Metatheory and the NIST report

[Tony Szamboti]

So, then:
What is the difference between using explosives to weaken the structure and using an aircraft and fire to weaken the structure?

Positioning.

 

[beachnut]

your lack of facts, posts and papers, and flying

Is that right? I remember being all over the place my first time in a flight simulator. It was for an F-14 when I was in the Navy. I was in a mechanics course and we were taken over to the simulator as a treat.

Darn, I guess your inability to do proper research affects your ability to fly a plane as well as kids off the street with no flying background. It must be a personal problem. The kids hit the building first time. The p4t are as challenged at flying as you are, go join them. Pilots for truth are unable to hit buildings too. Sad, you, p4t, are not as good as murdering terrorist. Who would guess?

Uh, this is a relative effect and depends on the intensity of the fire and the heat transfer in the structure. It doesn't usually happen in steel framed structure fires, especially those of such short duration as experienced by the towers. Please explain why NIST has virtually no physical evidence for high steel temperatures.

You forgot to read NIST, and you forgot to check those independent sources. You even ignore the Lead Structural Engineer of the WTC. Fire destroys the strength of steel, you are trying to make up stuff and lie about CD. Sorry, you are wrong again.

In fact, I just noticed something interesting in the Madrid Windsor building fire. While it is true that there was a partial collapse of the outside of the top ten stories, after a raging inferno of 24 hours, it seems when you look close at the photos that the floor trusses aren't sagging. Isn't that interesting!

In less than 2 hours the Madrid steel was "exploding" all over the place as it was destroyed, the strength, from fire. Check your facts, you seem to mess up flying and research equally bad. Facts?

You forget to mention that CD does it with a little help from that nasty word around here "explosives". CD isn't happening without "explosives" first to take away the designed in resistance to gravity and then gravity assist.

No you seem to forget, CD does not happen if there is no gravity. Gravity is the main energy behind all CD, and as you see on 9/11 as over 200 tons of TNT energy was released from impact and fire. Your inability ot understand physics and your BS paper are proof you have some bias toward the facts and the truth. Your paper can not even get the design impact correct. Why? Slow speed impact. You sure are stubborn being wrong.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

Darn, I guess your inability to do proper research affects your ability to fly a plane as well as kids off the street with no flying background. It must be a personal problem. The kids hit the building first time. The p4t are as challenged at flying as you are, go join them. Pilots for truth are unable to hit buildings too. Sad, you, p4t, are not as good as murdering terrorist. Who would guess?

You forgot to read NIST, and you forgot to check those independent sources. You even ignore the Lead Structural Engineer of the WTC. Fire destroys the strength of steel, you are trying to make up stuff and lie about CD. Sorry, you are wrong again.

In less than 2 hours the Madrid steel was "exploding" all over the place as it was destroyed, the strength, from fire. Check your facts, you seem to mess up flying and research equally bad. Facts?

No you seem to forget, CD does not happen if there is no gravity. Gravity is the main energy behind all CD, and as you see on 9/11 as over 200 tons of TNT energy was released from impact and fire. Your inability ot understand physics and your BS paper are proof you have some bias toward the facts and the truth. Your paper can not even get the design impact correct. Why? Slow speed impact. You sure are stubborn being wrong.

It seems all you do is just say someone else is wrong with very little to back it up. CD just won't happen without explosives. We all understand that and yet you still try to spin it.

 

[beachnut]

do you know what it means? Falsifiability

Sorry, that's wrong...
Being as there is no A36 steel that doesn't get weaker and more flexible with increasing temperature, that wouldn't falsify the theory.

What Jay Howard was saying is if you can't falsify the theory, it's not a valid theory.
Any theory that's "unfalsifiable" has no value.

TerryUK, you know not what you speak of. Let me guess, you do not understand this "unfalsifiable" junk do you? You are making a big error in what you are saying and your post is ironic. You should stop while you are wrong once. If you can not find the NIST theory to be falsifiable you better stick with hearsay junk and leave the science stuff alone.

Jay and Greg are two people who have joined the frige group of 9/11 truth and try to defend unfalsifiable theories. They have CD, with MIB setting and detonating explosives on 9/11. Since we can never find these MIB, their theories are unfalsifiable. They may as well say that Bugs Bunny did 9/11. As Jay supports Jones and some unknown thermite derivative, and Greg supports examining minutia after signing with the Scholars for Truth as they tilt towards insanity, what are you doing? With each post you are showing you may not understand what Falsifiability means.

