I posted these questions to Dr. Jones. Here is his reply. Much apologies if it has been posted already:
Thank you for doing this Swing Dangler.
1. Si(Li) detector
2. The question leaves out the last part of the very SENTENCE quoted. to generate a straw man. Quote the rest, and then re-phrase the question fairly.
That's quite a dodge. My point was that said sentence:
The spherules found in the WTC dust were predominately iron-rich (appearing metallic) and silicates (appearing glassy under an optical microscope).
implies that the entirety of the WTC dust was analyzed. Were it analyzed, I should have seen some sort of chart stating how many particles were found and what their appearances were. We need to know the total number of particles analyzed and what methods were used to determine the composition of the particles. My strong suspicion is that only a handful of particles were actually analyzed in house, and that's not nearly enough to make any sort of determination on the sample set as a whole.
3. We have run a series of measurements on Fe2O3, to determine the accuracy of the EDAX system.
Sorry Dr. Jones, I'm not taking your word for anything. Show the data, do the statistics and get back to me.
+/- 55% is totally exaggerated and incorrect for this system,
It's fine if you want to make stuff up, but the value I quoted is part of a legitimately published work. Armstrong's work is considered seminal in terms of particle analysis.
nor can I see any justification for using 2 standard deviations -- why does the author use 2 sigma instead of one? We have the data, a short paper to follow will provide detailed analysis.
Why did you not include the data in your paper? Do you not understand how to write for a legitimate scientific publication?
Dr. Jones seems to have missed my original point. So let me restate it: He is using a bulk corrections model, without standards in order to acquire his data. That introduces at least 2 forms of error, the first from standardless analysis (+/- 10~20% relative), the second is from bulk vs. particle correction models (+/- 15~30% relative for 1 standard deviation). That makes the values Jones has quoted to be nothing short of meaningless. It further makes his analysis of the data presented in the caption for Figure 5 also meaningless.
4. What? We did not imply any such thing. (Straw man.)
Then why mention structural steel at all? I can assure you the particle has a composition far closer to some fly ash or rice husk ash particles, so why mention structural steel?
5. See 3 above. The ratio of 1.5 is a reasonable indicator based on those measurements -- we used the term "suggests".
Closing your eyes and plugging your ears while saying "LA LA LA LA" is not an acceptable form of scientific rebuttal. Whenever I see the word "suggests", it tells me that the authors were too lazy or incompetent to check further into the matter. Your thesis largely rests on the idea that the temperatures necessary to create said spherules were too high. It matters whether or not you have Fe2O3 or Fe(OH)2, and your Table 1 uses the temperature to melt Fe2O3. You are the one who has changed in approximate result into an exact one by assuming that your analysis proves the presence of Fe2O3.
6. What?
"On page 4, Jones reports the following, "No explanation for the presence of these iron-rich and silicate spheres (which imply very high temperatures along with droplet formation) is given in the published USGS reports." This is further evidence that he simply rejects the possibility that fires caused this ash sample."
Logic is incomplete, please explain. USGS giving no explanation for these spheres does not mean that I reject the possibility that fires caused this ash sample.
The entirety of your work rests upon the idea that the the fires were not hot enough to generate the particles found in the WTC dust. The USGS did, in fact, provide an explanation for how the particles were formed.
Now why do you not mention anywhere in your paper about the possibility that all of the particles are part of normal fire / household ash?
7. This is not apples and oranges or "lunacy" to compare the iron-rich sphere content in WTC dust with that in ordinary dust, or explain why you state this. Ad hominem ("lunacy") and faulty logic unless explained.
While it would be an ad hom to call Dr. Jones a lunatic, it is not ad hom to call the argument lunacy. My criticism comes from the abysmally small sample set you have.
8. "The next several pages operate on the following argument: Because the temperature required to vaporize a pure metal is really high, these spheres cannot form in normal office fires. "
Show me where in the paper we say anything about VAPORIZATION of metals to form spheres. It's not there! This guy has not read the paper carefully evidently -- or just likes to invent straw-man arguments.
I will admit my mistake here. I should have said "melted" rather than "vaporized." My argument still stands, however. The paper does rest on the idea that, because the temperature required to melt the various constituent metals of the particles you chose to analyze, then the particles could not have been created as part of the WTC fire and collapse. My criticism of your point is that you have chosen not to compare any of your data to those ash particles found in similarly intense office building fires. Nor have you chosen to compare the data to fly ash or other fire formed particles. Care to address this?
9. "There is absolutely no reason to believe that Jones's "WTC Dust" samples are from the actual World Trade Center."
Why does the author say this? Pls explain why you don't think the dust samples are from the WTC.
Your sample set was collected from the interior of an apartment 4 blocks from the site, 3 days after the collapse. You followed no protocols of evidence gathering. Your sample has introduced bias based on distance traveled and a contaminated collection site.
In discussions with Dr. Greening, I would be willing to accept that the majority of the particles you have collected are from the WTC, but I'm not willing to accept that anomalous particles were required to come from the WTC. Next time, get someone who knows how to collect samples.
And how about the WTC dust samples discussed by USGS and RJ Lee? Why do these various samples show iron-rich spheres, if there is something wrong with our samples? Why the agreement as to findings in the various samples?
Let me be clear about this: I believe iron rich spheres are part of normal, building fire created ash. That does not mean that you collected the particles in any way that would cause it to be acceptable as a forensic investigation. You don't simply get to look at other researchers' data, slap your name on it, and then come up with a different conclusion. That's not science.
While I appreciate your efforts on this, Swing, I will not be spending any more time on Jones.
