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Merged New video! Architects and Engineers - Solving the Mystery of Building 7

Dave Rogers said:
I give up. RedIbis is determined not to understand the obvious, so I see no benefit in trying to explain it to him.

Dave
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I'd give up too if I presented an example of demonstrative evidence and claimed it was physical evidence.

It reveals a shocking level of disregard for basic research and terminology and a commitment to faith that would make Jerry Falwell titter.
 
Oystein said:
Much of the time and effort of explosive CDs goes into making sure the demolition is indeed Controlled, and environmentally safe - two objectives the perpetrators of 9/11 would not have had.
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What strange "logic." For one, if the towers were demo'd then the perpetrators could have had the time to set it up. You give no realistic reason why they couldn't. Secondly, given the health crisis that ensued, your second point is comical. If the perps wanted to bring the bldgs down, I doubt the environment or the health of residents and first responders was much of a concern.
 
RedIbis said:
What strange "logic." For one, if the towers were demo'd then the perpetrators could have had the time to set it up. You give no realistic reason why they couldn't. Secondly, given the health crisis that ensued, your second point is comical. If the perps wanted to bring the bldgs down, I doubt the environment or the health of residents and first responders was much of a concern.
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???
This sounds as if you disagree with me, but the content basically repeats what I said. You sure your post is for me, and you read and understood what I wrote?
 
RedIbis said:
I'd give up too if I presented an example of demonstrative evidence and claimed it was physical evidence.
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Wow, a whole new strawman! RedIbis is now pretending either that I think the NIST model is physical evidence, rather than just being based on physical evidence, or that the properties of materials are derived purely from abstract simulations instead of physical measurements. That's an impressive level of desperation.

Dave
 
Concerning the latest debate about "physical evidence" between RedIbis on one and Dave Rogers and others on the other hand, I think both sides are less than honest. I believe you understand each other's positions better than you pretend, and are fighting about semantics even though you are probably easily capable of understanding the semnticas of the other.

Yes, RedIbis means "specimen of WTC7" as "physical evidence" and limits the applicability of the term thusly. He is not lying when he says that there is now no physical evidence in that sense of the word.

But of course RedIbis understands that "physical evidence" is more than that, and that dosumentary evidence and physical evidence are not mutually exclusive domains. For example, it is clear that any "physical evidence" that WE here at the JREF forums could examine is of course not "physical evidence" in the RedIbis sense at all, as we don't literally have specimen of steel at arm's length next to our screens and keyboards. All we actually have is documentation of physical evidence.

Dave Rogers certainly understands that not having the opportunity to examine physically the very pieces of steel that are said by NIST to have failed in certain ways is a situation less satisfying than one where predictions about failure modes made by the NIST theory could be falsified or verified by testing the actual specimen.

When a car crashes, and the investigator concludes that the cause was defective brakes, and he doesn't have the actual defective breakes to show, that conclusion will remain more provisional than it would be if someone had actually analysed the actual brakes.


So why don't you both admit that you understand each other's position, and debate the room between them, rather than arguing that the other side lies about their position?
 
Dave Rogers said:
Wow, a whole new strawman! RedIbis is now pretending either that I think the NIST model is physical evidence, rather than just being based on physical evidence, or that the properties of materials are derived purely from abstract simulations instead of physical measurements. That's an impressive level of desperation.

Dave
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This is getting tedious but I have to quote you again:

Whatever NIST may have said, the physical properties of steel were incorporated in its modelling, and hence this modelling was based on physical evidence. And by your "incredibly stupid description", if there's a murder trial and the prosecution introduces into evidence a series of tests of the ballistic properties of the same type of gun and ammunition as were used for the murder, that's not physical evidence.
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Again, that is not physical evidence. You seem to think that ballistic properties are. What you're trying to do, and why it's important for me to point this out, is that you are trying to justify NIST's admission that they didn't analyze any WTC 7 steel, when they had literally tons of of steel potentially at their disposal. Acceping NIST's conclusions is an act of faith, not of skepticism.
 
Oystein said:
So why don't you both admit that you understand each other's position, and debate the room between them, rather than arguing that the other side lies about their position?
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I've tried to, but let's have another go. I agree that the absence of corroboration from specific, identifiable samples of the debris from WTC7 - for the simple reason that no means exists of identifying the origin of specific samples of debris, and hence no selection of samples could be made - adds to the uncertainty of the NIST collapse model compared to, for example, the WTC1 and WTC2 collapse initiation models, where such corroboration was obtained. I don't agree that this means that the NIST collapse model must be regarded as pure speculation and therefore discarded; rather, it's the best attempt that can be made in the light of the evidence available, and it agrees reasonably well, though not perfectly, with that evidence. Accepting NIST's model as a provisional conclusion is therefore a reasonable skeptical position, rather than an act of faith. I would further add that the outright rejection of a model that fits, again to a reasonable degree of accuracy, the available evidence, on the grounds that a certain specific item of evidence is not and was never available for study, is a position not of skepticism but of irrational denialism.

