Do you know that your response does not reply to one single technical point which Irased? Not a single one!
Okay, let's have a look at what you say (again)
The have graduate degree in philosophy, and have continued post graduate work since, but I do not try to hang my haton my education to the degree that it excludes conversation with others.
1. Well, assuming you mean a university level education then you'll find that everyone with a degree is (by definition) a graduate. So can I just be quite clear here; you have successfully completed a full time, 3 or 4 year officially university course of study?
2. Assuming that the answer is affirmative, then perhaps you can tell me why it took so long, given that it's apparently
simple to pick up underlying principles? Perhaps you can tell me just how many hours of lectures, classes, and tuition you did every week? I assume there were exams, and these were challenging? Disertation?
3. Now speculate, for a moment, that I came on this site shouting the odds (for you have
not being conversing thus far) about my understanding of (say) existentialism based on reading a Wiki article and some self help books. The kind of thing you did in the second week of your very first semester.
4. And when you started to point out the complexities of philosophical thinking, imagine that I hand waved it away on the basis of unsubstantiated assertions.
5. Because that's what you've done here. You've claimed that your lay understanding (or lack thereof) of structural engineering is sufficient for you to dismiss highly technical, detailed education. And even better, we're meant to spell it all out for you in the tiniest detail.
The point has been all along that expertise is a good thing, but in rules of evidenciary procedure that expert opinion must be able to show the rest of us something. Even your revised testimony is useless in this regard. you know that is what that damned jury thing is all about. You have to make them understand.
6. For a philosophy graduate, I would have expected an intelligible proposition but there you go. I
think that what you're saying is that expert opinion must be considered against as just one strand of the evidencial chain. Which is entirely correct. Scots Law, first year at university, 12 weeks compulsory study. Do you need me to also explain to you about Corroboration?
7. But if you had studied law to any degree, you would realise that areas not directly connected with this evidencial chain aren't relevant. Qui bono is a classic example, since it is fundamentally speculative. It may give an investigator an idea of where to look, but that investigator
still has to find enough corroborative evidence (look it up) to show culpability (look it up) beyone reasonable doubt.
8. Or to put it another way, you can't admit in court that you've no real evidence but hey, the accused looks rather smug and got a new car out of it......
What was the nature of your studies on building collapse?
9. Well, you see, we do a minimum of 2 years structural theory and then I did another stint as a volountary elective subject. Load analyses and failure of structures do rather form an integral part of this process. I also took a 1 year elective in Building Fabric Performance, which looked at a whole range of fabric failure issues (from structure through to water penetration) and taught methodical analysis as a diagnostic tool.
While I am at it. If we were aware the buildings were likely to collapse after explosions and fire, why did we not communicate this information to the fire department pre 9-11. It would seem logical (there I go) that after the 93 bombing the fire department would be in on evaluations of the integrity of the building?
10. There is no if. We know that steel framed buildings are susceptible to failure during fires. But what you are asking is actually two different questions; firstly, why did no one from the US equivalent of Building Control warn people (I think this was actually the case, but will chase down the link) and secondly why did the fireman - who would also be aware of the risk - enter the buildings anyway?
I would say that some of the modeling that was done by NIST in the models for initial collapse could have been continued. Also the request that some sort of represenative model be built and tested. That would be a good start.
11. But you can't tell us why we should have continued analysing the failure even though we know that progressive collapse was inevitable? That seems like a good use of time and money.
12. Are you seriously suggesting that someone build a scale model of the WTC and use it in some way to test the collapse mechanism?
Also I have studied math and physics, but I know your connection to reality is probably not that important.
13. Just in passing, given that maths and physics are traditionally science faculty subjects, it seems unusual to have them bundled up with an arts faculty degree such as philosophy. Is that normal at University level in the States?
Architect- When did I say I have reached a conclusion?
14. It's implicit in your e-mails. Stop trying to get out of it by demanding explicit statements.
So the basic concept of calculus is to build mathematical models that most closely approximate the infinities we approach when measuring motion.
15. Great. So since you know that basic premise, and since you studied maths, can I go and get my wife (who studied maths to postgraduate level) to go and set you some easy posers? After all, that's all you apparently need in order to understand calculus.
Remember a bloody Ct er said this , so you sure better find it ridiculous
16. Provide a compelling message and we'll listen. Provide a ridiculous message, and we'll laugh.
