peer reviewed paper: WTC downed via demolitions

There are millions of issues pushing for our attention, but any single individual can focus in detail on only a few. The best scientists are those who are best able to identify fruitful avenues for investigation. If you want to put your time and effort into 9/11 conspiracy theories I won't try to dissuade you, but from my own perspective it seems a waste of time. It isn't that I only have arguments from personal incredulity. It's that the 9/11 conspiracy theory is so outlandish that, in my view, it doesn't merit serious consideration. It would feel like a waste of time to me to continue to argue the details.I'm more interested in the psychology of conspiracy theory belief, because it seems so similar to Creationist's belief. You believe the government is involved in a conspiracy of causing domestic disasters in order to justify foreign invasions, while Creationists believe scientists are involved in a secular conspiracy to deny the truth of the Bible by creating a false veneer of scientific respectability around the lie of evolution. They seem very similar to me.--Percy

Well, here you are, though. I've never heard of a successful private scientific conspiracy spanning anything larger than one or a few corporations, and I'm not aware that scientists have a legal framework to restrict the flow of information to the public.But both of those things are true of the government. They have both the ability and will to conduct conspiracies as a tool of statecraft, and as a tool to shape public perception and policy. That's proven by history.Certainly creationists assert conspiracy where there's no evidence that there is one, or even the possibility to be one. But why should that lead us to reject all ideas of conspiracies?I mean, is that your argument? That because biologists haven't committed any conspiracies, nobody has? The very fact that 9/11 occured at all is proof that a concpiracy can occur; moreover, 9/11 was a conspiracy that, beforehand, was rejected as a "conspiracy fantasy."Look it's up to you. If you don't see anything worth pursuing, that's up to you. But you are still posting in this topic, if only to see why I've "fallen" for this stuff. Well, I haven't, exactly. But it's the fact that you refuse to find it even remotely credible that is the most like creationism, not an open-minded analysis of what facts are avaliable.

Actually, I was thinking of investigations by NYC fire department and police department, and other groups. The congressional investigation wasn't really an investigation - it was more the preparation of a report that summarized the results of the investigation. Yet somehow I don't seem to have much problem finding a lot of information that Bush & Co. would rather I did not have. And I am not even trying all that hard. No, my skepticism is with regard to an alleged demolition conspiracy based on using explosives planted inside the building.

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Yet somehow I don't seem to have much problem finding a lot of information that Bush & Co. would rather I did not have. And I am not even trying all that hard.

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Yeah, I would think that if there were any credible evidence that the towers were mined before hand, Alexander Cockburn would have been all over it.

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

I'd be interested to know who these peers are. Conspiracy theorists? Construction Engineers? Demolitions Experts? The paper can be found here. I find it rather unusual.First, it is written rather more emotively than the peer reviewed papers one would find in a science journal such as Nature. Lots of randomly bolded words interspersed with italics. There are other unusual aspects to the paper.Its not the passing the review stage that we care for here, but who the peers were that passed it. Hence why we sneer at the peer-review of ICR.

ModulousI especially enjoy the part about the collapse of the south tower and the subsequent pulverization of the upper floor into powder. I suppose I could be convinced if the explosives theory could explain for us how they determined beforehand where to place the explosives since it is improbable in the extreme to guide a 747 to a precise floor level on a building no matter your expertise' The upper floor collapse into the lower floors readily explains the production of powder from the impact itself,
In fact, an explosion meant to bring down the building would be dead obvious since the shockwave would be visible as it travelled through the smoke and would also have been recorded on film. There is no such wavefront visible.

It's better to be open to conspiracy than to be hoodwinked by other people in this society.That's all I have to say.*psthanks percy for adding my other account onto this one.It's strange the trivialities I was so concerned with before.This message has been edited by Chris Porteus, 11-13-2005 06:16 PM

There's two problems with that, Chris.One is that it can lead to a colossal waste of time, energy, and attention, like that White Water fiasco.The other is that people begin to tune out "conspiracy theories", like the actual conspiracy of the Bush Administration in making up reasons to go to war in Iraq.I agree that our leaders should be distrusted, and everything that they say should be verified by independent sources (which is supposed to be one of the purposes of a free press). But one should be wary of simply accepting just any "conspiracy theory" that comes along.

