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7/7 academic woo?

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Penultimate Amazing
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Why carrying out a customary lurk on www.911forum.org.uk, I noticed reference to a academic paper comparing the infamous 7/7 Ripple Effect film with the recent BBC Conspiracy Files documentary that in part tackled it. The only places that seemed to be hosting said paper were (surprise!) David Icke's forum, and the site of the "supporters" of the author of 7/7 Ripple Effect, the latter being:

Theorising Truth - What Happened at Canary Wharf on 7th July 2005?

The author of this paper is one Dr Rory Ridley-Duff, who is indeed on the staff at Sheffield Hallam University in the north of England, although the paper itself is strangely not included amongst the recent publications on his page on their website.

What seems incredible is that Ridley-Duff seems to base much of his reasoning that the "alternative" theory of what may have happened is plausible by citing CT websites with their usual self-selecting/filtered idea of "evidence." For example, the whole idea that there were police shootings at Canary Wharf on the day have all the halmarks of the classic urban myth. Ridley-Duff claims that multiple sources and nationalities add credibility, but seems to have overlooked what I realised what lookign at the "evidence" previously, i.e. that the locations named as being from which some witness are supposed to have seen the shootings - the HSBC Tower and the Credit-Suisse building - are too far apart to be true.
 
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No, no, no! The Battle of Canary Wharf was in July 2007, not July 2005, and it was a battle between humans, Daleks, and Cybermen, not humans and Lizard People.

The amount of misinformation on the web is disheartening.
 
Correcting misinformation

Dear JREF,

The paper highlighted above was written for students on a philosophy course and was uploaded, together with other papers and course materials, to the Scribd document repository. A PDF version was supplied to three people who provided information to produce a balanced article:

Mike Rudin, the series producer of The Conspiracy Files at the BBC
Bridget Dunne, a research at J7
John Hill, the author of 7/7 Ripple Effect

As author, I have no control over who links this public domain article to their forum or website. Several people have already added links the original document on the Scribd site. They did this within a few days of it being uploaded.

The reason the article is not listed on my university web page is that it has been written for teaching purposes, and not for journal publication. It has been published on my personal website (over which I have direct control), but not my university web-page where there is only a small selection of my articles (many others are not listed there). Links on my university web-page are selected to showcase my primary research interests of social enterprise, governance and gender relations. My personal web-site has a wider range of material.

The sources on which the article is based are much broader than is suggested in the first post to this thread. In additional to academic references on philosophy, they include public domain information and comments supplied by:

Euromed
BBC
CNN
Ceroc Scotland Forum
Europhobia
Evening Standard
Sunday Telegraph
Real Deal (Jim Fetzer)
Hill, John (Muad'Dib)
Globe and Mail
House of Commons (Official Report)
Vancouver Sun
J7 (campaign for a public inquiry into 7/7)
Alex Jones Roadshow
New Zealand Herald
Huntsville Times
Obachike, Daniel
Mail Online
Rudin, Mike (BBC)
Shayler, David
South London News
Ottawa Citizen
Sky News
The Independent
Wikipedia

There are some references to 7/7 websites (e.g. J7), which is to be expected given how few people are undertaking any serious research into events. A search was done for sites that attempt to debunk 7/7. Only one was found, and this contained virtually no information. It is worth nothing that there are far more references to sources that have no vested interest in 7/7 conspiracy theories.

The idea that the shooting at Canary Wharf was an 'urban myth' is itself an invention of Mark Sellman at the Times Online who admits ignoring reports about it (i.e. not investigating them). Had he done so, he would have found numerous consistent reports from many different journalists / eye-witnesses to many different papers in the US, New Zealand, Canada and the UK. These were retrieved using Nexis UK, a database of news articles available to university researchers in the UK. I can provide all information retrieved from this database to anyone who wishes to see my source material.

The only way for anyone with scholarly integrity to comment properly on this article is to read it in its entirely first.

Best wishes
Rory Ridley-Duff (Dr)
Sheffield Business School
Sheffield Hallam University
 
...
Real Deal (Jim Fetzer)...
Alex Jones Roadshow....
Bro, by using them as references you have thrown your PhD out the window and declared yourself far and wide as a nutcase who should not be given tenure. They have poisoned your well that thoroughly. They are crackpots and liars who defame good people to make a few bucks off the immature and the insane.

Really.
 
Bro, by using them as references you have thrown your PhD out the window and declared yourself far and wide as a nutcase who should not be given tenure. They have poisoned your well that thoroughly. They are crackpots and liars who defame good people to make a few bucks off the immature and the insane.

