aggle-rithm
Ardent Formulist
And now, by popular request (chipmunk_stew's), here are the major flaws made by the troofers (as originally posted on the British 911-truth forum):
After having engaged in countless arguments about minor details of the 9/11 attacks, and pointing out the same logical fallacies over and over, I felt it was time to compile a list of mistakes that are at the very foundation of the "truth" movement. All the talk about "free-fall" and "natural blast furnaces" and "pulling" buildings amounts to nothing if the very basis of the CT ideas is flawed.
Generally, it seems that all the CT'ists have in common is a belief in an "inside job", either "MIHOP" or "LIHOP". It is my contention that everything they base this belief on is flawed in one way or another. Following is a list of the major mistakes often made by 9/11 conspiracy theorists that lead them to conclude it was an "inside job".
1. No Hypothesis
In trying to decide whether something is true or not, the best method is to formulate a hypothesis, then ask yourself, "What would the world look like if my hypothesis is correct?" as well as, "What would the world look like if my hypothesis is wrong?" You then know what to test for and what evidence to gather that would help answer both questions.
Not only has the truth movement neglected to follow through on this step, they have skipped it entirely. There IS no hypothesis to support. By this I not only mean there is no single, unified idea that everyone can get behind, but NO ONE in the truth movement, not ONE SINGLE individual (at least, none I've talked to, and I've talked to a lot of them), has a hypothesis! I personally believe this is because any hypothesis that is clearly spelled out will make them sound foolish, if not downright insane.
"Truthers" respond to this by saying it's their job to ASK questions, not answer them. It's up to someone else to conduct an investigation. That's fine, if that's what you want to do, but for heaven's sake, stop calling it a TRUTH movement if you aren't trying to learn the truth!
2. Confusion about what is verifiable
As any rational person knows, not all ideas are equally verifiable as being true or not. The statement "2 + 2 = 4" is clearly verifiable and cannot be rationally disputed, but the statement "there is truth in beauty" is so subjective as to be meaningless. In between these two extremes lies a vast spectrum of ideas that range from completely objective to a mere matter of opinion. A few examples of what is verifiable and what is not demonstrate how this relates the the "truth" movement:
Verifiable: The average force generated by the collapsing top section of Tower 1 exerted on the lower section; the maximum tolerances of the still-intact lower section.
Less verifiable: The exact extent of the damage, the exact temperature at every point in the damaged section.
Even less verifiable: The exact nature of the materials that produced certain common chemicals found at the site and in the dust cloud.
Absolutely unverifiable: The predicted behavior of government servants and officials when faced with an unprecedented catastrophe.
"Truthers" seem to think that the calculations made by structural engineers, which they make ALL THE TIME in their work and which have a proven track record, are simply a matter of opinion and can be proved wrong by competing calculations made by less-qualified individuals. At the same time, they believe that the actions and motivations of individual human beings follow strict, predictable laws. Government officials are always greedy and power-hungry and will do anything to support their interests, Islamic fundamentalists live in caves and are too stupid to plan elaborate attacks, George Bush's hesitation in the classroom is PROOF that he knew about the attacks beforehand, anyone who criticizes the truth movement is a government shill -- none of these things follow from the evidence. The actions of ONE person can't be predicted, and it is sheer folly to suggest that whole groups will always behave the way you expect them to.
3. Unwarranted Extrapolation
How do "truthers" know that the WTC towers shouldn't have fallen the way they did, and that flight 93 should have left larger pieces of debris and recognizable bodies? Easy -- they look at similar, smaller-scale phenomena and they scale up. Just like in the movies, where a gorilla can grow to the size of a house and still be as agile as a normal-sized ape.
Wrong. When phenomena are scaled up or down, their properties can change dramatically. Imagine, for instance, a building that is 500 feet tall, 50 feet square at the base, and weighs one million pounds. If you built a building twice as big - 1000 feet tall and 100 feet on a side -- it would weight twice as much, right?
