Part II
Recognizing and Classifying Irreducible Delusion
An Irreducible Delusion has two defining characteristics. First, as the name implies, it is
irreducible, meaning that it is a belief that stands on its own and is not dependent on any other information; and it is a
delusion, or in other words a belief that is demonstrably false or untenable. It is important, though often difficult, to isolate the Irreducible Belief from other, consequential beliefs. When it is found, it is usually surprisingly simple. It also may be recognized based on typical responses to criticism, which include the following:
- Refusal to change the belief at any cost, leading to increasingly improbable excuses;
- Demands for a disproof, rather than providing any evidence;
- Dogged avoidance of direct discussion, either through distraction or total refusal to give debate; and
- Dropping discussion of the belief altogether, in seeming acquiescence of superior logic, only to bring it up again unchanged at a later date.
The Irreducible Delusion is fundamentally an example of the rare
existential fallacy, and the consequences thereof constitute (at best) a
vacuous truth. In other words, were the Irreducible Delusion actually a true fact, the logical consequences would be plausible, but no logic based upon a false premise is ever valid. The Irreducible Delusion can also be classified according to the strength of its incorrectness. The author introduces the following three categories as a suggested notation:
Strong Delusion: Belief that is directly contradicted by unambiguous fact.
The Strong Delusion is, in short, a factual error. This is often supported by argument to authority and reliance on quote-mining, out-of-date, or retracted information in an attempt to justify the error. A common example is ”No Aircraft Hit the Pentagon,” which is a Strong Delusion because it is directly contradicted by extensive physical evidence.
Weak Delusion: Belief that is categorically or indirectly contradicted, but requires reasoning in order to refute.
The Weak Delusion is an error of reasoning that may proceed from facts that are correct. It is usually justified through
hasty generalization,
affirming the consequent, or
equivocation. An example is
”Bombs Exploded in the WTC Basements” – there is no hard data from the basements to flatly contradict this belief, rather one must reason based on secondary indicators that rule out any detonation in favor of deflagration. The error in this example is one of
affirming the consequent, viz. failure to recognize that not all explosions are caused by bombs.
Belief that is totally unsupported, and thus impossible or unnecessary to directly refute.
This third class is related to
sophistry, and typically manifests as an
argument from ignorance. This class is common because the Truth Movement often focuses on the absence of evidence it arbitrarily decides is important, rather than addressing actual evidence. It is also generally followed by a misplaced burden of proof or
call to perfection.
”Aircraft were never identified by their component serial numbers” is an example of Conditional Delusion – while vaguely possible, there is no way to prove, and indeed no reason to even suspect, that such checking was never performed. Furthermore, there are numerous other means of unambiguous identification, so without somehow invalidating this other evidence this oversight would have no practical impact even if it was true. As a result, for this claim to be relevant, it must be true, and it is
conditional on several unsupported assumptions.
The three classes above are intended to focus our analysis, thereby addressing the Irreducible Delusion as directly and succinctly as possible. The reader will note, ironically, that the stronger Delusions are actually easier to dispatch. This is due to better definition of the stronger cases, therefore allowing a concise rebuttal with fewer distractions and less development of the opposing argument. In the following section, we will provide a number of illustrations to further clarify the process.
Irreducible Delusion in the Truth Movement
David Ray Griffin
Dr. Griffin presents a remarkable example of the Irreducible Delusion at work in the introduction to his book
Debunking 9/11 Debunking. In the opening pages, he presents his “Own Story,” which includes the following excerpts:
David Ray Griffin said:
He directed me to some 9/11 websites, but I did not find them convincing. I do not know if they were bad sites or whether I looked at their evidence with less than a 30-percent open mind. In any case, I went back to working on American imperialism, assuming 9/11 not to be an instance thereof.
My response was quite different, however, a few months later when another colleague sent … an abbreviated version of Paul Thompson’s massive 9/11 timeline. Although this timeline was drawn entirely from mainstream sources, it contained hundreds of stories that contradicted one or another aspect of the official account of 9/11. …
Realizing that this conclusion, if correct, was extremely important – by then the Bush administration had used 9/11 as a basis for attacking Iraq as well as Afghanistan – I wrote The New Pearl Harbor, summarizing the evidence that had been gathered by members of the 9/11 truth movement who had opened their minds to it long before I had.
The reasoning process above illustrates the effect of Irreducible Delusion. Originally, the evidence of the Truth Movement was not “convincing” to Dr. Griffin; however, upon receiving the critical piece of information from Paul Thompson, his entire world view apparently changed, and he then embraced their interpretations. This is an example of the
Conditional Irreducible Delusion, in that it is conditional on a great many facts – those alleged by Mr. Thompson – being valid. However, the “Terror Timeline” in question is little more than a remarkable collection of mined media quotes, all of them early and inaccurate or taken out of context, as has been
demonstrated repeatedly.
