Loose Change - Part IV

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brumsen said:
True. But it's not very courageous not to stand behind one's judgement and withdrawing it for fear of controversy, is it?
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Or, it's reasonable to cut a colleague some slack when they've given their assurance that their paper would be submitted for proper peer review.

Or, it would be ethical to remove the statements if it was determined that Jones' claims were not investigated thoroughly enough.

I don't know if either of these were the case, but they seem like reasonable possibilities.
 
Gravy said:
Or, it's reasonable to cut a colleague some slack when they've given their assurance that their paper would be submitted for proper peer review.

Or, it would be ethical to remove the statements if it was determined that Jones' claims were not investigated thoroughly enough.

I don't know if either of these were the case, but they seem like reasonable possibilities.
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It was on the basis of something like your second possibility that the dean was written to, stating that a complaint to ASME was being considered.

Of course, the ethical thing was not to have published those statements in the first place, if they agreed that such a complaint might have a basis. However, there has to my knowledge not been any official retraction. So it keeps circulating, as evidenced on this forum as well.

However, I don't see how this undercuts my position that it is not very courageous to withdraw such a statement, without changing one's mind. I mean: either you withdraw because you agree that the issues have not been researched enough, but you attempt to bolster your statement by doing the research and engaging in discussion with Jones, perhaps eventually re-publishing the statement; or you withdraw because you don't want to bother. But, well, making a statement without wanting to defend it when pressed.... and then not even retracting it, but just removing... hmmm.
 
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brumsen said:
Would you be so kind as to point us to where these quotes may be found, for they are not on the URLs you include.
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“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,” it reads in part.

“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 structural engineering faculty in the Fulton College of Engineering and Technology do not support the hypotheses of Professor Jones.”
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http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/57724

eta:
Even trying to get to the announcements page of the CE site yields http://www.et.byu.edu/ce/LayerAnnouncements
Not Found
The requested URL /ce/LayerAnnouncements was not found on this server.

Apache/1.3.29 Server at www.et.byu.edu Port 80
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brumsen said:
That's a newsarticle quoting a statement that was on a website at the time of writing - december 2005. It is not anymore.
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Have they published a statement officially retracting their position, or did they just take the statement down? There is a significant different between the two in the academic world.

ETA: And I also think it is telling that BYU has allowed the news article to remain as is, without having them add a follow-up statement indicating that the statements were removed.
 
Arkan_Wolfshade said:
Have they published a statement officially retracting their position, or did they just take the statement down? There is a significant different between the two in the academic world.

ETA: And I also think it is telling that BYU has allowed the news article to remain as is, without having them add a follow-up statement indicating that the statements were removed.
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I have contacted the College of Engineering at BYU to confirm these quotes. If I get approval from them I will post their reply in full here.

What I sent
Dear Sir or Madam,

I am contacting you to ensure that I am not misrepsenting BYU in quoting statements made by your faculty on my webblog. If possible I would like to verify with you that veracity of the quotes and if BYU (a) stands by these statements or (b) has retracted these statements. The statements in question are as follows:
"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 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." - A. Woodruff Miller, Department Chair, BYU department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

and

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

I thank you for your assistence in this matter and would also like to ask if I may quote your response regarding these statements?

Thank you for help.

Sincerely,
xxxxxxxxx
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gumboot said:
I think they will be very suspicious about a letter from someone who just puts a whole lot of X's instead of a name...:rolleyes:

Maybe you should have signed it with a big wolf paw print ;)

-Andrew
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Dangit, did I forget the 'o's between the 'x's?

eta: note to self: stop posting/email before having coffee
 
gumboot said:
The whole FOIA thing is just INSANE. And it's not just Americans that can get the information!

And this is the country in which the government is establishing a police state? :confused:

The US would have to be the worst police state EVER!

I wonder how asking for a FOIA release on the Fuhrer's directive for the "final solution" would have gone in 1944 Germany...

-Andrew

ETA. Any time I hear a claim of police state, I try imagine a similar scenario occuring in Nazi Germany or the USSR. It's laughable what these CTers call a "police state".
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Don't forget: this is the most craftily genius/bumblingly idiotic cabal in the history of mankind.
 
brumsen said:
I don't have that evidence. FeO claims to have it, but OK, that is second-hand.


Yes, the journal is published by the "Scholars", on that we agree. But even if they - especially Fetzer - do not cease to talk about their authority, this is not how they defend the reputation of the journal, to my knowledge at least. If so, please provide evidence of that.


Right, I suppose all this means that we can safely dissociate the credibility of Judy Wood's claims from the credibility of the journal?
ETA: Wood appears to have left the Scholars; she's no longer listed. Interesting.


:confused: In your earlier post you said you were one of the editors?
Anyway, it's the editors that shape the future of the journal - and that also means solliciting good articles. But authors just want their work published - they do not care about shaping the future of a journal - they just want their work to get the best possible exposure.
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And you believe FeO? What has he ever done or said to establish his credibility in this matter?

Well that is certainly interesting that Wood left. That cuts their number of engineers in half. That just leaves the French guy who thinks we are testing anti-matter weapons o Jupiter. Well at least they still have 9 philosophy professors.