Wrong. It would weigh TEN TIMES as much, unless you plan to increase the empty space in the building proportionally (by making the ceilings twice as tall, for instance). Right away, that tells you that the same structure that worked for the first building wouldn't necessarily work for the second one, it needs to be ten times as strong. This means either adding more structure or totally rethinking the design. It's easy to see here that scaling up introduces a whole host of problems for the builders, and would, of course, completely change the way the building behaved in a catastrophe.
4. Applying Common Sense to Uncommon Situations
Common sense is useful in everyday living. That's because it helps us face the sorts of problems that we're likely to face in the course of an ordinary day.
Common sense, however, fails woefully where ever extreme conditions exist. Nothing in our everyday lives enables us to understand the forces involved in the deceleration of a fast-moving airliner hitting the ground, for instance. Most people can only imagine the complexities involved in the activities of large organizations such as the FAA, NORAD, or the various branches of government. Common sense, unfortunately, leads us to believe we have a firm grasp on these things, and we make our judgements based on what is essentially an illusion.
Common sense tells us that the fastest way to deliver a package is to take it from point A to point B, but Federal Express would tell you otherwise. Common sense tells us that a repairman should be able to tell you the exact time he will be at your house, but the repairman, who has no way of predicting how long repairs will take, would disagree. In short, common sense leads us to oversimplify situations where we don't have the information to make an informed judgement. We all want to understand what's going on, but that's not always possible. It's important to keep an open mind to the possibility that what we THINK is happening is not necessarily likely to happen.
5. Looks Can Be Deceiving
Just because something looks, sounds, or smells like something, doesn't mean it IS that something. There are many things in this world that look superficially like other things, but are not related in any way. Dust clouds and pyroclastic flows, for instance, look very similar, but not only have very different properties, they have different causes as well.
Other examples:
1. All that goes BANG is not an explosive device.
2. A building that falls straight down was not necessarily imploded just because all imploded buildings fall straight down.
3. Not all hot, glowing metal substances are melted steel.
After having engaged in countless arguments about minor details of the 9/11 attacks, and pointing out the same logical fallacies over and over, I felt it was time to compile a list of mistakes that are at the very foundation of the "truth" movement. All the talk about "free-fall" and "natural blast furnaces" and "pulling" buildings amounts to nothing if the very basis of the CT ideas is flawed.
Generally, it seems that all the CT'ists have in common is a belief in an "inside job", either "MIHOP" or "LIHOP". It is my contention that everything they base this belief on is flawed in one way or another. Following is a list of the major mistakes often made by 9/11 conspiracy theorists that lead them to conclude it was an "inside job".
1. No Hypothesis
In trying to decide whether something is true or not, the best method is to formulate a hypothesis, then ask yourself, "What would the world look like if my hypothesis is correct?" as well as, "What would the world look like if my hypothesis is wrong?" You then know what to test for and what evidence to gather that would help answer both questions.
Not only has the truth movement neglected to follow through on this step, they have skipped it entirely. There IS no hypothesis to support. By this I not only mean there is no single, unified idea that everyone can get behind, but NO ONE in the truth movement, not ONE SINGLE individual (at least, none I've talked to, and I've talked to a lot of them), has a hypothesis! I personally believe this is because any hypothesis that is clearly spelled out will make them sound foolish, if not downright insane.
"Truthers" respond to this by saying it's their job to ASK questions, not answer them. It's up to someone else to conduct an investigation. That's fine, if that's what you want to do, but for heaven's sake, stop calling it a TRUTH movement if you aren't trying to learn the truth!
2. Confusion about what is verifiable
As any rational person knows, not all ideas are equally verifiable as being true or not. The statement "2 + 2 = 4" is clearly verifiable and cannot be rationally disputed, but the statement "there is truth in beauty" is so subjective as to be meaningless. In between these two extremes lies a vast spectrum of ideas that range from completely objective to a mere matter of opinion. A few examples of what is verifiable and what is not demonstrate how this relates the the "truth" movement:
Verifiable: The average force generated by the collapsing top section of Tower 1 exerted on the lower section; the maximum tolerances of the still-intact lower section.