 

[beachnut]

at least your posts mirror your error ridden paper

It seems all you do is just say someone else is wrong with very little to back it up. CD just won't happen without explosives. We all understand that and yet you still try to spin it.

Why do you insist on missing the big picture?

CD does happen without explosives. In fact I can name many ways it has happen, no explosives. And as an engineer, I can make up ways without explosives. You better run along, your posts are matching your paper's lack of research and the many errors.

Why have you limited your mind by joining research challenged dolts in the 9/11 truth movement who make up lies?

You are wrong about flying, it is easy to do what the terrorist did on 9/11. There seem to be people unable to fly, like you and the pilots for truth. I find that ironic. You limit the world based on your short comings. Irony.

You do not even know how and when the Madrid building failed. And you do not tell the world the Madrid building is not around now because of fire destroyed the strength of the steel. Irony. Madrid building is gone, due to fire. Why are truthers so ironic, picking a building whose strength was destroyed by fire, and the building was totaled?

 

[GregoryUrich]

I was going to link you to my earlier post, but I see that you did it for me... You will, therefore, note that it was I who explained to all of you that a hypothesis could be falsified even in the absence of competing hypotheses. Nowhere have I backtracked from that position.

Clinging? Hardly. It simply makes for the most efficient demonstration. Being actually tested against an alternate theory is a sufficient, but not necessary, condition for falsifiability.

I use that example simply because virtually everyone is aware of the "pancake" vs. "pull-in" theories, and virtually everyone is aware that NIST tested these two hypotheses, finding one to be false and the other true. As I said before, the existence of this test proves beyond ANY DOUBT that the NIST hypothesis is falsifiable. To deny this, you have to either prove that such a test never took place, or resort to sophistry and somehow claim that the NIST hypothesis lost its character of falsifiability afterwards.

Sufficient but not necessary, Greg. C'mon, you could have figured that out.

Tell you what. I'm in a charitable mood today, and I was trained as an experimentalist. You may pick any feature from the NIST hypothesis -- large or small, detailed or coarse, sound or speculative -- and I will tell you how to devise an experimental test of that hypothesis. Anything. The only ground rule is that it must actually be a part of the NIST hypothesis, and I insist upon references to the Report.

This won't even be hard.

On Monday I leave for the Cape for a week, so if you don't have anything until after then, you may have to wait for a reply.

Testing a theory against other theories is NOT sufficient to demonstrate falsifiability. There is nothing to keep us from testing two unfalsifiable theories against each other thus proving falsifiability for both. Do you see the circular logic? You are wrong about this one Mackey.

 

[Corsair 115]

Is that right? I remember being all over the place my first time in a flight simulator. It was for an F-14 when I was in the Navy.

If it's an F-14, then I'd expect you to be all over the place. Flying straight and level is most definitely not something you do not want to do when there's a Mig on your six.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

If it's an F-14, then I'd expect you to be all over the place. Flying straight and level is most definitely not something you do not want to do when there's a Mig on your six.

All of the simulations weren't dogfights. Just keeping the plane straight and level was a chore at first and landing was especially difficult. I crashed several times. There is a good reason to get a number of hours in simulators before even taking the stick in a real plane. It isn't quite as second nature as Beachy would have us believe.

I also would like to know if Beachnut's kids flew on instruments at 35,000 feet and navigated their way down to the towers perfectly.

 

[Corsair 115]

Just keeping the plane straight and level was a chore at first and landing was especially difficult.

But of course an F-14 will have rather different flying characteristics from a commerical jetliner such as the 757 or 767.

What kind of landings were you simulating - a carrier landing or a regular airfield? That would make a difference. Landing is certainly a tricky thing, as you are generally flying low and slow which leaves relatively little room for error.

That said, when I got some time in a real 737 simulator for my 16th birthday many years ago, I took over the jet on landing approach and was able to fly it in and land it each time. Sometimes I was over the glide slope, sometimes below, but I got it onto the runway.

I crashed several times.

So did the terrorists flying the hijacked jets, if I recall correctly.