I don't know how you can evaluate the reputation of a publication separate from the reputation of the organization that runs it. If the KKK started a journal on race relations, how credible would you consider it? Or Jim Fetzer's favorite, the American Free Press, for that matter...

Sorry, I explained my role poorly. I am not in "in charge" of JOD911. I am one of the people who contributes to it, and I discuss issues with the other people who basically help run it so I obviously have influence, but I am not solely in control. I was trying to say that that I could not speak on behalf of everyone else what it is supposed to be, it was just my opinion. It is pretty informal, we don't really follow a formal editorial process, just pass papers around and comment on them. Even so, we manage to use more credible evidence and make fewer mistakes than the "Scholars".
 
chipmunk stew said:
Don't forget: this is the most craftily genius/bumblingly idiotic cabal in the history of mankind.
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A police state need not come during a coup. Sometimes, the approach is the death of a thousand cuts. The sheep keep waiting for a better sheepdog, and all the while get sheared.

Look at what 30 years of "tort gone wild" has done to liability costs, and thus costs of all sorts in general. The Tort Tax digs a hole in your pocket, and has arrived as the death of a thousand cuts.

Been to an airport lately? Been to a bar lately where state law forbids smoking, even though the owner permits it?

The "freedoms" that are taken for granted are lost unless someone fights for them. If you don't work at your rights, and fight for them (be it in court, in letters, with fists, whatever) you will lose them. Someone always wants to tell you what to do.

As a sound byte: freedom isn't free.

DR
 
I, for one, have never had a problem with them creating a journal. Any group can so so. The problem I, and many here have had, is with their fequent use of the term "PEER REVIEWED" wrt to the articles in the journal.

The term is one used to indicate that the article has been read and evaluated by a group on individuals qualified in the subject of the article, in the case of a scientific article, and then published with their approval.

The problem is we have no idea who is "Peer Reviewing" the papers. Now a paper of "Philosophy, done by Fetzer, I can see being PEER REVIEWED, by the scholars, as there are tonnes of Philosophy proffs, and the like in their group. But as for papers published by Ross, and S. Jones, I would like to know the credentials of the "PEERS" and how many there were that reviewed the paper. Other wise, I think there is a serious ethical breech in misleading readers that these articles are truely PEER REVIEWED.

"PEER REVIEWED" to most in the science community, adds tremendous weight to the validity of a paper, because in most official, well respected journals, we know a panel of true experts in the field in question have reviewed it. We do not know this to be the case in the "Journal for 9/11 Studies", so I think they should come forward with their "PEER REVIEW COMMITTEE" for each of the scientific studies they publish.

Same goes for Gravy, wrt the journal he is forming. If he is to call the papers in it "PEER REVIEWED" I would want to know, through written proof, that the papers are truely REVIEWED and oked, by PEERS in the given field/subject.

T.A.M.
 
This thread was posted on the BautForum. It is amusing in that due to simple qualifications (internal consistency and obeying the laws of physics) I rather doubt that any theory will ever be posted there...or that any theory would qualify.
 
Darth Rotor said:
A police state need not come during a coup. Sometimes, the approach is the death of a thousand cuts. The sheep keep waiting for a better sheepdog, and all the while get sheared.

Look at what 30 years of "tort gone wild" has done to liability costs, and thus costs of all sorts in general. The Tort Tax digs a hole in your pocket, and has arrived as the death of a thousand cuts.

Been to an airport lately? Been to a bar lately where state law forbids smoking, even though the owner permits it?

The "freedoms" that are taken for granted are lost unless someone fights for them. If you don't work at your rights, and fight for them (be it in court, in letters, with fists, whatever) you will lose them. Someone always wants to tell you what to do.

As a sound byte: freedom isn't free.

DR
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In a police state you can't fight for your freedoms within the law. Libertarian-leaning folks have a tendency to abuse the term. In many parts of the world, "police state" is not hyperbole.
 
I'm confused. Wasn't there a poll a couple weeks ago that the troothers jumped all over stating something like every single American (and 8 out of 10 dogs) thinks that the US government had a hand in 9/11?

'Cause now there's this poll... stating most Americans think Bin Laden is planning another attack.

Is this the government trying to brainwash us? Or is it possible polls in general are poop?
 
realitybites said:
I'm confused. Wasn't there a poll a couple weeks ago that the troothers jumped all over stating something like every single American (and 8 out of 10 dogs) thinks that the US government had a hand in 9/11?

'Cause now there's this poll... stating most Americans think Bin Laden is planning another attack.

Is this the government trying to brainwash us? Or is it possible polls in general are poop?
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I vote poop.
100% of respondents to your question think they're poop.
 
realitybites said:
I'm confused. Wasn't there a poll a couple weeks ago that the troothers jumped all over stating something like every single American (and 8 out of 10 dogs) thinks that the US government had a hand in 9/11?

'Cause now there's this poll... stating most Americans think Bin Laden is planning another attack.

Is this the government trying to brainwash us? Or is it possible polls in general are poop?
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BTW, I don't have cable. Is anyone planning on TiVo'ing the CNN Bin Laden documentary?
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/presents/bin.laden/
 
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