1500 a&e?

[cjnewson88]

I've heard this claim plenty that there are these 1500 genius engineers and architects who conclude unanimously that wtc7 was a controlled demolition.

I just have one issue with this; If there are 1500 people who believe this, then why did only 92 people sign the latest white house petition to open a new investigation, and why, with the rememberbuilding7 campaign, have less than 1500 people donated after almost two months?

Does this 1500 actually exist? Does anyone have a breakdown on exactly how many off them are engineers with a structural background? Or just a general break down on whether these 1500 are even engineers and architects at all?

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

They do exist.

Only about half of them are actually engineers and architects. And even if they were 100% engineers, they would represent roughly one out of every two-thousand, five hundred engineers.

And the reason only 92 idiots signed the white house petition is because truthers are stupid, racist, paranoid, violent and most of all, lazy.

 

[The Platypus]

Straight out...

This 1500 list they wave around just shows you how dishonest this crap is. Gage's followers, and many in the 911 cult, wave it around as if it were a huge impressive number, as they know that is exactly what some people will think.....1500 woooow, they have alot of support!.....But they don't ever mention is as Sword just said, only half the list, at best, are actual qualified engineers and architects and even if they were all good, this is only a tiny tiny fraction of all qualified architects and engineers, not even close to 1% of the over all community of architects and engineers.

This scam isn't even new, the creationists play the exact same game. They pass around lists of 'scientists' that don't believe in evolution. Obviously because some people will find that impressive and convincing. But again, if you actually check the lists, one finds that only a fraction are actually qualified relevant scientists, and even with out doing that, the list is still only but a tiny tiny minority of the entire community of relevant scientists, who vastly agree evolution.

It's a dishonest marketing scam designed to fool people into thinking their crap is more impressive and more supported than it really is...

There are a few people that have broken down the list at different times, i'm sure someone will post one.

 

[Macgyver1968]

Well...they're up to 1627 A&E professionals. If I remember correctly, they originally only wanted licensed a&e's...then lowered the bar to anyone with a degree...basically to qualify you only need a bachelors degree in architecture or any engineering discipline. It's all just one big appeal to authority.

You have all sort of people like this:

James L. Hayhurst, Parachute Designer & Test Jumper; Writer
BS, US Air Force Academy
Bradfordwoods, PA

with no relevant experience.

 

[Sam.I.Am]

Out of any large random group of people you can get pretty much anything on a petition signed by at least a few people. The probelm with this particular petition is that as far as I can tell nobody has done anything with it in over 5 years other than to say "We have a petition".

 

[Scott Sommers]

Almost all of those listed as 'Architects (Degreed & Licensed – Active & Retired) ' have little or no relevant experience. For example,

Joseph Peavey
Licensed in Idaho in 2006 and Colorado in 2008. Graduated from the University of Idaho in 1999. Took Physics in high school (which is all I really needed to see some glaring problems with official 9/11 explanations).

Mark Lee Fitzgerald
I am architect with twenty five years of experience. I am as passionate about social issues as I am about the art and science of architecture. This petition is a vital opportunity.

Michael Goldfinger
Worked on original drawings for towers as a student in the '60s

Olga Kahn I mostly have worked in housing rehab from large government projects to small renovations. Now (at the end of my career) I work for myself on Cape Cod doing mostly housing renovations. I've done a lot of C.A. and am a document control freak.

And this is by their own admission that they have no relevant experience. In fact, if you go through the whole list, you'll find a lot of interior designers, designers of residential buildings, park planners, and even people who have degrees in architecture but have never worked in a deisgn-related job. It's kind of a joke. Anyone who would cite AE9/11T as a source of expertise obviously hasn't looked closely at their membership.

 

[cjnewson88]

if you go through the whole list, you'll find a lot of interior designers, designers of residential buildings, park planners, and even people who have degrees in architecture but have never worked in a deisgn-related job.

Thanks guys. My god I wondered if it was really going to be this sad, but it seems so. I guess its human nature to accept things at face value and not look into it. I just find it a real downer that so many people get drawn into this bullcrap (like '1500 engineers') that they are lead to believe in what otherwise can be debunked my simple bloody common sense. I know the truth movement is dying, but its not stopping the teenagers and people my age from seeing this kind of claim on the internet and flat out believing it, with little scrutiny of the accuracy or truthfulness of it. And I know that there is plenty of debunking material, but that doesn't not help 90% of people when its human nature that once somebody has made up their mind about something, they are extremely reluctant to change, even when faced with overwhelming evidence against them.

It's a frustrating world.

Thanks guys.

.. and Hurray! I an post URL's now :-D

 

[Dog Town]

Michael Goldfinger
Worked on original drawings for towers as a student in the '60s

I am curious, as to what work a student performed on the original drawings?

