LashL
Goddess of Legaltainment™
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 36,711
Nice work, maccy!
Truthers Take On NIST
- Thread starter JamesB
- Start date
Nice work, maccy!
Horatius
NWO Kitty Wrangler
- Joined
- May 9, 2006
- Messages
- 29,691
And yet, stupid twoofers do it anyways.....
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=2192765#post2192765
Arkan_Wolfshade
Philosopher
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2006
- Messages
- 7,154
I've bolded the most relevant parts for your edification:
Dismissing his (yet to be presented) points based on his (as yet undisclosed qualifications) is a fallacy. He is not claiming to be speaking from a position of authority on the subject; therefore his claims must be evaluated on their own merit.
A W Smith
Philosopher
I was going to post that new York state license but after wading through the battle on this thread I see it's already been posted. I see hes had a license since MAY of this year. so his first "projects" are probably just about now being completed. Unless hes a landscape architect by now his shrubbery has already received its first clippings.
This paragraph is a little off topic but after following a couple links from the Henry Theodore Elden letter to the AIA I stumbled upon a one million dollar reward fund setup to disprove that explosives were used. Then theres a link about radiation from samples of debris taken from GZ by some nut case William Tahill. I'm about halfway through this article and I'm thinking.. Radon perhaps? It is southern most building in Manhattan to reach all the way to bedrock. Not to mention the possibility of radon leaking from the path tubes or subways percolating up through the basement levels. I know in NJ we have a radon problem in the geological areas of what is called "The Reading prong". heres a map of geological area at risk. But no, they are thinking there was a reactor planted secretly in the basement that deliberately went china syndrome and caused the collapse. Heres the most amusing part of the article and I quote
WOO!!
Love it!
As an aside, I always womdered why the magic thermite/mate which apparently could slice through steel like a knife through butter AND keep said steel in a liquid molten state for months on end, never ended up boring it's way through the earth to end up in china? Would have saved alot of money in shipping costs...money we NWO can ill afford....
As an aside, I always womdered why the magic thermite/mate which apparently could slice through steel like a knife through butter AND keep said steel in a liquid molten state for months on end, never ended up boring it's way through the earth to end up in china? Would have saved alot of money in shipping costs...money we NWO can ill afford....
The License needs to be renewed every 3 years, so it's possible that he got his first license in 2003 and has recently had to renew it (we know from his resume that in 2000 he was in California and just starting to make his way in architecture).
Likewise the fact that douglasarchitecture.com is showing as being registered in August this year may simply indicate that this was when the domain was renewed or transferred to another provider. The fact that ericscottdouglass.com is shown as being registered on the same date (when the site is obviously older and out of date) makes me think that perhaps the domains were transferred.
Regardless of how long he's been registered, I'd be surprised if someone with such a minimal website, no office and only a cellphone contact number did any work directly with a client or was in any way in charge of any project. My guess is that he works as a contractor for other architects and for construction firms.
A W Smith
Philosopher
If you google earth his address you can see his house or home office. Looks pretty new with concrete pavement surrounding it. Nice looking roof lines from what I can tell.
negativ
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2005
- Messages
- 1,904
Do we have some sort of Sylvia Brown Nostradumbass award for those who make predictions that turn out to be breathtakingly incorrect?
The Almond
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2006
- Messages
- 1,015
I'm slogging through Douglas' article, and I wanted to make some more specific comments.
Abstract
First, the abstract does not read like any abstract I've ever written or read. The author's first line is actually his conclusion, "[...] but NIST did not substantiate its conclusions experimentally." It has no place in an abstract, and it most certainly does not belong as the first sentence. He also makes the rather bold claim that "NIST's physical tests were inadequate." Again, the standard for scientific writing is that conclusions should not be listed in the abstract. The abstract should explain the genesis of the report, a summary of the methods used and ways that the report differentiates itself from other research in the field.
The abstract shows that the author has no concept of scientific publication, but still wishes to emulate the style. It also reflects poorly on the editors of 9/11 Research in that they seem uninterested in producing valid scientific research.
Section 1.0 Introduction
The author makes another bold remark saying, "As members of the building community, we are keenly interested in understanding the cause of these failures [...]" Sadly, the author does not speak for the building community, but displays tremendous ego in attempting to do so.
The author makes his first demonstrably false statement, "[...] a report from FEMA [...] did little to explain the failures of the WTC buildings." While FEMA did underwrite and commission the report, the technical information, investigation and reporting was contracted to the American Society of Civil Engineers and represented the work of the most respected and well published civil engineers in the US.
http://www.asce.org/pressroom/news/display_press.cfm?uid=1057
Suffice it to say, the report was detailed, based on forensic analysis and was published under the auspices of the most gifted minds in civil engineering. Saying that the report did "little" to explain the failures is a demonstrably false characterization of the work.
This statement implies that NIST willfully ignored other building collapses. In truth, the National Construction Safety Team Act directed NIST only to study WTC 1, 2 and 7. See NCSTAR 1 xxix for details. The author has either made a poor choice of words, or is more interested in implying that NIST generally ignores other instances of building collapse.