There is a good reason to get a number of hours in simulators before even taking the stick in a real plane. It isn't quite as second nature as Beachy would have us believe.

It certainly doesn't hurt. But as with many things, some folks will have more natural aptitude than others.

I also would like to know if Beachnut's kids flew on instruments at 35,000 feet and navigated their way down to the towers perfectly.

Navigating is not hard, it's just a matter of having some familiarity with the appropriate equipment and procedures. Microsoft Flight Simulator or other similar program will teach anyone the basics of navigating an aircraft. Combine that with some actual hours in a flight instruction course and it shouldn't be a problem at all.

 

[beachnut]

funny stuff, no instruments required for 9/11

All of the simulations weren't dogfights. Just keeping the plane straight and level was a chore at first and landing was especially difficult. I crashed several times. There is a good reason to get a number of hours in simulators before even taking the stick in a real plane. It isn't quite as second nature as Beachy would have us believe.

I also would like to know if Beachnut's kids flew on instruments at 35,000 feet and navigated their way down to the towers perfectly.

9/11 was clear and million. You do not need Instruments on a clear day. Like your paper your post is in error.

Taking the stick in a real airplane is what I did for a living. I have had people in real planes, big jets (300,000 pounds) who could hit buildings with ease. Seems like there are only a few people so challenged with reality they can not fly a simple plane.

As we all know, the planes on 9/11 were not landing, so one hard part of flying was not a factor. Gee, they cut the throats of the pilots after the pilots did the other hard part of flying, getting the plane airborne and setting up systems. Seems like facts are big challenge to truthers with a one track bs system of lies and misinformation.

BIG PICTURE, mother nature supplies the instruments for 9/11, clear day, see earth, fly plane. Why do you make errors. No instruments required for 9/11. (posted by instructor/evaluator/command pilot, USAF)

I also would like to know if Beachnut's kids flew on instruments at 35,000 feet and navigated their way down to the towers perfectly.

This tough, go to ocean (head towards the east, the sun "rises in the east"), fly south, turn right at NYC. The WTC stood out from many miles away. Seem like a kid would go to the coast and turn south, and then see NYC and be done. Why are you so challenged on what a 4th grade kid can figure out. Do you get lost a lot? Why do truthers lack the judgment of 4th graders? (how many kids would bring their GPSs, or just a sane brain?)

 

[R.Mackey]

Testing a theory against other theories is NOT sufficient to demonstrate falsifiability. There is nothing to keep us from testing two unfalsifiable theories against each other thus proving falsifiability for both. Do you see the circular logic? You are wrong about this one Mackey.

Are you claiming that the "pancake theory" versus the "pull-in theory" was a contest of two unfalsifiable theories?

If so, how do you account for the fact that the "pancake theory" was falsified?

Sheer madness. The same test that falsified the "pancake theory," had it gone the other way, would have falsified the NIST theory. Therefore, the NIST theory is falsifiable. I am utterly baffled as how anyone could conclude otherwise, yet there you are, doing exactly that.

I also note you haven't taken me up on my challenge. Interesting.

 

[A W Smith]

The Illusion of Unfalsifiability and Why It Matters

I cannot access the entire article since I am not at a participating library or institution. But the first page is interesting even though the subject is evolution and not 911,

 

[jay howard]

The discussion merits some clarification on falsifiability and how it bears on this particular problem.

Maybe this will help clarify the issues at stake here. This is from Popper's 1962 essay, "Science, Pseudo-Science and Falsifiability":

These considerations led me in the winter of 1919–20 to conclusions which I may now reformulate as follows.

1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory—if we look for confirmations.
2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory—an event which would have refuted the theory.
3. Every "good" scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability; some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of "corroborating evidence.")
7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers—for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by re-interpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a "conventionalist twist" or a "conventionalist stratagem.")

Is the NIST theory of collapse "genuinely testable"?

What claims does the theory depend on which are testable?

How can a test be designed to attempt to disprove these claims?

Keep in mind, all of you who support (or simply believe) the official story, this is what you want. If you cannot design a test whose purpose it is to refute the theory, it cannot yet be said to reside in the realm of science.

But first, we need to know specifically what conditions the theory posits for the collapse to ensue. After we have these in some specificity, then we design a test to refute the predictions. If the theory passes the test, we have confirmation (not proof) of the theory. The more risky, i.e., specific the predictions, the stronger the theory.