Less verifiable: The exact extent of the damage, the exact temperature at every point in the damaged section.
Even less verifiable: The exact nature of the materials that produced certain common chemicals found at the site and in the dust cloud.
Absolutely unverifiable: The predicted behavior of government servants and officials when faced with an unprecedented catastrophe.
"Truthers" seem to think that the calculations made by structural engineers, which they make ALL THE TIME in their work and which have a proven track record, are simply a matter of opinion and can be proved wrong by competing calculations made by less-qualified individuals. At the same time, they believe that the actions and motivations of individual human beings follow strict, predictable laws. Government officials are always greedy and power-hungry and will do anything to support their interests, Islamic fundamentalists live in caves and are too stupid to plan elaborate attacks, George Bush's hesitation in the classroom is PROOF that he knew about the attacks beforehand, anyone who criticizes the truth movement is a government shill -- none of these things follow from the evidence. The actions of ONE person can't be predicted, and it is sheer folly to suggest that whole groups will always behave the way you expect them to.
3. Unwarranted Extrapolation
How do "truthers" know that the WTC towers shouldn't have fallen the way they did, and that flight 93 should have left larger pieces of debris and recognizable bodies? Easy -- they look at similar, smaller-scale phenomena and they scale up. Just like in the movies, where a gorilla can grow to the size of a house and still be as agile as a normal-sized ape.
Wrong. When phenomena are scaled up or down, their properties can change dramatically. Imagine, for instance, a building that is 500 feet tall, 50 feet square at the base, and weighs one million pounds. If you built a building twice as big - 1000 feet tall and 100 feet on a side -- it would weight twice as much, right?
Wrong. It would weigh TEN TIMES as much, unless you plan to increase the empty space in the building proportionally (by making the ceilings twice as tall, for instance). Right away, that tells you that the same structure that worked for the first building wouldn't necessarily work for the second one, it needs to be ten times as strong. This means either adding more structure or totally rethinking the design. It's easy to see here that scaling up introduces a whole host of problems for the builders, and would, of course, completely change the way the building behaved in a catastrophe.
4. Applying Common Sense to Uncommon Situations
Common sense is useful in everyday living. That's because it helps us face the sorts of problems that we're likely to face in the course of an ordinary day.
Common sense, however, fails woefully where ever extreme conditions exist. Nothing in our everyday lives enables us to understand the forces involved in the deceleration of a fast-moving airliner hitting the ground, for instance. Most people can only imagine the complexities involved in the activities of large organizations such as the FAA, NORAD, or the various branches of government. Common sense, unfortunately, leads us to believe we have a firm grasp on these things, and we make our judgements based on what is essentially an illusion.
Common sense tells us that the fastest way to deliver a package is to take it from point A to point B, but Federal Express would tell you otherwise. Common sense tells us that a repairman should be able to tell you the exact time he will be at your house, but the repairman, who has no way of predicting how long repairs will take, would disagree. In short, common sense leads us to oversimplify situations where we don't have the information to make an informed judgement. We all want to understand what's going on, but that's not always possible. It's important to keep an open mind to the possibility that what we THINK is happening is not necessarily likely to happen.
5. Looks Can Be Deceiving
Just because something looks, sounds, or smells like something, doesn't mean it IS that something. There are many things in this world that look superficially like other things, but are not related in any way. Dust clouds and pyroclastic flows, for instance, look very similar, but not only have very different properties, they have different causes as well.
Other examples:
1. All that goes BANG is not an explosive device.
2. A building that falls straight down was not necessarily imploded just because all imploded buildings fall straight down.
3. Not all hot, glowing metal substances are melted steel.