 

[sylvan8798]

I am curious, as to what work a student performed on the original drawings?

Probably racking them?

 

[Oystein]

I've heard this claim plenty that there are these 1500 genius engineers and architects who conclude unanimously that wtc7 was a controlled demolition.

This is not true. The only thing that the 1500 (well, 1627 today) are "unanimous" about is that they signed a (supposed) "petition" that has the following wording:

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND
OF THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Please Take Notice That:

On Behalf of the People of the United States of America, the undersigned Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth and affiliates hereby petition for, and demand, a truly independent investigation with subpoena power in order to uncover the full truth surrounding the events of 9/11/01 – specifically the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers and Building 7. We believe there is sufficient doubt about the official story to justify re-opening the 9/11 investigation. The new investigation must include a full inquiry into the possible use of explosives that might have been the actual cause of the destruction of the World Trade Center Twin Towers and Building 7.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned​

So at most this can be construed as the 1627 thinking the use of explosives to be "possible" - not that they "conclude unanimously that wtc7 was a controlled demolition"

I just have one issue with this; If there are 1500 people who believe this, then why did only 92 people sign the latest white house petition to open a new investigation, and why, with the rememberbuilding7 campaign, have less than 1500 people donated after almost two months?

These numbers have little to do with the strength of the argument and much more with the amount and effectiveness of advertising. That WH petition was not spread around in a sustained, coordinated, well-funded effort, but ae911t is.

Does this 1500 actually exist? Does anyone have a breakdown on exactly how many off them are engineers with a structural background? Or just a general break down on whether these 1500 are even engineers and architects at all?

You can look at the list of 1627 signers here:
http://www2.ae911truth.org/signpetition.php
A rough count gives you
- 254 Architects (degreed and licensed, USA)
- 84 "Architectural professionals" (i.e. people not allowed to work as architects, USA)
- 310 Professional Engineers (degreed and licensed, USA)
- 584 "Engineering Professionals" (i.e. people not allowed to work as engineers, USA)
- 395 foreign people with degrees in architecture or some engineering
(these numbers add up to 1627, but are imprecise; I simply paged through the list, counted the pages, counted the names per page, and multiplied. Some pages contain more or less names)

The first thing to note is the foreigners: What role do they play in a Petition addressed at the Congress of the USA? Also, it is hard or nigh impossible to put their number into perspective. They should have been left off of the list.

The second thing to note is that the majority of architectural and engineering professionals on the list is not licensed in any US state and thus not eligible to work as a responsible architect or engineer on any building. In reality, the list contains only about 560 "architects and engineers" from the USA.

In another thread I have detailed what I found when I looked at the licensed engineers by state individually. This work is far from complete, but a general picture emerges:

• slightly less than half of these are civil or structural engineers - the kinds of engineers that deal with building construction. The rest are mechanical, electrical, chemical, environmental, geological, naval, aerospace and other engineers
• This proportion is somewhat less than the proportion of all licensed civil and structural engineers to all licensed engineers (roughly: AE911T: 45%; overall: 55%). This means civil and structural engineers are somewhat less likely than their non-construction colleagues to fall for Gage's lies
• In hardly any state, including New York, AE signers represent more than about 0.02% of all active, licensed professional engineers - 2 per 10,000. It is hardly surprising to find 2 nutjobs and incompetents among any 10,000 people in any professional group.

On a positive note, I found that nearly all who are listed as licensed P.E.s are that in fact. When I tried to sign the petition, and included a personal remark that my signature is bogus, I received a note some time later that my signature was rejected. So I am confident that the list is indeed pretty well checked, and the names mostly legit.


Elsewhere, I computed that the most recent growth rate of the list (about 2 new signatures in 3 days) translates into one new signer per already existing "member" per 7 years. You'd think that if these architects and engineers, who are under an obligation to honour and use the building code changes that resulted from NIST's WTC reports, would rally more support among their peers if they really thought a huge crime had been committed and the costly code changes were bogus. Yet this doesn't happen at all. On average, each of the 1627 only manages to convince one other architect or engineer of Gage's claims only once in 7 years. In reality, that means most of the 1627 never ever bother, or succeed, to convince any peers. And this is really all we need to know about that list:

- It represents only a tiny tiny fringe of the professional community
- They by and large fail to rally any support at all among their peers
Add to that another give-away that even the leaders of this fringe don't take the list serious:
- The "Petition" is 5 years old and has not yet been submitted to its intended recipient, the Congress of the USA, nor is there any intention to ever do this

We can conclude from this that the leaders of AE911T will not ever reach their professed goal - a new investigation - and they know it, and yet they continue to skim money off the gullible.