As for arguing that RedIbis lies about his position, I've shown exactly how and where he has done so; should I pretend that he doesn't?

Dave
 
Oystein said:
But of course RedIbis understands that "physical evidence" is more than that, and that dosumentary evidence and physical evidence are not mutually exclusive domains. For example, it is clear that any "physical evidence" that WE here at the JREF forums could examine is of course not "physical evidence" in the RedIbis sense at all, as we don't literally have specimen of steel at arm's length next to our screens and keyboards. All we actually have is documentation of physical evidence.
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You're wrong. I do not conflate what physical and demonstrative evidence is. I have never suggested that the physical evidence related to WTC 7 is something that should be accessible to jref members. You do not even have documentation of phsyical evidence because NIST did not use physical evidence to back up their collapse scenarios and it was entirely possible for them to do so. Period.
 
RedIbis said:
This is getting tedious but I have to quote you again:



Again, that is not physical evidence. You seem to think that ballistic properties are. What you're trying to do, and why it's important for me to point this out, is that you are trying to justify NIST's admission that they didn't analyze any WTC 7 steel, when they had literally tons of of steel potentially at their disposal. Acceping NIST's conclusions is an act of faith, not of skepticism.
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It cannot be repeated enough that I seriously doubt that many engineering professionals involved in the NIST report, or those involved with instituting the building code changes recommended by the NIST really care if YOU have issues with the report.
 
Dave Rogers said:
I've tried to, but let's have another go. I agree that the absence of corroboration from specific, identifiable samples of the debris from WTC7 - for the simple reason that no means exists of identifying the origin of specific samples of debris, and hence no selection of samples could be made - adds to the uncertainty of the NIST collapse model compared to, for example, the WTC1 and WTC2 collapse initiation models, where such corroboration was obtained. I don't agree that this means that the NIST collapse model must be regarded as pure speculation and therefore discarded; rather, it's the best attempt that can be made in the light of the evidence available, and it agrees reasonably well, though not perfectly, with that evidence. Accepting NIST's model as a provisional conclusion is therefore a reasonable skeptical position, rather than an act of faith. I would further add that the outright rejection of a model that fits, again to a reasonable degree of accuracy, the available evidence, on the grounds that a certain specific item of evidence is not and was never available for study, is a position not of skepticism but of irrational denialism.
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Hmm now, for argument's sake, let's say that specific items of evidence could have been made available, given enough time, resources and resolve, but still weren't examined. How would that affect the strength of the conclusions?

Dave Rogers said:
As for arguing that RedIbis lies about his position, I've shown exactly how and where he has done so; should I pretend that he doesn't?

Dave
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To be honest, I don't recall that I read a recent post by you and thought to myself "yes, this proves a lie". Rather, my impression was, as I stated "they are both mildly dishonest about semantics", and left it at that. But I am not going to revisit the debate.
 
Oystein said:
Hmm now, for argument's sake, let's say that specific items of evidence could have been made available, given enough time, resources and resolve, but still weren't examined. How would that affect the strength of the conclusions?
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Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that there had been some means of identifying where in the structure of WTC7 specific pieces of steel in the structure had come from, samples were recovered, and the condition of those samples was either used as an input to the model, or found to agree with the model. Then that would, rather obviously, strengthen our level of confidence in the conclusions. However, we know this was not possible, as there was no means of determining unambiguously where in the structure a specific piece of steel came from in WTC7. If pieces of steel had been chosen without knowledge as to where they came from, then any attempt to compare their condition with the model would involve a stage of guesswork, and would therefore be of very little value. NIST, one assumes, reached this conclusion themselves, and realised that there was no point in analysing the detailed condition of specific items of debris.

Dave
 
Oystein said:
This wasn't explosive demolition, it was "jackhammered, and dumped down the elevator shaft", which took about a year.


Much of the time and effort of explosive CDs goes into making sure the demolition is indeed Controlled, and environmentally safe - two objectives the perpetrators of 9/11 would not have had.
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You are of course right, Oystein. I think I read somewhere that demolishing with explosives is not allowed in Manhattan, because the buildings are too close together; is that correct?
 
