Chemical Engineer Mark Basile confirms Harrit nano-thermite results

9/11-investigator said:
The reason why we see JO911S and Bentham as not respectable is that we don't like what they publish.
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In a sense, yes.

I don't like journals that publish horse ****. I don't like journals that reject someone's discussion (Mine) about one of their journal "papers", because I wasn't invited.

I also don't like journals that give other respectable journals a bad name. I don't like journals that claim to be scientific, but have no (proper) peer-review process in place.

In closing, Bentham and JO911S are sham journals. May as well sell them next to the National Enquirer and the TV Guide.
 
>"My name is Marc Basile. I'm a chemical engineer. I have a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Whistler (?) Polytechnical Institute. I have worked for about 25 years in industry."

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI dot edu) near Boston, fournded in 1865, is one of the first American engineering and technology universities. In 2008, Forbes ranked it #9 in the nation for graduate success, as measured by their salaries (for what that is worth). BusinessWeek ranked WPI #1 in the nation among part time MBA programs. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is named for Robert Goddard, the father of rocketry, who graduated from WPI in 1908. (Source: Wikipedia)
 
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cicorp said:
>"My name is Marc Basile. I'm a chemical engineer. I have a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Whistler (?) Polytechnical Institute. I have worked for about 25 years in industry."

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI dot edu) near Boston, fournded in 1865, is one of the first American engineering and technology universities. In 2008, Forbes ranked it #9 in the nation for graduate success, as measured by their salaries (for what that is worth). BusinessWeek ranked WPI #1 in the nation among part time MBA programs. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is named for Robert Goddard, the father of rocketry, who graduated from WPI in 1908. (Source: Wikipedia)
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It does not matter how great or what school it is, confirming Harrit's results, failure, nonsense.
 
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If we're just going to take education as the gold standard, as a graduate student at WPI, you should listen to everything I have to say. :rolleyes:
 
cicorp said:
>"My name is Marc Basile. I'm a chemical engineer. I have a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Whistler (?) Polytechnical Institute. I have worked for about 25 years in industry."

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI dot edu) near Boston, fournded in 1865, is one of the first American engineering and technology universities. In 2008, Forbes ranked it #9 in the nation for graduate success, as measured by their salaries (for what that is worth). BusinessWeek ranked WPI #1 in the nation among part time MBA programs. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is named for Robert Goddard, the father of rocketry, who graduated from WPI in 1908. (Source: Wikipedia)
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http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#expert
 
cicorp said:
>"My name is Marc Basile. I'm a chemical engineer. I have a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Whistler (?) Polytechnical Institute. I have worked for about 25 years in industry."
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And I'm completely unfamiliar with material analytical techniques such as FTIR which a) would characterize the material found in Harrit et al's paper (especially the organic constituent) and b) don't realise that analytical chemical laboratories commonly have such a machine.

I also bang on about thermate on youtube when the paper that I refer to found no significant evidence of Sulphur, which is acknowledged by the papers' authors.

Ho hum.
 
Do truthers really need to be reminded of something from the first page of this very thread?

R.Mackey said:
Why is this news? Mr. Basile was acknowledged in the original paper. We already knew his opinion, years ago.

What's needed is independent confirmation, which we all know will never, ever happen.

And the Truthers still haven't figured out that their own data proves it isn't nanothermite...
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My bolding. What Ryan said is as true now as it was back in October. Nothing has changed.
 
Oystein said:
Please go check the list of 1300+ architects and engineers on AE911T.org

Search for "Basile": He is not there.
Search for "chemical engineer": You will find 23

Basile either did not sign the Petition, or AE911T does not consider him an engineer. There is no third option.
We shall see when they bring the "supporters" list back.
...
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Update:

Mark Basile is now listed under "Engineering Professionals (Degreed Only)" - he wasn't 3 weeks ago. The number of "Chemical Engineers" has increased to 23. Can't tell now whether he signed the list since november 17, or whether they promoted him from "Supporter".
Basile's User Profile

The Supporters List is back, split into 52 pages.
 