 

[JayUtah]

...they signed a (supposed) "petition" [that does not establish] that they "conclude unanimously that wtc7 was a controlled demolition"

That's a classic bait-and-switch. You bait someone into expressing doubt or wanting more information, and then you switch him into supporting some affirmative proposition that they may not agree with.

It's like the sales pitch where they cold-call you and tell you they're an organization concerned about the environment and saving energy, and they get you to agree with that goal using propositions you can hardly oppose: "You want our children to have a clean planet and plenty of energy, don't you?" Then before you know it, you're buying $150 LED light fixtures from them because they managed to tie their specific profit into those lofty generic ideals.

We all hate that sales pitch. We'd be more apt to buy if they just said, "I'm selling light fixtures. Want any?"

The petition just asks for another investigation. Subscribers agree that there is doubt in the official explanation. You can believe that even if you still believe in terrorists, airplanes, and jet fuel. There are plenty of people who will always doubt the administration's ability to police itself, and wonder if the official explanation glosses over some failures in the infrastructure that could have improved the outcome.

The petition says the investigation should examine the controlled-demolition hypothesis. You can subscribe to that even if you believe a subsequent investigation will also fail to find any evidence for it. "Heck yeah, I'll sign that if it will make those darn troofers shut up once and for all."

It's hard to disagree with the premise of the petition. That's why you can't turn around and say, "All these people agree with my specific claim." Which is what Gage apparently does.

The first thing to note is the foreigners: What role do they play in a Petition addressed at the Congress of the USA?

Why, none at all. But that doesn't mean they don't play a role in the overall rhetoric. Every conspiracy theory has to deal with adverse expertise; you have to explain why the experts don't agree with you. You can rarely dispute them on their own turf, so you have to impeach them some other way, usually by claiming that they're being compelled or fooled into maintaining the official story.

Including non-American engineers adds credibility because they are presumed free of the influence of some mythical U.S. government mandate not to talk about 9/11.

slightly less than half of these are civil or structural engineers - the kinds of engineers that deal with building construction.

It should be noted that in some cases, structural engineers are required to get an additional license beyond that of a professional engineering license. Additional qualifications apply to that specialty.

No architecture curriculum and very few engineering ones even mention controlled demolition. Few engineers and even fewer architects encounter controlled demolition in practice. The presumption Gage et al. intend is that their subscribers are better able to recognize the signs of demolition than others. Therefore their opinion should carry more weight.

Expertise is a slippery topic. When I first started looking into 9/11 conspiracy theories, about six months before Steven Jones' fateful local debut (I live in Utah), I noticed there were no engineers among the conspiracy theorists. That made a good argument then, but it was only a matter of time before someone managed to find someone with a P.E. license who, for whatever reason, would be willing to lend his credentials to the cause.

Surely one must have the appropriate knowledge, whether obtained formally through schooling or practically. And one must have demonstrated that knowledge previously. (You would be surprised at how many people cite what they learned during the debates over their conspiracy theories as qualifications for having proposed it in the first place.)

But one must also have studied the problem at hand. If we pare away those who, despite their license, have no appropriate expertise, we may still be left with appropriately qualified, knowledgeable people who support the conspiracy theory. In that case we have to look at how closely they have examined the evidence.

An M.D. whose specialty is podiatry is not likely to be the best expert on heart problems. But even an M.D. with a cardiology specialty shouldn't render his opinion on a specific case without familiarizing himself with its details. In the final analysis, the value of an expert's opinion is his ability to argue the actual details of the case with an appropriately informed and reasoned background. If he cannot do this, then his expertise is of dubious applicability.

In short, a structural engineer whose only effort has been to subscribe to the petition, and who has not done the sort of exercise that would be prudent in the field to validate a hypothesis, does not impart much more credibility than the signature of a layman.

It is hardly surprising to find 2 nutjobs and incompetents among any 10,000 people in any professional group.

In connection with my previous point, it's not impossible to find licensed structural engineers who question 9/11 on purely political or social grounds. A certain amount of statistical noise is expected. Aggregating that noise and styling it as the significant (even if minority) finding of a professional body is dishonest.

 

[Dave Rogers]

In short, a structural engineer whose only effort has been to subscribe to the petition, and who has not done the sort of exercise that would be prudent in the field to validate a hypothesis, does not impart much more credibility than the signature of a layman.

And, as has been pointed out elsewhere, all the signatories to the petition fall into this category; not one of them has undertaken any actual investigation worthy of publication.

Dave

 

[Oystein]

Excellent post, JayUtah!

That's a classic bait-and-switch.
...
It's hard to disagree with the premise of the petition. That's why you can't turn around and say, "All these people agree with my specific claim." Which is what Gage apparently does.

I am currently agmostic about that and would like to see evidence that Slick Dick does exactly that personally. It's certainly an impression that he'd be happy to make, but he could be a better sales man than to make this false claim outright.