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

Let's look at what we knowThe planes hit the buildingsThe buildings fell, beginning (remarkably) at the floors where the planes hit -- two different levels in two different towers.The destruction of the towers is adequately explained by the planes.Osama bin Laden (remember him?) is on record as being surprised and pleased that the effect surpassed what they had envisaged happening.That he praised those that flew the planes ...... and no body else.He makes no references to work done by others that could in any way include such "demolition" setting.Complicity by the Botch administration to allow a terrorist attack to succeed (so that they could justify a war on Iraq and the Middle East in general) does not need the towers to be destroyed, just hit (along with the associated death, injury, mayhem and general apoplectic news coverage).There is no need for either Bin Laden or Botch to add demolition of the towers in order to accomplish their supposed goals, even assuming a conspiracy.As conspiracy theories go this one is a bit flat: what is the purpose of this conspiracy? What was the gain by the conspirators? Who benefited by it?It is a ridiculous waste of bandwidth.Meanwhile we have a real conspiracy to delude the public that the Botch adminstration is not lying through their collective teeth about the Iraq war and the Plame game, that there are still coverups of prison abuse that is much more pervasive than what we have seen.What happens everytime Bush gets into hot water: play the 9/11 card. Distract people with some new story about terrorists.Pardon my skepticism.Enjoy.

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My argument isn't the silly "there's no such thing as a conspiracy." My argument is that the 9/11 conspiracy theory is outlandish, but that it appeals to some people because it fits their worldview of government as allpowerful evildoer, deriving perhaps from watching too many Hollywood blockbusters.The reality of the history of governments, especially of western democracies, is of incompent blabbermouths. They rarely do anything right, and they find it very difficult to keep a secret. That's why acceptance of this conspiracy theory reminds me of evangelical's acceptance of Creationism. The specifics of how evolution is false don't matter to Creationists. Old earth or young earth or ID or whatever, as long as it's consistent with their belief that evolution must be wrong, they're happy. In a very similar way, the specifics of how the government committed evil against its own people on 9/11 are also unimportant to conspiracy theorists, as long as it's consistent with their worldview of government as the source of all evil.True conspiracies unravel over time as evidence emerges and accumulates. Conspiracy fantasies only grow more fantastic. As I said earlier, it's not really possible to talk a conspiracy theorist out of a theory he believes in, so it makes no sense to try to argue them out of their delusion by focusing on facts. The passage of time and the increasingly obvious lack of evidence will convince some conspiracy theorists that they were wrong after all, while the rest will only become more and more convinced that the government is actually more sinister and allpowerful than they ever believed possible.--Percy

MK-Ultra sure sounded and looked like a conspiracy fantasy, so much so that few people when hearing of it take it seriously today.The government kidnapphed innocent people, and seduced others by lying, and actually did get some legal volunteers as well, and submitted thousands of American and Canadian citizens to numerous brainwashing techniques, including dosing with high levels of LSD, experimenting on them in secret psychiatric clinics/prisons, sleep deprivation, techniques to break split one's personality and erase memories, electronic and shock treatments, truth drugs, etc, etc,....This occurred from the late 40s, maybe earlier, until at least 1973-4, and for all we know, could be on-going today.Every major research hospital in the nation during the 50s and 60s had an MK-Ultra or related CIA program being run out of it. It spanned multiple administrations, much of it totally illegal and makes the Abu whatever prison scandal in Iraq pale in comparison as far as scope and duration.When under pressure from Congress, Richard Helms in the 70s claims to have shredded the records of the program(s)' victims, although a few victims have been able to win court awards.For the most part, no one has ever been held accountable.It was wacky conspiracy theory that is as fantastic as most of them, and yet completely true. Imo, on the face of it MK-Ultra was as far-out as the idea of aliens at Area 51.

