AE911truth "debate challenge"

[WilliamSeger]

9/11 DEBATE CHALLENGE: Only Credentialed Professionals Need Apply

$1,000 Prize to Charity of Choice

Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth is offering credentialed building professionals a 9/11 Debate Challenge — an opportunity to publicly endorse the National Construction Safety Team Act Report 1A (NCSTAR 1A), titled Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC 7) and published in November 2008 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

By issuing this 9/11 Debate Challenge, AE911Truth hopes to further educate fellow building professionals and the public about NIST's collapse initiation hypothesis and its assertion of subsequent structural failures. AE911Truth, as the "Challenger of NIST," trusts that such a debate with the "Champion of NIST," whoever that may be, will allow the evidence for the explosive controlled demolition of WTC 7 to be presented side by side with videos and other forensic evidence obtained from NIST's own files.
Why is AE911Truth issuing a 9/11 Debate Challenge? Ever since 2006, when AE911Truth founder Richard Gage, AIA, started a petition calling for a new, independent investigation of the WTC destruction on 9/11, detractors have claimed that the "small minority" of architects and engineers who have signed it — 2,216 to date, and counting — "do not represent" the prevailing sentiment of either the architectural or engineering professions.

-snip-

A $1,000 challenge is hereby offered for a team comprised of a LICENSED high-rise architect and a LICENSED structural engineer and/or an active FULL professor of either of these disciplines to publicly defend the integrity of the NIST NCSTAR 1A final report on WTC 7, in a debate exchange format, with members of the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth team. The challenge will be won by the team that has convinced more than 50 percent of the audience to either agree or disagree with this statement: "The key questions raised by Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth have been adequately addressed by NIST, and a new investigation regarding the destruction of WTC 7 would continue to support NIST's conclusions that WTC 7 was destroyed by a fire-induced, gravity-only progressive collapse. Yes or no?"

http://www.ae911truth.org/en/news-s...edentialed-professionals-need-only-apply.html

 

[fagin]

Not enough money to debate a morass of stupidity.

 

[DGM]

Does the AE 9/11 team have to meet the same qualifications?

I wonder who they got for their team. Both Gage and Szamboti are out.

 

[thedopefishlives]

Isn't this the second or third time they've tried to get a debate challenge going? Of course, when nobody takes them up on it, they'll crow triumphantly about how that means The Establishment is so afraid of The Twoof that They (tm) won't allow anybody to debate them!

 

[WilliamSeger]

Gotta love the disingenuously loaded question to be debated (or actually, two disingenuously conjoined questions). NIST has not addressed many of the "questions raised by Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth" -- "adequately" or otherwise -- because they're too ridiculous, but Gage is desperately hoping that whether or not the challenge is accepted, those "questions" will be legitimized as debatable issues.

 

[Horatius]

Gotta love the disingenuously loaded question to be debated (or actually, two disingenuously conjoined questions). NIST has not addressed many of the "questions raised by Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth" -- "adequately" or otherwise -- because they're too ridiculous, but Gage is desperately hoping that whether or not the challenge is accepted, those "questions" will be legitimized as debatable issues.

And, of course, this bit:

The challenge will be won by the team that has convinced more than 50 percent of the audience to either agree or disagree with this statement:

Because there's no chance at all the majority of the audience will already be truthers....

And of course, the best way to determine which side knows what they're talking about is a poll of untrained randoms.....

Has there ever been one of these sorts of "challenges" from Woosters that wasn't blatantly biased in their favor? I don't think I've ever seen one.

 

[WilliamSeger]

Does the AE 9/11 team have to meet the same qualifications?

I wonder who they got for their team. Both Gage and Szamboti are out.

There's also an implicit "qualification" that participants must agree that this is a reasonable venue and format for debating technical issues, and that the opinions of a self-selected non-expert audience after 90-minutes of rhetoric is how they are settled.

(ETA, Horatius beat me to it .)