Continuing with bold statements, the author makes the wildly unsupported claim that, "[...] NIST did very little physical testing, and, of that, much was irrelevant or inconclusive." Such a bold assertion has no place in the introduction, and remains an unsupported assertion throughout the paper.
Another opinion which is unsupported is the statement, "What is disconcerting is that NIST seems to attribute a level of certainty to its computer-generated findings that may be grossly out of scale." Wild speculation has no place in the introduction. Real scientists know this.
Section 2.0 Physical Tests
I've put the first two laughable assertions in quote tags.
Ignoring the fact that the "paucity" of testing is an unsupported opinion, the statement that all of NIST's conclusions are derived from computer simulations is laughable. NIST conducted hundreds of interviews, reviewed thousands of photographs and videos, conducted metallurgical investigations, strength, heating and structural analysis tests in addition to a computer simulation (NCSTAR 1 xxxvi). I honestly can't believe that a statement that demonstrably false made it past any editorial review.
Before I continue, I'd like to make a general remark about the author. In quoting NIST analyses and documentation, he makes no difference between the computer simulations meant to calculate something, and those meant to simulate something. Perhaps it seems like a semantic difference, but it is not. When you have multiple equations with similar variables, you do not always have enough knowns to solve the equations deterministically. In the instance of 15 equations with 16 unknowns, the solution is not likely to have an explicit answer. The solution is to write a computer program that stochastically determines the probability of the unknown event, and then uses it to find the deterministic solution to the remaining events.
It is not sufficient to say that the solutions arrived at through statistical mechanics are computer simulations. They are deterministic relations based on a stochastic simulation. Simulations involve inputing all of the necessary information into a physical model and determining the outcome. NIST performed both simulations and stochastic calculations.
To follow the author's line of reasoning, it is not sufficient for an engineer to size several beams in order to test their load capacity. In instances where one manipulates the section modulus across a matrix of beams, the engineer is using stochastic determination. Note that it does not require the engineer to know the moment or the section modulus to iterate the calcuation and select the beam.
Subsequent references to computer simulations in the paper frequently blur the line between these two choices.
To be continued...
Abstract
First, the abstract does not read like any abstract I've ever written or read. The author's first line is actually his conclusion, "[...] but NIST did not substantiate its conclusions experimentally." It has no place in an abstract, and it most certainly does not belong as the first sentence. He also makes the rather bold claim that "NIST's physical tests were inadequate." Again, the standard for scientific writing is that conclusions should not be listed in the abstract. The abstract should explain the genesis of the report, a summary of the methods used and ways that the report differentiates itself from other research in the field.
The abstract shows that the author has no concept of scientific publication, but still wishes to emulate the style. It also reflects poorly on the editors of 9/11 Research in that they seem uninterested in producing valid scientific research.
Section 1.0 Introduction
The author makes another bold remark saying, "As members of the building community, we are keenly interested in understanding the cause of these failures [...]" Sadly, the author does not speak for the building community, but displays tremendous ego in attempting to do so.
The author makes his first demonstrably false statement, "[...] a report from FEMA [...] did little to explain the failures of the WTC buildings." While FEMA did underwrite and commission the report, the technical information, investigation and reporting was contracted to the American Society of Civil Engineers and represented the work of the most respected and well published civil engineers in the US.
http://www.asce.org/pressroom/news/display_press.cfm?uid=1057
Suffice it to say, the report was detailed, based on forensic analysis and was published under the auspices of the most gifted minds in civil engineering. Saying that the report did "little" to explain the failures is a demonstrably false characterization of the work.
This statement implies that NIST willfully ignored other building collapses. In truth, the National Construction Safety Team Act directed NIST only to study WTC 1, 2 and 7. See NCSTAR 1 xxix for details. The author has either made a poor choice of words, or is more interested in implying that NIST generally ignores other instances of building collapse.
Continuing with bold statements, the author makes the wildly unsupported claim that, "[...] NIST did very little physical testing, and, of that, much was irrelevant or inconclusive." Such a bold assertion has no place in the introduction, and remains an unsupported assertion throughout the paper.
Another opinion which is unsupported is the statement, "What is disconcerting is that NIST seems to attribute a level of certainty to its computer-generated findings that may be grossly out of scale." Wild speculation has no place in the introduction. Real scientists know this.
Section 2.0 Physical Tests
I've put the first two laughable assertions in quote tags.
Ignoring the fact that the "paucity" of testing is an unsupported opinion, the statement that all of NIST's conclusions are derived from computer simulations is laughable. NIST conducted hundreds of interviews, reviewed thousands of photographs and videos, conducted metallurgical investigations, strength, heating and structural analysis tests in addition to a computer simulation (NCSTAR 1 xxxvi). I honestly can't believe that a statement that demonstrably false made it past any editorial review.
