If their case is so strong.....

[PhantomWolf]

Why do 9/11 deniers have to distort the facts or outright ignore them?

Why can they never admit they might be wrong about something?

If their case is so strong, why do they fight tooth and nail over little things as if should they admit that they are wrong there, their whole movement will implode?

Take WTC for example. Repeatedly we are told that no steel framed buildings have ever falled due to fire. If this is so true, why does it matter how big the fire was, or where the fires were? If as the Deniers claim, fire can't make a steel building fall down, then why do they have to so verhemently deny that there was a big fire? It shouldn't matter if the fire was one room of 30 floors, if their argument that fire can make a steel building was true, big fire, little fire wouldn't make a difference, the argument should still hold. Do they argue that it was a small fire because they know in their heart of hearts that a big fire could have caused the collapse and so thus have to limit it to a small fire to keep their case?

Another point that is treated this way. If WTC 7 was still stable and unlikely to fall as they claim, why deny that the structural damge existed. They claim that the building can't have fallen by itself, so why argue tooth and nail over the damage that it had sustained? Again is it that they know that if it sustained that sort of damage then it could really have just collapsed and so refuse to admit that possiblity?

It's not just WTC 7 either. Time and time again they refuse to acknowledge that they could be wrong about any single point, regardless of the evidence and regardless of how minor the point. Why do they do it? Why do they make themselves look stupid by refusing to move on from points that have been repeatedly shown to be flat out wrong? Surely they must realise that just make their arguments weaker. Are they scared to let anything go because without it they don't have a case? Do they really realise that they're wrong in their claims but just won't admit it?

Why? I just don't get it.

 

[Brainster]

Because evidence is not evidence to a Truther. It's something that makes people say "Woo!" As such they are reluctant to give up any points. This drove me crazy with the LA lady at the AZ Denial of Accountability Conference. She came up with like 25 different factoids or questions and I shot every single one down, and she was ready with the 26th when I noted that she'd lost quite a bit of credibility with me at that point and would she please cut it out?

 

[chipmunk stew]

Why do 9/11 deniers have to distort the facts or outright ignore them?

Why can they never admit they might be wrong about something?

If their case is so strong, why do they fight tooth and nail over little things as if should they admit that they are wrong there, their whole movement will implode?

<snip>

I don't know, but I have a hypothesis. The overarching pattern in truther thinking is that they have a hunch that there's some nefarious truth lurking behind the facade of the official story, and if they can find a chink in the armor of that story, then the whole thing will fall apart and we'll have to start from scratch with a New Independent Investigation.

Such logic is, of course, absurd, but if you're working under the illusion that any theory is a house of cards, where each little piece is dependent on all the others to keep itself up, then the idea of conceding even minor arguments might seem very threatening.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Such logic is, of course, absurd, but if you're working under the illusion that any theory is a house of cards, where each little piece is dependent on all the others to keep itself up, then the idea of conceding even minor arguments might seem very threatening.

Actually this seems to come pretty close to how they act. I wonder if you don't have something here, that they do view all theories as just based on a number of single points and if you remove one, everything will just tumble down, not only for any "official story", but also their own.

This phenomona isn't unique to 9/12 deniers either, it seems to be a mindset for all CT's. It's like how the Apollo Hoax fruitcakes will not accept that you can't image stars on a photograph using daylight expousure settings, even when you show them picture after picture of non-Apollo space images of sunlit objects (planets, the ISS, the shuttle, comets, moons...) all without stars.

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

If their case is so strong, why do they fight tooth and nail over little things as if should they admit that they are wrong there, their whole movement will implode?

Probably. It seems like they're building failovers into their beliefs. If they can't sustain a certain point, they fall back to another one.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

This phenomona isn't unique to 9/12 deniers either, it seems to be a mindset for all CT's.

Don't forget the creationist/IDers trying to "prove" their case by finding chinks in the armor of evolutionary theory.

 

[twinstead]

Of course, many CT's are just A-holes. A-holes are impervious to reason.

 

[T.A.M.]

All evidence that the sane populous considers valid, the average truther considers to be faked, planted, or propaganda...thats all there is to it.

TAM

 

[babazaroni]

They attack the fire and structural damage because it is our arguments. If they can show our arguments are wrong, then they feel that shows that one of their theories must be correct. Which one really does not matter.

 

[PhantomWolf]

They attack the fire and structural damage because it is our arguments. If they can show our arguments are wrong, then they feel that shows that one of their theories must be correct. Which one really does not matter.

This still doesn't explain why they won't accept the overwhelming evidence when it is given to them, admit that , well okay so perhaps that thing isn't the smoking gun they thought it might be and they weren't right about it, but what about this smoking gun! They just refuse to ever admit that any part of their claims might actually be wrong to the point of totally ignoring anything that says they are. That doesn't make sense to me.

 

[jhunter1163]

I tend to agree with Chipmunk that Twoofers have a defective view about what theories are and how they are constructed/revised. Twoofers believe that a theory is constructed of a series of points of evidence and if any of these points are removed, the entire theory is invalid. It doesn't occur to them to modify their theory to not include the discredited piece of evidence.

Of course, it could also be that they realize that if they modify their theory to remove all the discredited pieces of evidence, they will have no theory. Maybe they don't want to start down that slippery slope.

 

[firecoins]

Ususally a theory starts with an hypthesis and uses observable facts to see if the hypthesis holds water. But since the hypthesis outright rejects clearly visible facts, they are left with speculation and distortions.

