisite understanding to discuss complicated issues like estoppel.  I have brought this up already.  That does not preclude you from discussing how the law should work, how the law could work, how the law has evolved, etc.  It doesn't even stop you from understanding on a certain level, how the law actually does work. 

When the discussion is technical, you have to have the ability to discuss the technical aspects.  If the dicussion is more general, you probably already have the background to engage in that discussion.

You can go ahead and discuss legal cases all you want.  However, unless you have training in the law, formal or informal, you can only discuss it up to a certain point, after which your opinions on the matter become uniformed, and not particularly useful.

No one should be embarrased to admit where the limit of their understanding lies.  No one can be an expert in everything.

Fidel wrote:

Yiwah wrote:

I think the term 'truther' is a distortion that is unecessary if you actually want a debate.  I also think it's obvious that you do need a certain technical background to discuss technical matters, regardless of which theory you support.

If you disagree, you might try explaining how it is you can discuss technical matters without an appropriate level of technical understanding?

Some babblers are enthusiasts of the law. There are people around the world who follow legal cases and yet are not lawyers or judges and have no formal training in law. Does this mean that people in general should not discuss popular legal cases and instead leave these matters to well educated lawyers trained to speak in legalese? Why not just hold court in Latin or formal French so that only really well educated people can understand what's going on behind closed doors in the name of democracy?

I've already answered your question.

However, to clarify, 'training' in a technical matter need not always happen through a formalised process.  The general population does not have the requisite legal training to discuss technical legal matters.  However, a person with no formal legal training who has nonetheless worked on specific legal issues (ie, bankruptcy and povery law, as an advocate for the poor) will probably have the accumulated knowledge and technical background to discuss that particular issue with great success and insight.

I hope that clarifies the issue for you.  No one is asking the participants of the WTC discussion to have degrees.  Only an appropriate level of technical knowledge, if the discussion is technical.

I have no doubt that the people with the appropriate technical background can very easily spot those who do not. 

I'm not as convinced that those who lack the appropriate technical background realise why they are not prepared to have a technical discussion.

Yiwah wrote:

I have no doubt that the people with the appropriate technical background can very easily spot those who do not. 

I'm not as convinced that those who lack the appropriate technical background realise why they are not prepared to have a technical discussion.

So what is it you're trying to say? Or do you know?

Well so am I, so that makes two of us.

Look who's lol'ing. Is that an explicit lol? Think I hear your mama calling you.

Here is the highly technical Bazant model, Yiwah. Drawings, I believe, by Anders Bjorkman.

Block C is the fabled upper block. Blocks A are the intact building(s) untouched by fire or jets. Area B is the rubble accumulation.

According to Bazant, Block C, which, by the way, suffered all the fires, starts "crushing down" on the intact building, after it "falls" through 85% of the remaining "office-fire-weakened" structural steel columns on the floors where the jets impacted. B is where the rubble of the crushed floors accumulates, which Bazant adds to the mass of the upper block rather than the lower block. I guess rubble has incredible crushing powers, and it also manages to stay vertically intact, despite weight from the alleged upper block.

According to Bazant, C stays intact through all this crushing down, as it crushes down on the rubble which is crushing down on the intact building, floor by floor, and then "crushes up" itself, leaving pile of rubble B, when its crushing mission is complete.

Anything you need clarification on? It's so beautiful. To me it's very similar to how the wicked witch of the west melted when Dorothy threw water on her. And we all know that was pretty cool.