As I said, true conspiracies unravel over time, and this is a significant difference between MKULTRA and Area 51. The 9/11 ct has much more in common with the Area 51 ct - neither have unraveled, presumably because neither happened.But if the 9/11 ct really did happen then just be patient because something that big can never be kept secret. What you're actually arguing now is that there's sufficient information for everyone to realize that the official account is a coverup, but you must realize that not everyone's threshold of evidence is the same. If it really happened then more evidence will emerge as time goes by and people will become convinced. If it didn't happen then what the conspiracy theorists are saying today will change little over time.Crash's argument is that I can't know which theories are wacky without examining them in detail. He's mistaken my reluctance to get into a detailed debate with someone who's bought into a conspiracy theory for being uninformed. I threw out a few facts as a sort of feeler, Razd threw out a bunch more, a few other people contributed, but as I noted, they rolled off just like facts off a Creationist. Further discussion of the facts isn't likely to be fruitful.But even so, it *is* possible to tell a wacky idea without a lot of investigation. It all comes down to how much you already know. I'm arguing now in a manner very similar to Buzsaw, who argued lengthily against modern cosmological views on the basis of what he called common sense. But Buzsaw's common sense was of the ignorant variety. There's actually very little that is common about common sense. It isn't a folk talent that only the simple possess. Rather, the better your knowledge the better will be your common sense. They go together.So my suggestion is to just let the passage of time settle whose common sense is better in judging the credibility of the 9/11 ct. What will happen if you're right is that more and more evidence will gradually emerge, and then you can deliver a big "I told you so" to the rest of us who will have to recalibrate our common sense detectors. What will happen if you're wrong is that the arguments and evidence will change little as the years go by, but, if we can be guided by the past behavior of conspiracy theorists, few will ever concede.--Percy

I don't know who is right. I am just saying I am willing to give the 911 conspiracists an open hearing. Keep in mind I voted for Bush and would never have done that had I thought 911 was some secret gov op.But I do think you are perhaps diminishing the wildness of MK-Ultra and other conspiracies.Take Iran/Contra and Bush the elder saying he was not in the loop. Now, it's not that big a deal to me, in terms as a black op, because it really pales to things like MK-Ultra, but if it had not been exposed, it would be considered a conspiracy.Well, I happen to know a small fact, heard second-hand I admit, meaning I heard it from someone first-hand present with Vice President Bush in a small Latin American nation, that suggests strongly that Bush was "in the loop."But if they had succeeded in covering it up, and they (gov ops) have succeeded in covering up plenty of areas contrary to what you believe, people would just dismiss the story I am aware of.It could be that the conspiracy fantasies you speak of are the conspiracies coming to light. Think about your own life. Have you never had a wrong story spread about you, or saw a company or group spin a story contrary to the way it really happened and saw the error accepted as truth?

To give a sense of what we're talking about you should instead pose the example question, "Have you ever had someone spread a wrong story about you where you single-handedly took on 50 angry Creationists and beat them all to a pulp?" Obviously this deserves casual dismissal.In other words, I'm not judging the 9/11 ct on the basis of whether I think the government is spreading a false account of events or is hiding information. I'm not disputing that governments can and do behave in devious and sinister ways. I'm simply judging it on the basis of its fantastical nature. I know you and Crash disagree with me and others about how unlikely it is, and I'm arguing that ct-ists cannot be talked out of accepting a ct.That's also why I noted the similarity to Creationism. Reaching conclusions on the basis of clearly established and replicatable observations is what Creationism rejects or ignores or misinterprets(depends upon the Creationist), and that same quality seems to be shared by ct-ists. Casting something in a suspicious light is a technique that can be applied to anything, including Mother Teresa's ministering to the poor and suffering. Those who don't keep their eye on the ball regarding reaching conclusions on the basis of reliably established evidence run the risk of being continually misled and misused.--Percy

Hmm...I've more looked at Creationists as people that bothered to look at the facts for themselves instead of just accepting what they are taught, and upon looking at the actual data, finding ToE is comprised mostly of false statements and exegerrations of data. That's how it was for me.It is pretty out there to think 911 was staged, but at the same time, that's a basic concept within black op campaigns. Do something so outrageous, wacky-sounding and fantastic that no one will think it could be true.I think it's foolish to dismiss conspiracy theories out of hand. There is often a sort of establishment thinking that is full of pride and laughs at ideas outside it's paradigm, such as mocking the idea Troy could have existed, or that the earth was once one land mass, or over-the-horizon radar, etc, etc,...It seems for a great many people that their nature is so gullible towards accepting only facts that fit into their paradigm that they reject out of hand, as overly fantastic, anything that doesn't match their beliefs concerning reality. The people bashing conspiracy theories, imo, tend to be people like that, at least to a degree. Even they will know of facts that don't match up, but they just think that one small thing is a real conspiracy or weird reality, but mostly accept only what we all were taught by heavy media manipulation to be true.