Dave Rogers said:
Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that there had been some means of identifying where in the structure of WTC7 specific pieces of steel in the structure had come from, samples were recovered, and the condition of those samples was either used as an input to the model, or found to agree with the model. Then that would, rather obviously, strengthen our level of confidence in the conclusions. However, we know this was not possible, as there was no means of determining unambiguously where in the structure a specific piece of steel came from in WTC7. If pieces of steel had been chosen without knowledge as to where they came from, then any attempt to compare their condition with the model would involve a stage of guesswork, and would therefore be of very little value. NIST, one assumes, reached this conclusion themselves, and realised that there was no point in analysing the detailed condition of specific items of debris.

Dave
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That's not what I meant. False dychotomy, if I am very pedantic :p You consider 2 options:
1. Specific specimen not available
2. Specific specimen available and used.

However I was asking about the third option:
3. Specific specimen available and not used.

It seems that truthers, I think including RedIbis, try to gain some mileage out of the claim that NIST chose not to examine steel when they could have. Apparently, the conclusion is that this somehow compromises the validity of their results.
If you could give us your opinion on that logic?
 
minnemouse said:
You are of course right, Oystein. I think I read somewhere that demolishing with explosives is not allowed in Manhattan, because the buildings are too close together; is that correct?
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I don't know. I'd think that a case-by-case considerations play a role anywhere.

This month they disassembled piece by piece the tallest building in my hometown (8 storeys, I think), in reverse order of how it was built: Steel frame office floors from ground floor up, steel-frame roof, and reinforced concrete core from top down last. Cut the steel with torches, and ate the concrete with a large, brontosaurus-like special machine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uCo16eI7o4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1dAeu5-Kb8

Too bad there weren't any explosives involved, but I think they did it the way the did it to be able to cut out and recycle the steel in a more orderly fashion, and because the concrete core was gone in a matter of a little over a day, probably less than it would have taken to rig it with explosives. So I think economical considerations spoke against explosives as much as emission issues.
 
Oystein said:
That's not what I meant. False dychotomy, if I am very pedantic :p You consider 2 options:
1. Specific specimen not available
2. Specific specimen available and used.

However I was asking about the third option:
3. Specific specimen available and not used.

It seems that truthers, I think including RedIbis, try to gain some mileage out of the claim that NIST chose not to examine steel when they could have. Apparently, the conclusion is that this somehow compromises the validity of their results.
If you could give us your opinion on that logic?
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I prefer not to speculate on these sort of fantasies. If RedIbis and other truthers like to pretend that NIST deliberately chose not to incorporate useful information into their model, that is of course their prerogative, but any deductions drawn from this incorrect assumption are worthless. The actual situation was that steel was not identifiable, and therefore analysis results on individual pieces of steel could not provide a useful input to the model. Asking me to speculate on what it would have meant if NIST had deliberately ignored useful information is no more relevant than asking me to speculate on whether widespread auditory injuries and barotrauma on 9/11 would have indicated CD of the towers; it didn't happen, so there's no real point in speculating on its implications if it had.

Dave
 
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RedIbis said:
Around here that's called lying. I just think you're misinformed, wrong, incorrect or too lazy to find out for yourself.
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Unfortunately the moderators here have stated that lying is permissible, which is why the more lazy amongst the Official Story supporters here rely on it so much.

MM
 
Dave Rogers said:
The actual situation was that steel was not identifiable, and therefore analysis results on individual pieces of steel could not provide a useful input to the model. Asking me to speculate on what it would have meant if NIST had deliberately ignored useful information is no more relevant than asking me to speculate on whether widespread auditory injuries and barotrauma on 9/11 would have indicated CD of the towers; it didn't happen, so there's no real point in speculating on its implications if it had.

Dave
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Wouldn't column 79 have potentially been identifiable though? It was not exactly like every other one in it's connections to the rest of the framing. As someone who "needs" to visualize problems I would personally find it extremely frustrating not to be able to look at all the framing pieces to see if they were at least consistent with our hypothesis. However, since NIST was still working on the report 6 years after the fact, is it possible that by the time they had formed this particular hypothesis the steel was no longer available at all i.e. having perhaps been shipped to China, etc.?

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that I agree with RedIbis, just wondering about how the whole thing progressed. Were they able to look at steel, but determined that they couldn't identify anything in particular? Were there photos taken during the cleanup with the specific purpose of providing information for the collapse investigation?
 
Miragememories said:
Unfortunately the moderators here have stated that lying is permissible, which is why the more lazy amongst the Official Story supporters here rely on it so much.

MM
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If there were a rule here against lying, not one of you 911 kooks could make it past two posts before you would violate it. It's rare you any of you say anything that doesn't include some lie or another.
 
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