Really.

True. But there is also much wrong with the whole thing.

I think we're being patronised, just a little, too.
 
Rory, thank you for your comments. What troubles me the most is that - as JFM has said - you have relied on sources that are inherently unreliable. To take a different example, the only corroboration you gave that for the claim that Peter Power's "terror exercise" was wider that just the office/desk-bound one he says it was, was the claims of Daniel Obachike. Have you actually read Obachike's book? Are you are aware that - in the heaviest of ironies - the train journey he describes himself as taking on 7 July which supposedly eventually led to him being on the bus in Tavistock Square is not only impossible to achieve in the timeframe he claimed, but does not even make sense in the context of where he says he was living and working at the time? That the, "actor covered with bandages," that Obachike identifies in footage shot at the time has been actually confirmed by Russell Square survivors as a fellow victim of that explosion?

Also, why do you maintain throughout the paper that Power's exercise involved, "four bombs going off in London at precisely the same locations and times," as those in real life, when in the BBC programme he clearly explains that his scenario had bombs going off at Liverpool Street, Kings-Cross, and Russell Square stations? The first two are obvious high-profile targets (Liverpool Street was even chosen as the target of a terrorist attack in the BBC's 2002 drama-documentary Dirty War), and his scenario had them attacked separately, not the real single explosion between them. Elsewhere Power has clarified that the "above-ground" bomb in his exercise was near to the offices of the Jewish Chronicle, close to Channcery Lane station and therefore nowhere near Tavistock Square. To express this graphically, the green circles show Power's location, and the red circles the actual ones (dotted circles are above-ground explosions):

power.jpg


Although there are obvious and unfortunate similarities, in no way can this be described as, "precisely the same locations," as in real life.

These are not by any means the only factual errors and mis-assumptions in your paper, which sadly will only encourage the conspiracy theory fringe from which most of them seem to originate. I would also echo JFM's suggestion that you are being patronising, especially in your comment that people should read the paper. I did read it, and the numerous flaws apparent in it were why I brought it to attention here, naturally with a link so that others could read it themselves.
 
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Interesting points IA, I'd really like to hear more about Obachike's journey.
 
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised any longer with the stupid things that apparently highly-educated people believe. After all, I've read papers by Steven Jones and David L. Griscom, and books by David Ray Griffin.

But it still stuns me to see such buffoonish work by someone possessing a doctorate. When confronted with the fact that Peter Power did indeed claim to have a simulation going on that morning involving bombs going off in precisely those locations, which seems more plausible?

A. That Peter Power was exaggerating his precision.

or

B. That Peter Power was in fact the mastermind behind the attacks, and confessing his involvement in yet another Merry Pason moment.

I am definitely saddened to hear that you handed this paper out to your students; I certainly hope they got a chuckle out of it and dropped your course, posthaste.
 
Interesting points IA, I'd really like to hear more about Obachike's journey.

OK, here goes....

In his book, Obachike implies that his usual route to work that week involved walking from his home to Enfield Town railway station, catching the 08:27 train to Liverpool Street station, then changing to the London Underground to complete the journey to his office at Old Street. Logically this would mean taking a Circle/Metropolitan/Hammersmith & City line train to Moorgate station, then changing to the northbound Northern line to go one stop to Old Street station. Obachike says that this would get him to his desk before, "the petulant manager came a-hovering minutes after 9" (p. 5).

On 7 July, however, he missed the 08:27 train, and so had to get the next one, but en route he changed to the Victoria line at Seven Sisters station (six stops after Enfield Town, and eight before Liverpool Street) for no adequately explained reason. The logical alternative route would have been him taking the Victoria line all the way to King's Cross station, before changing to the southbound Northern Line two stops to Old Street station. He says, "a glance at his watch told him it was almost 9 o'clock" (p. 10) as they approached King's Cross/St Pancras, but it was announced that the station was closed, so the train passed through without stopping. Once at Euston, he states that the train doors remained open for "minutes," then "another 5 minutes later passenger's frustrations began to tell," before most progressively began to leave, himself included, their exit slowed due to the power to the escalators to the mainline surface station being off. From personal familiarity with the station layout at Euston, it is hard to accept that someone could reached the surface in less than ten minutes under these circumstances. At the very least, then, it would have at least 18 minutes between the arrival of the train and Obachike reaching the surface, which he claims he actually did by 09:06. He then spent a further 25 minutes milling around with other displaced communters, before eventually boarding the No. 30 bus and departing at 09:31.