Why is it none of these "engineering professionals (degreed only)" are defending themselves? Don't they realize that their peers think they may possibly be nuts?
 
twinstead said:
Why is it none of these "engineering professionals (degreed only)" are defending themselves? Don't they realize that their peers think they may possibly be nuts?
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For them there is no such thing as criticism. If you dare somehow manage to communicate a comment their response is a resounding STFU, much like Chandler makes a policy of with his youtube videos
 
Oystein said:
Update:

Mark Basile is now listed under "Engineering Professionals (Degreed Only)" - he wasn't 3 weeks ago. The number of "Chemical Engineers" has increased to 23. Can't tell now whether he signed the list since november 17, or whether they promoted him from "Supporter".
Basile's User Profile
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Basile's profile includes the semi-coherent 'Personal 9/11 statement' :

"Get some dust and look for the metallic microspheres and red/gray chips. The spheres are evidence of temperatures beyond the capability of jet fuel, and the chips produce molten iron droplets when ignited!"

p.s. can't help but notice they still have Gordon Ross's piffle amongst their many featured articles :rolleyes:
 
Due to the recent cold snap, I made a nice fire for me and Mrs. Tri in the back yard. Simple little fire using scrap wood from around the house.

I have collected a sample, and will be sending it to a lab buddy of mine to run through a couple of different tests.

I'll let you know what comes back.

I'm betting that there is some elemental iron in there.
 
The Almond said:
More to the point: The reputations of these "journals" is not established, and from what they've published so far, they're certainly not likely to become rising stars.

What tfc has been trying to point out (among others) is that, if what Harrit, Basile, Jones, and Farrer say is true, it would be the biggest scientific news story on the planet. If the science were sound, there are a dozen journals in analytical chemistry, forensics, explosives, fire and materials science research that would be falling over themselves to publish it. The only thing the nano-thermite wonks would have to do in order to submit such an article is format the paper, and submit it to the editorship for review.

As a researcher myself, I can assure you that when I've got important or interesting data to present, I don't first publish it in a vanity journal. If I think the research is good and of broad interest, I'll submit to Nature or Science. If they reject the article, I go to Analytical Chemistry, Nature Methods, Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Physical Review, or Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences. Failing those journals, I would probably select a more discipline specific journal like Fire Research, Cement and Concrete Research, X-ray Spectrometry or ACI Materials. Failing acceptance at those journals, I would try a trade magazine like Chemical Engineering News or Engineering News Record. Failing all of those options, I would publish in a pay-to-publish online journal in the hope that my reference would come up in a random Google search.

Jones, Harrit and Farrer have all followed roughly the same strategy for all of their legitimate scientific careers. Why on Earth would they skip steps 1-4 and go straight to an online vanity journal for this one paper?
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The Almond is of course correct, and 100% on point with this. There is a definite difference in credibility between commonly accepted science journals and pay-to-publish ones. This is not to say that open source journals have no place in research publishing, nor that vanity publishing also is similarly a Persona non grata, so to speak, in that world. However, there's no question that open source and vanity publishing houses (yes, they're two separate things normally, it's just that Bentham happens to be both) are definitely a second (or third, or lower) class of publisher in terms of acceptibility, reliability... well heck, credibility when compared to more mainstream ones.

So given that they can, should they choose, reside in the same world, what would separate those legitimate OA and vanity publishers from the joke ones? The obvious answer is how they conduct themselves. And it's been amply demonstrated that Bentham does not conduct itself well. Ryan Mackey throughout the following thread investigated them and discovered serious editorial problems calling into account their credulity and reviewing process:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110489

Two posts in particular stand out:
... but all of what he discovered and described is worth reading.

And Ryan was not the only one to find problems. Peter Surber at Earlham college has made multiple posts on his site documenting the problems people have discovered with that journal:
To wit:
Peter Surber said:
The Davis-Anderson hoax clearly uncovered incompetence at this Bentham journal. We have to ask whether the journal lies about performing peer review or just performs it so badly that it's equivalent to no review at all. Even if the journal were cynically trying to maximize revenue from publication fees, a competent scam would not have accepted the Davis drivel...
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Link added to explain what exactly the "Davis drivel" is (it was a submission of a complete nonsense paper to Bentham Open), rather than include the information in the quote.
Peter Surber said:
... There's no doubt that OA journals can be strong or weak, just as TA journals can be strong or weak. The question is whether we're dealing with a very weak journal or with something larger.
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And from that last link:
Peter Surber said:
In April, Marie-Paule Pileni, editor in chief of Bentham's Open Chemical Physics Journal, resigned when the journal published a 9/11 conspiracy-theory paper without her knowledge or approval. Now Parmanto is saying that he never saw the nonsense submission and doesn't have full control of what the journal accepts. It's time for Bentham to explain how peer review works or is supposed to work at Bentham journals.
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You distinguish yourself by how you conduct yourself. A restaurant, no matter what sorts of airs it gives itself, will never be a gourmet destination if both its food and its service is better characterized as "fast food" quality. A doctor, even if degreed from a legitimate medical school, will not be conducting him/herself as a doctor if he/she continually ignores the professionally established standard of care, or worse yet, acts in detrimental contradiction to it. And a publishing house, no matter who they add to their editorial board and how many science topics they attempt to cover, will never be a credible source if they conduct themselves in a way that's antithetical to responsible peer review and publication processes.