Dr. Griffin has since developed secondary Irreducible Delusions. An example is his belief that telephone calls from the highjacked aircraft must be faked,
originally justified by the incorrect claim that Airfones were disabled at the time. Upon being corrected, this was
amended to a similarly incorrect claim that the official explanation was altered, which implies a cover-up, and therefore the calls are again fake. This is a
Weak Irreducible Delusion, remarkable because even though he learned and even acknowledged that his reasoning for the belief was false, the belief itself persisted until another excuse could be found. The example also illustrates the importance of correctly identifying the underlying belief. Had we confused this with the
Strong Irreducible Delusion of factual error, we would instead be diverted into a discussion of the facts (such as the Airfones). As the evolution of his belief demonstrates, correcting his facts has no direct impact on the belief itself.
Steven Jones
Dr. Steven Jones has demonstrated his own Irreducible Delusion over the past few years, in this case on the feasibility and likelihood of thermite as the cause of the World Trade Center collapses. Nearly all of his claimed evidence for thermite is wholly inconclusive, such as a single flow of sparks or molten material seen outside WTC 2 that he is judging solely on color, or his belief that thermite (and only thermite) explains the high temperatures for weeks afterwards (which is
directly refuted, as
anything set off at the time of collapse would have cooled). A seemingly more definitive source of evidence would be the chemical remains – at least this can be quantified.
Oddly enough, Dr. Jones keeps changing his claim as the residue fails to live up to his expectations. His initial claim was for thermite. This was
later revised to “thermite with sulfur added” to aid in eutectic melting of steel. Still later, he changed his idea to “thermate,” a specific compound containing a small amount of sulfur (too small to have any practical impact on eutectic melting) and a high percentage of barium nitrate (leaving barium oxide after reacting). However, in Dr. Jones’s version, the “thermate” actually contained not only barium, but zinc, and potentially other metals as well – simply because none of the trace elements in his analyses was in any way dominant. The only solution, then, was to include all of them:
Dr. Steven Jones said:
Given the mix of trace metals present in anomalously high concentrations in the WTC dust such as zinc, copper and manganese and barium, and the formation of iron-aluminum-rich spherules, I have argued that significant aluminothermic reactions occurred, with likely ingredients to include powders of aluminum, iron oxide, copper oxide, zinc nitrate, sulfur, and potassium permanganate. We are learning more by studying the iron-rich spheres found in the WTC dust.
Source
Dr. Jones’s
latest result, however, comes up with a completely different listing of chemicals – this time it merely contains iron, aluminum, and sulfur, with traces of calcium and silicon. None of these elements raises any interest at all. Nonetheless, Dr. Jones still hedges his previous claims by stating:
Dr. Steven Jones said:
In both samples, elements besides iron are often present in the spheres which yield chemical signatures distinct from that of structural steel (such as Al, Si, Cu, K, S; see Figs. 3 and 4). These chemical signatures provide additional evidence that the spheres did not result from steel-cutting operations during clean-up.
What this suggests instead is that sample contamination, and not a conspiracy, is at work here. The data do not appear to be repeatable. Nonetheless, no matter what signature Dr. Jones finds, it still leads him to thermite.
While the elemental composition of the dust in total has been better explained by
formal papers as well as
genuine common sense, it also bears pointing out that Dr. Jones’s thermite hypothesis, in any level of trim, has been criticized effectively by even the least credible of
other 9/11 conspiracy theorists. While the author finds Dr. Judy Wood’s hypotheses equally fantastic and unsupported, and her facts regarding degree of pulverization etc. are not all correct, he nonetheless must agree with many of her criticisms, notably Section II of the linked article above.
Dr. Jones therefore exhibits a particularly powerful
Weak Irreducible Delusion. The facts in play – the flow of material from the 80th floor and hot debris during cleanup, chemical species in dust samples, even iron microspheres – are not in dispute. It is his reasoning process, in which all roads lead to thermite, that is irreducibly delusional. The facts all have much simpler explanations.
Richard Gage
Richard Gage, as founder of the Internet group
Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (or simply
AE911T), cites Dr. Griffin and Dr. Jones in his talks. Interestingly, however, his mission statement involves a different conclusion than Dr. Jones, despite his being swayed, in theory, by the same evidence and the same reasoning process:
Richard Gage said:
We call upon Congress for a truly independent investigation with subpoena power. We believe that there may be sufficient evidence to conclude that the World Trade Center buildings #1 (North Tower), #2 (South Tower), and #7 (the 47 story high-rise across Vessey St.) were destroyed not by jet impact and fires but by controlled demolition with explosives.
Source (Emphasis in original)
Dr. Jones, of course, does not call for “controlled demolition with explosives,” but instead insists on thermite, and more specifically on melting. Melting requires heat transfer rather than impulse, which takes time, and is therefore totally inconsistent with explosions of any kind which would scatter the reacted thermite, not to mention the sulfur that Dr. Jones postulates was needed to assist. Mr. Gage betrays his own confusion when he attempts to reconcile the two positions, as he did in the following excerpt from a
radio interview:
Richard Gage said:
Well that's why they would have used thermite, which is a more silent, um, thermate, which is a special form of thermite with added sulfur, because obviously you wouldn't want a whole bunch of explosions to be heard, even though they were, it's not a perfect science. They have a hundred and eighteen witnesses just from those who were recorded in the oral histories.
