Established Member
No direct physical evidenceOriginally Posted by MMCC
Wow. So when I and millions of others around the world saw planes slamming into the towers at high speed and exploding into a spectacular fireball, that isn't considered direct evidence?
How can you expect a serious argument with a comment like this? I really wonder what drives the CT'ers sometimes.
Order of Kilopi
Not only are the comments worthless on their own, they don't even address the question asked at all!! See my previous post.
Established Member
I love the "no direct physical evidence" part and how the impact+fire scenario is "terrible science" while in another thread MMCC tells us earnestly how an agent disguised as a mailboy plausibly rigged the structure for demolition with C4 and thermite.
Order of Kilopi
NIST's work is based upon assuming the towers collapsed due to the impacts and subsequent fires...
Not exactly. NIST's work is based on testing whether the observed proximal causes were sufficient to produce the observed effect. The observed antecedents were the collisions of large airliners at cruise speed followed by ignition and combustion of building products. The observed effect is the initiation of structural failure at or near the affected floors.
There is no direct physical evidence that this did indeed occur.
Why the specific qualifications on the evidence? You say there is no evidence that is "direct" or "physical", but what other evidence exists? Is it sufficient and proper to the investigation? What are your qualifications for determining that? What evidence are you ignoring in order to make your "there is no evidence" claim?
Laymen frequently apply "common sense" (i.e., uninformed intuition) trying to impose inapplicable methods and standards upon those who are more informed and experienced than they in the task at hand. I have found that those who criticize the methods by which NIST executed and validated their investigation in this case do so from a position of astounding ignorance of the actual methods. I find this inexcusably arrogant and presumptuous.
That's terrible science...
What is your training and experience in the relevant sciences?
I am an engineer. I have training in forensic engineering and part of my job is to provide computational tools applicable to forensic engineering, including the modeling and investigation of structural behavior. In my professional opinion, NIST's analysis goes right down the middle of the fairway in terms of correctness, validation, and applicability. Their methods are state-of-the-art in the investigation of structural failure.
Conspiracy theorists seem to believe NIST should have been picking through scraps of steel in a heap of rubble for some "smoking gun" structural member, or some such nonsense. That is sometimes necessary when there is no objective record of the collapse and therefore little clues about potential causes. That's not necessary in WTC's case -- the alleged causes are a matter of well-established objective record.
As I said, I have yet to meet a conspiracy theorist critical of NIST's activites who is himself conversant with the industry standard methods for collapse investigation and who has participated in any prior structural or failure analysis. The time to teach oneself how to do something is not when you're presuming to criticize those who have done it over an entire career.
You say it's "terrible" science. But in fact it's exemplary science. In the hypothetico-deductive method of scientific inquiry, a hypothesis is proposed. The test of that hypothesis seeks to falsify it. A hypothesis is not supported by ruling out everything conceivable (even barely so) in opposition to it; it is supported by trying and failing to disprove it. This is what NIST did. They used industry standard tools known to model fine-grained causes and effects in heat transfer, collision, and structural behavior. After having modeled the observed initial conditions within observed, NIST failed to rule out the hypothesized causations while duplicating the observed effects with a sufficiently high degree of fidelity.
I have sadly heard no end of ignorant pontification from people who presume to know how these techniques work, but who instead represent to readers a completely wrong understanding of them.
...it was presented to the American people as an authoritive account.
Hogwash. It is simply the best supported scenario based on what is currently possible to know. It was presented to the country at large for their acceptance and criticism, not as a "believe it or else" proposition. I find it terribly disingenuous that much of the criticism leveled against it has been thoroughly naive.
When I compare NIST's approach with that of the conspiracy theorists, there is simply no comparison. The conspiracy theorists have no clue what they're talking about. They may be able to fool various laymen, but real engineers and applicably-qualified scientists are not fooled.
Order of Kilopi
I read that twice as "an agent disguised as a mailbox"an agent disguised as a mailboy
And now we all await the relevant answer to my direct question first posed to MMCC, echoed by STS60, but not yet relevantly answered.....
Established Member
It worked for agents 13 and 44 on the old 60's sitcom "Get Smart", It was on the television, so it must be true.I read that twice as "an agent disguised as a mailbox"
edit -- clean up quote
Member
When I saw the towers fall (also on TV) I too thought it was strange they fell that way. Then I realized the planes hit near the top of the towers. Now it seems to me that if they had hit near the bottom the towers would have fallen over to the side. I'm not an architectual expert but it seems that hitting near the top might be what caused them to fall that way. Seeing how most of the weight was below the impact.
I also agree that your grammer is hard to understand. Take a little more time and make yourself better understood.
I happen to believe in a couple of conspiracy therories myself, but since I have no evidence to support them they are simply personal opinions based on my own reading and observation. As such I don't bring them up here.
Established Member
Please do. Even if there is no real evidence there still must be some reason for you to believe them, so they could still make for interesting discussion. You won't get into any problems here if you make it clear from the beginning you can't back them up. People only get into trouble when they claim they can back something up but don't. So please go ahead and post them, if you wish.
Order of Kilopi
indeed, people can get into trouble when they claim they can back things up but can't, or when they won't back them up, or won't say they can't back them up, or any combination of those.
If you say you can't back it up from the start, that's a fair perspective and OK on this board I think.
Only keep away from politics in that case, as that is against the rules. Other than that, don't worry, if you like a serious discussion, an honest attitude such as yours is perfectly acceptable.
Established Member
Though it might be better suited for a new thread!
Established Member
I'm sorry, but I actually laughed out loud when I read that...
Established Member
Well, felt more like banging my head on the table....
Established Member
Well, felt more like banging my head on the table....
Vulcan Administrator
h.c. has indicated on another thread that he's going on a business trip for several weeks and his participation will be limited during that time period. So I'm going to close this thread for now. If anyone has an objection, PM me, and I'll reopen it.
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.
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