, and since I put in some effort, I'll dump it here; something I had wanted to write for 9 months now...
Hey Myles,
I am "Oystein" at the JREF forum. Are you a member there, by any chance? If not, you can msg me back at
xxx@xxxxxx.xxx
Just want to give you a bit of info on the Harrit nano-thermite paper and your coverage of it in Part 2 of your YT series - concerning peer-review:
Dr. David Griscom, a distinguished physicist and geologist, albeit himself a 9/11 truther, did in fact peer-review the Harrit paper. He outed himself in, I think, lkate december on his own blog. I have actually read the peer review (although not the draft the review was written about; they must have revised it extensively). This is how I came to read it:
One of Germany's (I am German) leading truthers is Dirk Gerhardt, aka sitting-bull. Dirk has translated a number of English truther texts and videos to German, for example for AE911Truth. When he learned that Griscom was a peer-reviewer, he contacted him, and Griscom agreed to let Dirk translate the peer-review, and sent it to Dirk. Later, Griscom had second thoughts, and told Dirk not to publish anything. However, Dirk offers anyone to see him and read a hard copy of the peer review. As Dirk lives just south of Hamburg, and my best friends live just west of Hamburg, I took up his offer last april when visiting my friends, we met at a nice restaurant in Hamburg over lunch, talked, an I got to read Griscom's critique.
It's 12 pages, and covers a lot of individual points, most of them rather briefly. One important bit is that it seemed to be addressed to the editor of a journal (I am not sure anymore if Bentham publishers is named explicitly, but the editor in chief at the time, Marie Pileni, wasn't mentioned, I am sure I'd rememember that; may have been addressed impersonally to the board of editors), and ends with a recommendation to publish if his criticisms are picked up in a revided final version. So, formally, it looks as if indeed an editor communicated with Griscom to solicit, and got, a peer-review.
Some key points Griscom addressed but Harrit e.al. did not were:
1. Griscom notes that the red layer is probably red because it contains hematite particles 100-200 nm in size - the bright faceted grains, and he adds that hematite grains in just that size are an ordinary industrial red pigment. At the time, Harrit e.al. apparently had not yet figured out with 100% certainty that these grains are indeed hematite (Fe2O3), as opposed to other iron oxides. So Griscom just suggested this - to use the very red colour for an argument.
Of course, it means immediately that such "nano-sized" grains are not proof we are dealing with nano-technology - they are low-tech, cheap, legacy technology, have been synthesized in that size and quality for almost a hundred years, and of course mined (in less uniform quality) for as pigments for art and other purposed since the old stone age.
it also means that, in the post-DSC residue for example shown in Fig 20, which still shows plenty of red material, that much of the iron oxide hasn't reacted in the DSC - a point Griscom failed to make.
2. He urges Harrit e.al. to offer explanations for the significant Si presence, and to find out what that Si is associated with. Harrit e.al. did not act on that recommendation.
Griscom recommended to shorten the paper and leave out many images, which Harrit e.al. did. I believe the draft had as many as 60 figures, which they cut down to 33. As a consequence, I could not relate many of the figures that Griscom discussed to figures in the published paper.
Griscom apparently agreed that the DSC results are significant and speak for nano-thermite - which makes me conclude that he really doesn't know **** about DSC and combustion.
Cheers
xxx