Myriad had some useful examples:

Evidence that the entire contents of the impact floors were noncombustible.

Not bad, but there is no argument that the contents were combustible or not. The argument on this issue is "how combustible were the contents?"

"Were the contents combustible enough to initiate the collapse?"

There are several factors in play, so if we pursue this, the theoretical predictions and questions will get reciprocally more specific.

The problem with combustibility that has been pointed out on more than one occasion here is that the NIST models used to demonstrate the collapse of the towers must estimate their fuel load in order to recreate the fires. What NIST calls its "middle cases" or "realistic cases" employs 4 lb/sq ft of office fuel. This estimate is cited several times throughout the NIST literature as a "reasonable estimate." However, when the simulations are run according to these estimates, the towers DO NOT FALL.

Those who constantly admonish others to "read the reports" have undoubtedly come across this line in reference to the modeling factors of most influence:

The most influential [factor in the severity of the fires in the simulations] was the mass of combustibles per unit of floor area (fuel load); second was the extent of core wall damage, which affected the air supply for the fires. (126)

Now, for all of you who would vouch for the authenticity of the simulations by virtue of their various confirmations of the thermal modeling should be asking why the "middle/realistic cases" did not fail. Indeed, what grounds did the NIST scientists increase the most influential factor in the severity of the fires by 25 percent in order to produce the elusive "global collapse" which their theory predicts?

Mackey had proposed earlier that if I were to produce a model with the rigor of the NIST report in which the towers did not fail, he would consider it seriously. Fortunately for me, NIST already produced such a model. In fact, their non-collapsing model was, by all appearances, more accurate than their collapsing model.

Why then, does this model NOT count as a genuine counterexample of the NIST collapse theory?

 

[A W Smith]

if the towers steel had sprayed on concrete with mineral fiber reinforcement for fireproofing. Maybe they wouldn't have collapsed? does that qualify for a falsification?

 

[GlennB]

Jay - you've been asked to post some examples of evidence of your claim that temperatures greater than can be reached in office fires occurred in WTC.
So far, you're 0/2.

Do you have any more?

 

[GregoryUrich]

Are you claiming that the "pancake theory" versus the "pull-in theory" was a contest of two unfalsifiable theories?

If so, how do you account for the fact that the "pancake theory" was falsified?

Sheer madness. The same test that falsified the "pancake theory," had it gone the other way, would have falsified the NIST theory. Therefore, the NIST theory is falsifiable. I am utterly baffled as how anyone could conclude otherwise, yet there you are, doing exactly that.

I also note you haven't taken me up on my challenge. Interesting.

Falsifiability according to Wikipedia:

Falsificationism
Naïve falsificationism is an unsuccessful attempt to prescribe a rationally unavoidable method for science. Sophisticated methodological falsification, on the other hand, is a prescription of a way in which scientists ought to behave as a matter of choice. The object of this is to arrive at an evolutionary process whereby theories become less bad.

Naïve falsification considers scientific statements individually. Scientific theories are formed from groups of these sorts of statements, and it is these groups that must be accepted or rejected by scientists. Scientific theories can always be defended by the addition of ad hoc hypothesis. As Popper put it, a decision is required on the part of the scientist to accept or reject the statements that go to make up a theory or that might falsify it. At some point, the weight of the ad hoc hypotheses and disregarded falsifying observations will become so great that it becomes unreasonable to support the base theory any longer, and a decision will be made to reject it.

In place of naïve falsification, Popper envisioned science as evolving by the successive rejection of falsified theories, rather than falsified statements. Falsified theories are to be replaced by theories that can account for the phenomena that falsified the prior theory, that is, with greater explanatory power. For example, Aristotelian mechanics explained observations of everyday situations, but were falsified by Galileo’s experiments, and were themselves replaced by Newtonian mechanics, which accounted for the phenomena noted by Galileo (and others). Newtonian mechanics' reach included the observed motion of the planets and the mechanics of gases. Or at least most of them; the size of the precession of the orbit of Mercury was not predicted by Newtonian mechanics, but was by Einstein's general relativity. The Youngian wave theory of light (i.e., waves carried by the luminiferous aether) replaced Newton's (and many of the Classical Greeks') particles of light but in its turn was falsified by the Michelson-Morley experiment, whose results were eventually understood as incompatible with an ether and which was superseded by Maxwell's electrodynamics and Einstein's special relativity, which did account for the new phenomena.