There are a number of problems with both his claimed usual route, and the one he says he actually took on the day. In the first instance, in July 2005 the 08:27 from Enfield Town was not timetabled to arrive at Liverpool Street until 09:04, so with another ten minutes to get to Old Street by Underground, it's hard to see how Obachike could have been at his desk by 09:20, let alone "minutes after 9."

As he actually missed the 08:27, the next train was not until 08:49, arriving at Liverpool Street at 09:26. It would have arrived at Seven Sisters 1-to-3 minutes before it was timetabled to leave there at 09:03, but then taken him around four minutes to change to the Underground, and another 10 minutes to get from there to King's Cross, so he could not have been approaching that station at "almost 9 o'clock." Even with trains non-stopping at King's Cross, he could not have reached Euston until around 09:16-09:18, assuming that he got straight onto an immediately departing Victoria line train at Seven Sisters, meaning he could not have been on the Euston mainline concourse until 09:34-09:36, after the No. 30 had departed, never mind allowing his 25 minutes elapsing before that happened.

This all assumes that Obachike took the route he says he did. As noted, he claims he walked from his home to Enfield Town station, which is a distance of about 460 metres, to take a 37 minute train to Liverpool Street, followed by a further Underground journey with an additional change to Old Street. In the oppose direction, 880 metres away from Obachike's home, is Enfield Chase station, from which he could take a 24 minute train on a different line direct to Old Street. In July 2005 the timetabled departures and arrivals at Enfield Chase and Old Street were respectively:

08:17 - 08:45
08:27 - 08:52
08:34 - 08:58
08:39 - 09:04
08:58 - 09:24
09:02 - 09:28

The only Enfield Town to Liverpool Street services in the same timeframe were:

08:12 - 08:47
08:27 - 09:04
08:49 - 09:26
09:04 - 09:38

All the issues of whether Obachike's described route could actually get him to Euston in time to be on the No. 30 bus aside, it does not seem credible that that for the sake of not walking an additional 420 metres, he would make a more complex journey (i.e. three changes rather than none) that would take at least 22 minutes longer every single day, let alone one on which he was already running late. Ironically, elsewhere in his book Obachike actually makes the point that savvy commuters, "naturally opt for (the) quickest and most straightforward journey" (p.123).

Historic timetables:

Enfield CHase to Old Street

Enfield Town to Liverpool Street
 
I apologise in advance in case this makes no sense but I've been out with some buddies drinking mucho beer

I think the problem with Dr Ridley-Duff and 'Theorising Truth' isn't that; "This paper uses three different theories of truth to consider claims broadcast in two documentaries about the London bombings..."

Nor is it that; "The findings are assessed using three different theories of truth."

No, it is that he says; "...that it has been written for teaching purposes," WTF?

Whether intentional or not, any student reading the paper will conclude the good Dr thinks the events of 7/7, as understood by most, to be a lie, not simply wrong somehow, but a lie. Worse they will have any doubt about the events reinforced by the shoddy research.

Not all academics are good at research. Not all academics are good at teh interwebs.

Really, I despair at the state of education here in the UK. It would be easy to blame the government of the day but it is the individual colleges/schools/uni's employing these jokers, not Gordon Brown.

I also think he was doing that thing we've all done, Googling his own name:bigclap
 
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Really, I despair at the state of education here in the UK. It would be easy to blame the government of the day but it is the individual colleges/schools/uni's employing these jokers, not Gordon Brown.
To be honest, as a Yank who for years has had to endure the trashing of our university system, as if it were not simply inferior to the British system but, because it is more inclusive, I am REALLY enjoying the smackdown of a product of the British system. :D

dropzone, graduate of a Land-Grant University that had been, previously, a Teachers College. The ratio of men to women had suffered before I entered but was still roughly 50:50, better than better schools.
 
To be honest, as a Yank who for years has had to endure the trashing of our university system, as if it were not simply inferior to the British system but, because it is more inclusive, I am REALLY enjoying the smackdown of a product of the British system. :D

dropzone, graduate of a Land-Grant University that had been, previously, a Teachers College. The ratio of men to women had suffered before I entered but was still roughly 50:50, better than better schools.

Although I spent several years working in the US and a few more commuting to NY every month, I had little contact with academia, so, my opinions are based on colleagues and friends. I didn't notice anything lacking in their education. I will admit to expecting them to be less sophisticated but again, this wasn't the case.

A degree here used to mean you knew your onions, I'm not so sure any more. Recently I was talking to a buddy, his daughter was about to graduate, I asked, "in what?" I think the reply was "French, Chinese and Computer Programming" - ? How on earth can anyone have learned anything meaningful or of any practical use about Chinese, French and Computer Programming in three years? I expect a graduate to know their subject, that is the point...