...
Including non-American engineers adds credibility because they are presumed free of the influence of some mythical U.S. government mandate not to talk about 9/11.

But the presence of those foreign signatures apparently belies the professed nature of the list, which is supposed to be a petition to US lawmakers.

So apparently that's another bait-and-switch: You bait signers with the promise to send their signature to Congress, then switch to using the list to impress laypeople on the internet and possibly convince some into sending money, and nothing more.

...
But one must also have studied the problem at hand. ...

It becomes apparent from many of the 1627's personal statements that the signers have not studied the problem at hand. This can be judged from many statements that can be easily identified as false or irrelevant, such as "jet fuel can't melt steel" - the most cursory understanding of the "official" collapse scenarios will reveal even to a non-engineering audience that melting of steel is never mentioned by NIST.

 

[cjnewson88]

Although I havn't seen Gage make the claim personally, their rememberbuilding7 campaign ad does, which I would assume Gage either scripted, assisted or at least viewed it and consented.

"1500 architects and engineers concluded it was a controlled demolition" - Interesting they used the word Concluded, as if they have all separately done their own investigations into building 7. God I hate lying truthers.

 

[sheeplesnshills]

I've heard this claim plenty that there are these 1500 genius engineers and architects who conclude unanimously that wtc7 was a controlled demolition.

All they did was sign a petition asking for a new inquiry. Nothing more, And it must be noted that not a single one of them has written a paper on the subject.

 

[sheeplesnshills]

God I hate lying truthers.

There's a redundancy in there somewhere. Truth to twoofers means the same as it did to Pravda or the authors of the Bible.

 

[ozeco41]

Although I havn't seen Gage make the claim personally, their rememberbuilding7 campaign ad does, which I would assume Gage either scripted, assisted or at least viewed it and consented.

"1500 architects and engineers concluded it was a controlled demolition" - Interesting they used the word Concluded, as if they have all separately done their own investigations into building 7. God I hate lying truthers.

All they did was sign a petition asking for a new inquiry. Nothing more, And it must be noted that not a single one of them has written a paper on the subject.

There is nothing about "concluded" in the actual petition nor any requirement to have execised professional judgement on the issues before signing:

Please Take Notice That:

On Behalf of the People of the United States of America, the undersigned Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth and affiliates hereby petition for, and demand, a truly independent investigation with subpoena power in order to uncover the full truth surrounding the events of 9/11/01 – specifically the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers and Building 7. We believe there is sufficient doubt about the official story to justify re-opening the 9/11 investigation. The new investigation must include a full inquiry into the possible use of explosives that might have been the actual cause of the destruction of the World Trade Center Twin Towers and Building 7.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

 

[JayUtah]

I am currently agmostic about that and would like to see evidence that Slick Dick does exactly that personally.

Thanks, good point. It would be best to attribute accurately. So it would be better to phrase it conditionally and say that if someone points to AE911T and says the subscribers have endorsed some specific claim, that would be misrepresentation.

But the presence of those foreign signatures apparently belies the professed nature of the list, which is supposed to be a petition to US lawmakers.

Indeed I meant to underscore that point. The only value foreigners serve is rhetorical. Nothing for the stated purpose. That makes us wonder what the real agenda is.

 

[chrismohr]

Excellent post, JayUtah!



I am currently agmostic about that and would like to see evidence that Slick Dick does exactly that personally. It's certainly an impression that he'd be happy to make, but he could be a better sales man than to make this false claim outright.


But the presence of those foreign signatures apparently belies the professed nature of the list, which is supposed to be a petition to US lawmakers.

So apparently that's another bait-and-switch: You bait signers with the promise to send their signature to Congress, then switch to using the list to impress laypeople on the internet and possibly convince some into sending money, and nothing more.


It becomes apparent from many of the 1627's personal statements that the signers have not studied the problem at hand. This can be judged from many statements that can be easily identified as false or irrelevant, such as "jet fuel can't melt steel" - the most cursory understanding of the "official" collapse scenarios will reveal even to a non-engineering audience that melting of steel is never mentioned by NIST.

I could be wrong, but from my encounters with Gage and his videos, I think he expresses his belief in controlled demolition but doesn't specifically say all 1500 A&E's agree on anything more than the fact that they are suspicious enough of the official story to support his call for a new investigation (which would explicitly include looking into CD).

 

[grandmastershek]

I could be wrong, but from my encounters with Gage and his videos, I think he expresses his belief in controlled demolition but doesn't specifically say all 1500 A&E's agree on anything more than the fact that they are suspicious enough of the official story to support his call for a new investigation (which would explicitly include looking into CD).

Well thats the hallmark of "the truth" isn't it? Mix and match your claims so you can simultaneously adhere them to one another and deny as such at any given time.