Bentham Open has earned its reputation through its conduct.

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But that's not the end. Any claim that's ever advanced must also be judged on its own merits; failing to do so is failing to be a critical thinker. Just because we condemn Bentham doesn't necessarily mean that all works published there are faulty. It opens the question, certainly. And it hinders credibility because the basic trustworthiness of the published work is in doubt. But claims are judged on their own, and that's where the Jones/Harrit paper fails. See the links above that I published, plus these:
In particular, pay attention to the first link from the Science/Math/Medicine/Technology subforum that managed to have a much lower noise-to-signal ratio than what's often found here in CT, as well as these two posts by Sunstealer, which speak directly towards the central claims made in the Jones/Harrit Bentham paper:
There are more threads and posts buried in various places on the objections, but the bottom line is that the work fails on its own, even ignoring what publication is housing it.

And last, let's also put to rest this notion that our objections are suspect because we "don't like" the paper or the publishing house. Our objections have always been and will always be firmly rooted in the egregious errors and invalid conclusions drawn in the paper, and the sloppy editorial practices and lack of critical review on the part of the publisher. This has been demonstrated in other threads. Dislike does not drive our analysis; that's nothing more than an attempt to discredit conclusions we've reached through analysis. It is true that many of us here dislike the fact that the Jones/Harrit crew has attempted to hoodwink other people, and that truthers are swallowing it uncritically because it has the veneer of science (which is why I call it cargo-cult science; it's the motions undertaken in that paper, not the substance). But our conclusions about the lack of validity and credibility are formed well before that point and are well supported, thus well justified.

The bottom line is this: The paper is unreliable because it makes claims unsupported, and in parts openly contradicted by the data presented. Whether that paper appeared in Bentham Open, the National Enquirer, Nature, or the Journal of Analytical Chemistry, wrong is wrong, and incorrect is incorrect. But above and beyond that, the editorial practices of Bentham Open are sloppy and well deserving of criticism. Bentham suffers from publishing poor, sloppy work such as the Jones/Harrit paper, and the Jones/Harrit paper suffers from being published in Bentham Open. The combination of the unreputable publishing house with the sloppy and refuted work is a perfect storm of incorrect, bad research. Which is why we criticise it. And why truthers denigrate our conclusions with unspecific charges, like us not "liking" Bentham. They can't argue the hard facts, and the facts are that Bentham is not credible and neither is the Jones Harrit paper. QED.
 
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ElMondoHummus said:
They can't argue the hard facts, and the facts are that Bentham is not credible and neither is the Jones Harrit paper. QED.
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I assume it has been mentioned that one of Jones' "independent peer reviewers" was noted Truther crack pot David L. Griscom of the "passengers were in on it" theory.

Wonder where Bentham got his name?

What an overwhelming cluster **** this stupid paper has been for the truthers.

They are all guilty of academic and intellectual fraud.
 
Jones, Harrit and Farrer said that Tillotson used air atmosphrere for its tests in his paper... it's false !! :mad:

Tillotson and al. have done the tests under: "ultra pure nitrogen" :)
Why? Because their samples contained organic material. In the paper they give 10 % of mass for these impurities (epoxyde, solvent). So, they used logically "ultra pure nitrogen"...

;)
 
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moorea34 said:
Jones, Harrit and Farrer said that Tillotson used air atmosphrere for its tests in his paper... it's false !! :mad:

Tillotson and al. have done the tests under: "ultra pure nitrogen" :)
Why? Because their samples contained organic material. In the paper they give 10 % of mass for these impurities (epoxyde, solvent). So, they used logically "ultra pure nitrogen"...
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Do you have a source for this?

The paper in J. Non-Crystalline Solids (2001) didn't specify. However, I never did contact Dr. Tillotson directly.
 
Yeah. I just went through the paper too. I don't see it either. There are references to nitrogen adsorpsion/desorpsion, but I thought that was in reference to the nitrogen in the sol gel "skeleton" (Tillotson's word) itself.

I'd be happy to be told where to find that info, though. I, too, would like to see a source.
 
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