I can't go on I'll just end up typing some drunken rant I'll regret when the booze wears off.

So no, I think any European snobbery about US uni's is very ignorant.
 
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Thanks, because my uni is currently most famous for a campus shooting. :( At the time I expressed to a friend, who had been a professor there, that the SECOND (or third) worst part was that it reduced our Anthro department to a footnote when we had worked our way up to being Pretty Damned Good.

http://www.niu.edu/memorial/ :(
 
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised any longer with the stupid things that apparently highly-educated people believe. After all, I've read papers by Steven Jones and David L. Griscom, and books by David Ray Griffin.

But it still stuns me to see such buffoonish work by someone possessing a doctorate. When confronted with the fact that Peter Power did indeed claim to have a simulation going on that morning involving bombs going off in precisely those locations, which seems more plausible?

A. That Peter Power was exaggerating his precision.

or

B. That Peter Power was in fact the mastermind behind the attacks, and confessing his involvement in yet another Merry Pason moment.

I am definitely saddened to hear that you handed this paper out to your students; I certainly hope they got a chuckle out of it and dropped your course, posthaste.
I've long thought the most sympathetic interpretation for Power's intial statements is down to his perspective. His scenario involved explosions at three specific stations (at least one of which actually being the surface/mainline part, rather than the Underground element); real life had three explosions between six stations. Power's three stations were a sub-set of real life, but in terms of three explosions, not two. From his perspective, through the prism of the scenario he had obviously been working on for some time, all the stations in his scenario were affected in real life, but seen through the prism of actual events, not all the stations actually affected were in his exercise.

This is really like a situation in which six films are playing at a multiplex. Person A has seen all six films, whilst Person B had seen half of them. Person B can say to person A, "You have seen all the films I have," but Person A would say to Person B, "You haven't seen all the films I have." Both statements appear contradictory, but from the perspective of those making them, they are true.
 
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A degree here used to mean you knew your onions, I'm not so sure any more. Recently I was talking to a buddy, his daughter was about to graduate, I asked, "in what?" I think the reply was "French, Chinese and Computer Programming" - ? How on earth can anyone have learned anything meaningful or of any practical use about Chinese, French and Computer Programming in three years? I expect a graduate to know their subject, that is the point...
And, of course, some of us are of that vintage that doing a degree was something only a small minority did. :cool: I actually had offers to do English at a couple of polytechnics, but messed up my A-levels, couldn't afford to re-take them (single parent family), so had to get a job. Twenty-three years on, the government has this obsession about getting the majority of kids to go to university, which logically can't do anything other than devalue having that level of education. Having over the years steadily worked up to to a fairly senior level in my job, it's a bit despressing to see that the job descriptions for grades well below mine have a degree as a absolute necessity for recruitment.
 
Answering your comments

I think the problem with Dr Ridley-Duff and 'Theorising Truth' isn't that; "This paper uses three different theories of truth to consider claims broadcast in two documentaries about the London bombings..."

Nor is it that; "The findings are assessed using three different theories of truth."

No, it is that he says; "...that it has been written for teaching purposes," WTF?

Whether intentional or not, any student reading the paper will conclude the good Dr thinks the events of 7/7, as understood by most, to be a lie, not simply wrong somehow, but a lie. Worse they will have any doubt about the events reinforced by the shoddy research.

Not all academics are good at research. Not all academics are good at teh interwebs.

Thank you for all these responses. It will help to improve the paper under discussion.

The focus in the paper is clearly on the evidence of events at Canary Wharf, and two points of differece on train times and what happened to the four men after the tube trains exploded. Daniel Obachike is not the focus of the paper and is introduced only to provide evidence that Peter Power's account is contested (more below). In any attempt at advancing knowledge, it will be the case that points are challenged and clarifications will be achieved through dialogue with other people so I'm grateful to people for reading the paper and identifying new arguments that can be considered in producing a new version next year.

As to the question of what I believe - I have no firm view yet other than that the official account does not make sense. The fact that men may have been attacked or shot at Canary Wharf does not mean that these are the four men who were blamed for the tube explosions (nor does the paper claim this). It does point out, however, that John Hill's theory is better able to account for something that no other theory of 7th July is able to explain. This being the case, due consideration should be given to this alternative theory. The paper advances the debate by providing all the newspaper / blog / discussion forum references to the shootings that it was possible to find with the resources available to me. These references do not support the official government account. That's not a controversial statement, in my view. As a result, a different account of the day is required.