 

[chrismohr]

Years ago, when I asked Michael Newman at NIST if someone from NIST would ever consider a debate with Gage, he said "There's nothing to debate."
When I debated Gage, I refused to frame it as a defense of the NIST Report. Instead, I framed it as "Controlled Demolition vs Natural Collapse," and was therefore free to bring in CTBUH, Purdue, University of Hawaii, etc. The debate was more than fair, and they actually publicly reported that twice as many people who changed their minds were swayed in my direction. However, as it was 90%+ 9/11 Truth people, of course I would have "lost" the debate based on a majority not changing their minds.
I'm not sure who they would have for their side of the debate. Who is 9/11 Truth is a "LICENSED high-rise architect and a LICENSED structural engineer and/or an active FULL professor of either of these disciplines"?
As most of you know, debating is a skill that has nothing to do with being on the side of truth. My high school nephew is on the debate team, and he has to prepare both sides of an argument. They flip a coin to determine which side his team advocates for. While Richard Gage is a very compelling speaker, he is only am average debater (this is not a put-down of him). Neither of us are trained debaters, and I "won" the debate based on my natural abilities and preparation, not because I was right (tho of course I am convinced I AM right!). So I'm surprised to see this challenge. Many people at AE911 oppose the debate format, and with good reason.

 

[DGM]

This would make it fun:

Audience:

Attendance at the 9/11 Debate Challenge will be open to students and faculty, and the general public enrolled or teaching in the structural engineering field. . The doors will be closed once the debate has begun. All members of the audience who have listened to the entire debate may vote. The debate will be recorded for later broadcast.

 

[DGM]

Shouldn't this information also be posted for the AE 9/11 team (to insure they are qualified)?

Proposals:

Full name and title, daytime and evening phone numbers, email address, city and state (or province) of work or residence of each team member

Professional biography/curriculum vitae of each team member

Professional license number and state (or province) of registration of each team member

 

[DGM]

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

DebateChallenge@ae911truth.org

Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the server for the recipient domain ae911truth.org by mx1.cloudaccess.net. [199.116.78.90].

The error that the other server returned was:
550 <debatechallenge@ae911truth.org> No such user here

Maybe they're just not ready to take on challengers. I emailed them for their team member list.

 

[Trojan]

I would love to see the team member list for them. I would also like to know who is putting up the money.

 

[DGM]

I would love to see the team member list for them. I would also like to know who is putting up the money.

There's a $1000 now unaccounted for from the "physics challenge". It was donated to the Mark Bassile study but now it is no longer listed there.

 

[grandmastershek]

Typical drivel. Demand the highest standards from everyone else, while parading around fraud and pseudo experts as the "truth".

 

[ProBonoShill]

I'd love to see Gage the swindler agree to do this in front of the ASCE, but we all know that won't happen.

 

[Iamafalser]

He really should attend an ASCE conference and conduct a seminar on stealth CD. I'm sure the people who conduct CD for a living could learn a lot from his expertise. LOL.

$1,000? That's a puny amount.

 

[Grizzly Bear]

Unsurprisingly AE911truth is trying to get publicity using the famous "any publicity is good publicity" motto once again. I almost wish one of these organizations would give them a thorough smack down but then again I don't dignifying psuedo-science and engineering with the attention.

 

[chrismohr]

He really should attend an ASCE conference and conduct a seminar on stealth CD. I'm sure the people who conduct CD for a living could learn a lot from his expertise. LOL.

$1,000? That's a puny amount.

Well, Gage DID give a presentation at a recent AIA Convention in Denver, and got several dozen arcchitects to sign his petition (I saw the signatures myself).

 

[Justin39640]

Our species is doomed.

 

[Iamafalser]

Well, Gage DID give a presentation at a recent AIA Convention in Denver, and got several dozen arcchitects to sign his petition (I saw the signatures myself).

Not surprising. In general, architects have very little knowledge related to materials science and the details of structural engineering. Their job is to deisgn buildings to look pretty.

Go to any university's website and look up the graduation requirements for a degree in architecture. Then look up the requirements for a degree in civil engineering.

Convincing a few gullible architects is child's play a for a practiced charlatan like Gage. Convincing actual structural engineers is way beyond his pay grade. (or donation grade)