 

[Stellafane]

I myself think it's partially attributable to something I call the "Doink...doink...doink" theory. Let me explain:

A short time ago I attended a school talent show. During the evening, two different kids played the xylophone. Kid A played a song of his own composition; it was really complex, full of key changes, and had a difficult rhythm. At the end the audience gave him a rousing ovation. Kid B basically used the xylophone as a background percussion instrument while the rest of his class sang; he banged it three times very slowly, paused, repeated, waited a few minutes in silence, then played his three notes again. Doink...doink...doink. No one really noticed him.

For some reason, my daughter Ashley would rather die than say anything complimentary about Kid A. So after the concert, she very pointedly exclaims, "Wasn't Kid B great on the xylophone?" When I mentioned Kid A, she insisted that what Kid B played was far more complicated. When I asked her to explain her position, she finally stated "Hey, it's my opinion. And in my opinion, Kid B's song was more complicated than Kid A's." So I took the opportunity to instruct her that reality doesn't work like that. Yeah sure, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and all opinions deserve respect, yada yada. But some things simply aren't matters of opinion. In the real world, facts trump opinions every time. Thus a snappy, jazzy tune will always beat "doink...doink...doink," irrespective of opinions.

I think a good percentage of CT'ers are stuck in "doink...doink...doink" mode. They think reality is governed by opinions and points of view. Under such a system, the opinion of a well-informed expert who has studied all the facts bears no more weight than that of a 15 year old boy who's basing his views on wishful thinking and fantasy. It's like we're all debating some topic where facts and reality play no part, like whether Batman could kick Spiderman's ass. To twoofers, it's all indistiguishable from comic books and role-playing games.

The extreme example of that was that CT'er who came here and told us we were all government agents or something. Think of it: we know we're not agents, so you'd think there'd be absolutely no point in trying to convince us we were, but that didn't stop him. I was initially struck numb by the presumption, until I viewed it through the "doink...doink...doink" filter. I think this person honestly believed that his opinion was of equal validity to ours, even when the topic was ourselves!

So that's my latest theory in trying to explain at least one facet of why some twoofers do and say the things they do. They have yet to learn that the universe isn't all one big matter of opinion. As a consequence, they're still playing "doink...doink...doink" on the mental xylophone, while the rest of us are riffing on Mozart.

 

[Hokulele]

I tend to agree with Chipmunk that Twoofers have a defective view about what theories are and how they are constructed/revised. Twoofers believe that a theory is constructed of a series of points of evidence and if any of these points are removed, the entire theory is invalid. It doesn't occur to them to modify their theory to not include the discredited piece of evidence.

Of course, it could also be that they realize that if they modify their theory to remove all the discredited pieces of evidence, they will have no theory. Maybe they don't want to start down that slippery slope.

Ususally a theory starts with an hypthesis and uses observable facts to see if the hypthesis holds water. But since the hypthesis outright rejects clearly visible facts, they are left with speculation and distortions.

To make matters worse for the truth movement, science is even more complicated than that. Typically when a new hypothesis is put forward, scientists will focus on the null hypothesis first, and test the heck out of that. For example, "if Hypothesis A is not true, what would we expect to see?" People in the truth movement cannot bear to even think about their hypotheses (sp?) being untrue, so can never test the nulls, and can never progress.

 

[Yurebiz]

Excuse me, but truthers are not bound to a single story. Individual truthers may exploit and distort facts on their own, intentionally or by mistake.
If there's anyone who has to struggle to make their hypothesis seem concrete, it's the OCTists.
I turn that question right back at you: If your evidence is so overwhelming that Al Quaeda/19 Hijackers did it, why does the 9/11 Commission report has to go over limitless extents in omitting evidence?
My word is that both instances are to blame for this attitude. If you think either side is flawlessly right, then you're not being honest to yourself.

 

[Vincent Vega]

I doubt that anyone here thinks the 9-11 Commission

Excuse me, but truthers are not bound to a single story. Individual truthers may exploit and distort facts on their own, intentionally or by mistake.
If there's anyone who has to struggle to make their hypothesis seem concrete, it's the OCTists.
I turn that question right back at you: If your evidence is so overwhelming that Al Quaeda/19 Hijackers did it, why does the 9/11 Commission report has to go over limitless extents in omitting evidence?
My word is that both instances are to blame for this attitude. If you think either side is flawlessly right, then you're not being honest to yourself.

is flawlessly correct. Thats not the contention. The contention is that the EVIDENCE, or better put...lack thereof, supporting their 'inside job' theories is seriously flawed. While all actual evidence existing supports the 'official theory'.

 

[Yurebiz]

Evidence can be cherry picked, evidence can be omitted.
Evidence can be dumped away in some landfill or shipped to china.Evidence can be classified and put away from the public.
Whether you think there's enough undisclosed evidence supporting the official story (which is what, DNA samples and fireproof-passports?) or not, I don't care. This thread was arguing about the attitude taken by CTists to distort facts. All I'm saying is that the 9/11 Comission Report does the same in multiple cases mainly by omission.
Now please go ahead and tell me how the commission was great and unbiased, and all I'm saying is BS.

 

[Pardalis]

 

[fuelair]

Why do 9/11 deniers have to distort the facts or outright ignore them?

Why? I just don't get it.

Their primitive brains cannot manipulate actual data - it is not so much that they distort or ignore. It is that the volume of real data is beyond their intake/processing capabilities as a group - much less individually.

 

[Alt+F4]

All I'm saying is that the 9/11 Comission Report does the same in multiple cases mainly by omission.

I agree, for example the money trail. The 9/11 Commission estimated it cost from $400,000 to $500,000 to pull off 9/11 but they were unable to determine the origin of this money.

Why don't the CTers investigate something like that rather than all this nonsense about thermite, beam weapons and mini-nukes.