As for Daniel Obachike, reference to his interview with Alex Jones and his book are provided only to show that Peter Power's account is contested. I make no claim beyond this. Given that it has been raised, it is worth discussing the interview with Alex Jones. In this interview, Obachike provides detailed and specific information on the person he alleges was 'faking' injury. Alex Jones himself says that he and his staff (however controversial or problematic this may be) checked out the story themselves and verified with people involved with the bus that it was singled out on the day for diversion. Daniel Obachike's account is contested - I can point this out in revisions - so there is a question that needs to be answered by all here.

Why do people believe those who attack Daniel Obachike's account rather than Daniel Obachike's account? Why do people believe Peter Power (who has a career advantage in manipulating the media) over other witnesses (who have no experience of manipulating the media). These are pertinent questions.

Is this a case of believing who you want to believe to avoid the dissonance created by a controversial account or theory? Researchers are aware of the impact of 'cognitive dissonance' (indeed, I discuss the effects of cognitive dissonance with new researchers). It is the psychological process by which all people (including researchers) reduce their distress by accepting false accounts. It enables them to avoid examining controversial or contradictory evidence.

I've not read Obachike's book, but I have read discussions of his book by those who have read it. Daniel Obachike's book is a publication that captures the material in his internet blog. However imperfect that may be, others who have read the book state clearly that it documents the treatment he received by the police/anti-terrorist authorities after he was found on / near the Tavistock Square bus. He didn't cash in by writing a book straightaway. He started a blog documenting his treatment. After 7 months there were 440,000 people reading his blog (creating the market for a book). This being the case, the book is based on the blog (and retains spelling mistakes etc.). This does not appear to me to be the work of someone who set out to write a book about the 7/7 bombing - it was an accident of history that people were sufficiently interested in what was happening to him to make a book possible.

I don't expect - if it is a blog - for it to be an accurate detailed history. It does, however, provide clear evidence that there is a challenge to the official account of the fourth bomb. Nor is this the only evidence. The J7 web-site details another woman who refused to confirm there was only one bomb. She maintained there were two. (She was later found dead, allegedly committed 'suicide'). There is sufficient evidence, from more than one source, to question the official account of what occured at Tavistock Square, nor is Daniel Obachike the only person claiming that planted 'witnesses' were talking to the media. Further examples are available at J7 (based on YouTube video footage) of people talking about events, and their injuries, before people from the tube network had time to reach the surface.

I am open to revising the paper for next year's classes based on the conversations we have here, providing the information provided can checks out (in the same way that John Hill's account was not presented in a paper until it too had checked out against the sources used).

A note on sources. The idea that some sources are 'credible' and some are not is the argument of a partisan person who is not interested in the truth. Whatever account is given, there is a reason for it. A good social scientist, particularly one writing from a critical perspective, does not dismiss a person's account without evidence, and does not dismiss a person's account if part of it turns out to be untrue. The BBC documentary can be seen in the same light. Even though it contains statements that are problematic - it was made to serve a purpose and contains some useful information not available elsewhere. It was produced for a reason, in a particular political context (i.e. the sending of 7/7 Ripple Effect to a judge in a court case about 7/7). The political/social reasons for producing misleading accounts can be as interesting as the reasons for providing a 'truthful' one.

Those in this thread, therefore, who are not interested in false statements are not social scientists. They are using natural science logic which should be rejected when dealing with issues of social science. Natural science logic is not helpful in seeking to understand accounts of events that serve various social or political purposes. These purposes are discussed in the paper and the 'bias' (if this is the term you prefer) of both documentaries is assessed and drawn to the attention of the reader.

To clear up another criticism, I do Google the titles of my academic papers to check where they are being read/distributed. It is not unreasonable to take an interest in the impact of my own work. Once every seven years, I have to provide an account for the RAE on the impact of my work so I do track its impact.

Best wishes
Rory
 
A note on sources. The idea that some sources are 'credible' and some are not is the argument of a partisan person who is not interested in the truth.

Rubbish. Sources are credible if their statements accord with the evidence. Sources are not credible if their statements do not accord with reality.

They are using natural science logic which should be rejected when dealing with issues of social science.

Again this is rubbish. Evidence has been provided to show that at least some of the claims entertained in your article are physically impossible.

No amount of handwaving about the nature of truth can alter the fact that the events (irrespective of whether they occured according to the accepted narrative) of that day happened in the physical world .

Natural science logic is not helpful in seeking to understand accounts of events that serve various social or political purposes.

It is, if those statements can be shown to be inconsistent with reality.
 

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