The above self-contradictions are clear signs that Irreducible Delusion is at work. This is further confirmed by an analysis of Mr. Gage’s presentation, and how the case for “controlled demolition with explosives” has evolved over time.
Joseph Nobles has documented this progression diligently, and here the author briefly reviews observations from his
excellent summary:
- Originally proposed a list of “typical features” for controlled demolition, but applied a slightly different list to WTC 1 and 2 versus WTC 7
- Added brand new features in the second revision, viz. “iron microspheres” and “lateral expulsion,” and removed “all columns fail at once,” without explaining why this differs from the original list
- Admitted prior to the third revision that “squibs” are not, in fact, seen in the WTC collapses -- yet rather than explaining the conflict with his list of features, he instead changes the list itself to dispose of “squibs” entirely
- In the fourth revision, drops the claim that ”Fires cannot create even ONE of these features,” i.e. backtracks on the earlier position that these features are sufficient to prove a controlled demolition
- Finally, backtracking from the “pools of molten iron” claim, as this has never been seen in any controlled demolition before, as well as softening the claim still further to state that these features only “suggest” explosives were used
As with Dr. Jones, Mr. Gage’s fixation on destruction by explosives is a
Weak Irreducible Delusion, in that it shows a clear yet inescapable failure of reasoning. The two cases are different in that Dr. Jones occasionally proceeds from actual data (i.e. his dust samples) but necessarily implies a
hasty generalization fallacy, by insisting his poorly sourced samples are representative of the WTC Towers at a specific time, rather than potentially coming from other sources. Mr. Gage, in contrast, rather than focusing on microscopic facts attempts to treat broad categories of behavior, and in doing so commits
assuming the consequent as well as simple errors, some of which he has admitted to himself. The mutability of his argument demonstrates its logical flaws, yet he remains trapped by his preconceived conclusion.
The Journal of Nine Eleven Studies
The Truth Movement also occasionally gives us a clear example of a
shared Irreducible Delusion, or a delusion common to a large group of individuals that would otherwise have marked differences, as in the two preceding cases. Perhaps the clearest example is the
Journal of Nine Eleven Studies, organized by Dr. Jones, Kevin Ryan, and others. The
Journal’s mission statement includes the following:
JONES said:
Our mission in the past has been to provide an outlet for evidence-based research into the events of 9/11 that might not otherwise have been published, due to the resistance that many established journals and other institutions have displayed toward this topic. The intention was to provide a rapid acceptance process with full peer review. That has been achieved.
Source
The implication of the
Journal is three-fold:
- Scientific research is of little value without peer-review
- Ordinary journals are likely to reject research that supports the Truth Movement
- The Journal is capable of bestowing “peer-reviewed” status, without being burdened by institutional bias against the Truth Movement
There is, of course, a logical inconsistency in the mission statement itself – if ordinary peer-review is necessarily biased, why is it held in esteem? The reason, the author proposes, is because of
Irreducible Delusion: The organizers and contributors to the
Journal are under the delusion that it is the
process, and not the
content, that determines quality of research.
The error in this thinking is easily seen in the articles themselves. Peer-review exists primarily to detect and prevent errors or incorrect research from being published. While this process is far from perfect, and numerous flawed papers exist in published literature, often even a wrong paper is valuable – providing useful data while only lacking in analysis, stimulating new thought and new hypotheses, and so on – rarely is there a publication with glaring omissions. Such is, however, not the case of the
Journal of Nine Eleven Studies, of which there are
numerous examples of
complete refutations, many even from non-experts, and some even
from the Truth Movement itself. There are even refutations of the
Journal in its own letters, as well as abundant cases of
revision after initial acceptance. It is also straightforward to establish that a huge proportion of the
Journal articles
originate from the organizers themselves, which suggests a simple explanation for its poor quality.
Despite these obvious signs of trouble, the
Journal has recently suspended its original call for papers, ironically declaring that its current contents are so sound that any challenge is inconceivable:
JONES said:
It is now our belief that the case for falsity of the official explanation is so well established and demonstrated by papers in this Journal that there is little to be gained from accepting more papers here. Instead we encourage all potential contributors to prepare papers suitable for the more established journals in which scientists might more readily place their trust.
Source
Besides the obvious conflict between this statement and the actual quality of the
Journal’s articles, the author also notes that closure of the
Journal happens to conveniently
block a new submission that challenges many of its previous conclusions. This, however, may be mere coincidence.
This is an example of
Conditional Irreducible Delusion. Many in the Truth Movement, by placing their trust in the
Journal, are under the delusion that “peer-review” (even of the most ineffective kind as practiced here) is the single defining characteristic of good science, and focus on this regardless of underlying facts or reasoning. Those involved demonstrate much more interest in “peer-review” than in other features, such as whether or not what is being claimed is correct, or is even coherent. And just like the other Irreducible Delusions, refuting the peripheral assertions – in this case, the papers themselves -- has had absolutely no effect. The Delusion persists, on its own, even after the
Journal has apparently outlived its usefulness.