At each stage, experimental observation made a theory untenable (i.e., falsified it) and a new theory was found that had greater explanatory power (i.e., could account for the previously unexplained phenomena), and as a result, provided greater opportunity for its own falsification.

Theories cannot falsify other theories, only observations that do not fit the a theory can falsify it. Theories can replace other theories as being "more good" in terms of explanatory power. But what they are explaining is an observation that the less good theory was incapable of explaining.

 

[R.Mackey]

Theories cannot falsify other theories, only observations that do not fit the a theory can falsify it. Theories can replace other theories as being "more good" in terms of explanatory power. But what they are explaining is an observation that the less good theory was incapable of explaining.

You're just tapdancing now. I didn't say that the NIST theory falsified the "pancake" theory. I said that they were tested, that one was falsified, that different results of the test would have falsified the other, and this process proves that both are falsifiable.

Ergo, the NIST theory is falsifiable, and my use of the "pancake theory" example is correct.

Now, please, get on with whatever you had to say about the NIST theory.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

The discussion merits some clarification on falsifiability and how it bears on this particular problem.

Maybe this will help clarify the issues at stake here. This is from Popper's 1962 essay, "Science, Pseudo-Science and Falsifiability":



Is the NIST theory of collapse "genuinely testable"?

What claims does the theory depend on which are testable?

How can a test be designed to attempt to disprove these claims?

Keep in mind, all of you who support (or simply believe) the official story, this is what you want. If you cannot design a test whose purpose it is to refute the theory, it cannot yet be said to reside in the realm of science.

But first, we need to know specifically what conditions the theory posits for the collapse to ensue. After we have these in some specificity, then we design a test to refute the predictions. If the theory passes the test, we have confirmation (not proof) of the theory. The more risky, i.e., specific the predictions, the stronger the theory.

Myriad had some useful examples:



Not bad, but there is no argument that the contents were combustible or not. The argument on this issue is "how combustible were the contents?"

"Were the contents combustible enough to initiate the collapse?"

There are several factors in play, so if we pursue this, the theoretical predictions and questions will get reciprocally more specific.

The problem with combustibility that has been pointed out on more than one occasion here is that the NIST models used to demonstrate the collapse of the towers must estimate their fuel load in order to recreate the fires. What NIST calls its "middle cases" or "realistic cases" employs 4 lb/sq ft of office fuel. This estimate is cited several times throughout the NIST literature as a "reasonable estimate." However, when the simulations are run according to these estimates, the towers DO NOT FALL.

Those who constantly admonish others to "read the reports" have undoubtedly come across this line in reference to the modeling factors of most influence:

Now, for all of you who would vouch for the authenticity of the simulations by virtue of their various confirmations of the thermal modeling should be asking why the "middle/realistic cases" did not fail. Indeed, what grounds did the NIST scientists increase the most influential factor in the severity of the fires by 25 percent in order to produce the elusive "global collapse" which their theory predicts?

Mackey had proposed earlier that if I were to produce a model with the rigor of the NIST report in which the towers did not fail, he would consider it seriously. Fortunately for me, NIST already produced such a model. In fact, their non-collapsing model was, by all appearances, more accurate than their collapsing model.

Why then, does this model NOT count as a genuine counterexample of the NIST collapse theory?

How about a genuine test to see if an initially slow moving short distance collapse would immediately pulverize the first things it struck. Take a look at the beginnings of the collapse of WTC2 again to get an idea.

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/collapse update/--=Close-up of south tower collapse.mpg

 

[TerryUK]

As for "falsifying" the NIST "Theory", all you have to do is find a piece of A36 steel that doesn't get weaker and more flexible with increasing temperature. That'll do the trick, right there.

My apologies rwguinn - I replied in haste, my stupid mistake.

Yes that would of course show that part of the theory could be falsified.
However, this doesn't mean any other parts are not unfalsifiable.

 

[TerryUK]

You appear to be confused about the meaning of "falsifiability."

Thanks for pointing out my post. Of course you are correct
I do of course understand the concept, although you certainly wouldn't believe that by looking at that (hasty) post