Before I continue, I'd like to make a general remark about the author. In quoting NIST analyses and documentation, he makes no difference between the computer simulations meant to calculate something, and those meant to simulate something. Perhaps it seems like a semantic difference, but it is not. When you have multiple equations with similar variables, you do not always have enough knowns to solve the equations deterministically. In the instance of 15 equations with 16 unknowns, the solution is not likely to have an explicit answer. The solution is to write a computer program that stochastically determines the probability of the unknown event, and then uses it to find the deterministic solution to the remaining events.
It is not sufficient to say that the solutions arrived at through statistical mechanics are computer simulations. They are deterministic relations based on a stochastic simulation. Simulations involve inputing all of the necessary information into a physical model and determining the outcome. NIST performed both simulations and stochastic calculations.
To follow the author's line of reasoning, it is not sufficient for an engineer to size several beams in order to test their load capacity. In instances where one manipulates the section modulus across a matrix of beams, the engineer is using stochastic determination. Note that it does not require the engineer to know the moment or the section modulus to iterate the calcuation and select the beam.
Subsequent references to computer simulations in the paper frequently blur the line between these two choices.
To be continued...
Oliver
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 17,396
I don´t think he means "you pressed the ban button" - but he
thinks you used your Jedi-Forces on Darat and Lisa to ban him.
JamesB
Master Poster
- Joined
- May 27, 2006
- Messages
- 2,152
Editorial review? This is the Journal for 9/11 Studies we are talking about, the journal whose standards are not even high enough for Judy "Keebler Elves Death Star" Wood.
WilliamSeger
Philosopher
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2006
- Messages
- 5,092
Just one quick observation after reading about half that criticism of the NIST report: Conspiracy wackjobs always seem to assume that the primary purpose of the FEMA and NIST investigations was (or should have been!) to satisfy the conspiracy wackjobs that the buildings weren't "blown to kingdom come" by the government, so their primary criticism always centers around how those investigations "failed" in one way or another. Well, by that criteria, any investigation would fail, so that's just not a realistic, achievable goal to set. And the reason is: any effort that FEMA and NIST put into achieving that objective would simply be seen as just more deliberate effort to cover up the "truth."
An excellent observation.
I've read this latest fruit of the "Journal" of 911 Studies end to end. Though I haven't yet printed out and compared their excerpts from the NIST report in context to see whether they've correctly interpreted NIST, or whether they've quote-mined. For now I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and assume all quotes are represented fairly. Still, my impressions are similar to yours.
One that leaps out at me is this one, from Section 2.2, page 5:
Eric Douglas @ "Journal" of 911 Studies said:
I paraphrase the argument as follows:
- NIST physical tests, burning mockups representative of the office situation, burned out in about 20 minutes.
- After burnout, air temperature rapidly dropped below 600 degrees Celsius.
- The WTC Towers stood longer than 20 minutes.
- This is incompatible. Either the Towers should have fallen in that 20 minute span, which they didn't, thus "explosives" are needed, or
- the NIST experiments are totally irrelevant, and the NIST report is a sham.
- Since fires were observed from impact to collapse, and in fact increased during that time, there is no reason to suspect the temperature drop observed after burnout in the NIST experiments ever occurred in the WTC case. The post-burnout temperature is totally irrelevant.
- This does not make the NIST experiment invalid. Fire duration would have been amplified by the fact that it was spreading rather than all ignited at once. It may also have been oxygen-limited, true, spreading out its energy output over a longer span of time.
- Oxygen limiting does not necessarily mean a cooler fire. Most of the energy output would have been absorbed by the structure and released over a long period of time, particularly if the airflow was low -- and the total energy release did not change. It is even possible that a slower fire with the same fuel volume would lead to a higher temperature in the steel.
- Even if burnout had occurred before the towers fell, it does not guarantee they would remain standing. Steel that is heated beyond a certain point, and then cooled, has annealed and may permanently lose its strength and ductility.
- Furthermore, heating and cooling also means expansion and contraction. A suspected failure mode in the WTC collapses is the floor trusses expanding as they weakened, leading to sagging (seen in photographs), followed by trusses -- still attached -- cooling and contracting but retaining their bowed shape. This leads to an immense inward pull on outer columns, and an opposite pull on the core columns.
- Therefore, the assertion that the Towers must have fallen in the 20 minute burn period is completely wrong.
The rest of the paper contains similar errors of reasoning. And not a single equation. I'll not bother with a thorough debunk unless someone here really, really wants one.
OMGturt1es
Graduate Poster
i don't think any of us will want one; i think that debunking in this case would benefit only those that are out there just starting to research the 911 CT claims. i wonder if this paper will reach anyone that isn't already a hard core 911 CTer...?
regardless, in the best interest of public opinion, it's probably best to debunk the hell out of every festering pile of crap that comes from the "truth movement", though i can imagine that any time spent on this paper would certainly seem like a waste...
patchbunny
Graduate Poster
(Why, why am I getting involved in this...)
I don't understand Ct'ers obsession with these numbers, as if they're magic values that must be reached for failure. Steel looses strength as soon as it's heated. At just over 200'C you're at 80% yield strength. Kinks in columns from impact loads and creep will reduce maximum column loads independent of any fire. Fire just makes it worse.