Is there a legitimate reason to question the official narrative*?

[cjnewson88]

Jango, I've know you better than the people here due to our history over on Political Forum, so I know you are sincere in your approach and remember you being open to new ideas. So allow me to explain myself.

I no longer try and dig too heavy into the nit-pick aspects of the buildings collapses because all it does is bog people down in endless debate over minor detail that ignores the big picture; which is this:

First of all, practically. We are to think that someone, or a couple of people, must have initially thought some years earlier, that decided to pull of a false flag of monumental scale. Not a bomb in a garage, or an assassination, but of a scale so large it was inconceivable in a world pre-9/11. And this small group of people, then managed to convince not only a few others in government, but also the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the FAA, NORAD, etc potentially dozens of people, that they had this amazing plane to blow **** up on their own soil and kill potentially tens of thousands of the own citizens and leave a massive burning hole in the middle of Manhattan. And these people all figure it was great enough of an idea to go along with it? For what gain? For what risk? Could you imagine if even one person had talked, even a decade after it happened, if just one person kept a key piece of documentation, video, audio, anything, that's it, all blown, all over. You think this was worth it? I beg to differ.

Logistically, rigging the towers with explosives is equally impossible. Those towers had tens of thousands of workers in them every day. You're telling me teams of experts managed to rig those towers full of explosives without a single person knowing? Those towers were full of security, many who died in the towers. You think they were in on it? There is no way the towers could be rigged without them knowing. Again, dozens of people would have had to, that's just one person who could have kept documents, video, audio, anything and it's all over, blown, game over as soon as it's leaked. And the risk. All it takes is for someone even as late as September 10 to accidentally find some explosives, or someone to have a spiritual awakening and leak, and it's all over, there would be revolution over night, coup, you name it. There is no way, NO WAY, those buildings could have explosives planted in them without anyone finding out, or something being leaked. It is purely impossible and nothing less.

 

[Allen773]

To the OP: Not really, no. The extent of Saudi (and perhaps Pakistani) intelligence agencies' foreknowledge is what I would be more interested in. After all, Osama bin Laden did have extensive dealings with them, going back to the 1980s. And while the official policy of Saudi Arabia is to be against terrorism, the reality is...complicated. Many of those charities and other organizations generously sponsored by the House of Saudi could have been easily subverted for the purposes of al-Qaeda operations.

 

[jaydeehess]

To the OP: Not really, no. The extent of Saudi (and perhaps Pakistani) intelligence agencies' foreknowledge is what I would be more interested in. After all, Osama bin Laden did have extensive dealings with them, going back to the 1980s. And while the official policy of Saudi Arabia is to be against terrorism, the reality is...complicated. Many of those charities and other organizations generously sponsored by the House of Saudi could have been easily subverted for the purposes of al-Qaeda operations.

Is there any reason to expect that OBL or AQ would reveal to SA or Pakistani officials that they hand operatives in the USA and the nature of the plan for their use?
As suspicious of those groups that we may be, it should be noted that the opposite would also be true.

 

[Allen773]

Is there any reason to expect that OBL or AQ would reveal to SA or Pakistani officials that they hand operatives in the USA and the nature of the plan for their use?
As suspicious of those groups that we may be, it should be noted that the opposite would also be true.

Good points.

 

[chrismohr]

Jangoi, a week ago I suggested you watch my videos. Have you had time to look at them yet? They're a layperson's attempt to make sense of the technical issues surrounding the collapses of the WTC Buildings, in a respectful way. Because neither you nor I have the technical expertise to understand this from our own knowledge base, the kind oa research I did is about the best a layperson can do. What do you make of it? And whaqt do you make of the long parade of real experts outside of 9/11 Truth or Skeptic forums like this, whom I quote and summarize, every one of which supports the common narrative and explains to me in layman's terms why they do?

 

[Jango]

Jangoi, a week ago I suggested you watch my videos. Have you had time to look at them yet? They're a layperson's attempt to make sense of the technical issues surrounding the collapses of the WTC Buildings, in a respectful way. Because neither you nor I have the technical expertise to understand this from our own knowledge base, the kind oa research I did is about the best a layperson can do. What do you make of it? And whaqt do you make of the long parade of real experts outside of 9/11 Truth or Skeptic forums like this, whom I quote and summarize, every one of which supports the common narrative and explains to me in layman's terms why they do?

I watched the first six of them tonight. Sorry that I hadn't before -- the medication I take affects my memory. Were the videos shot in a church?

You have a calm, collected and reasonable approach to this.

Re the experts -- there's experts on both sides that say opposite things of one another, so I don't focus on that too much. However, I would love to sit down with some of these experts that have skin in this game and look at the blue prints of the Twin Towers and see if they can tell me what the hell happened inside the building to actually make it collapse I.e. like how NIST pinpointed (IIRC) column 79 in building 7 as the collapse initiator of the collapse. To my knowledge, there is no such specificity with the Twin Towers. Naturally, being the inquisitive person that I am, I want to know what failed to cause both towers to collapse.

www.youtube. com/watch?v=M6f9Jpfz1Vo

Like in that ^ video -- what is failing on the inside right before we can visually see the building starting its race to the ground?

I suppose another good question to ask is: What would have to fail for us to see what we do with the collapses?

 

[chrismohr]

Jangoi, a week ago I suggested you watch my videos. Have you had time to look at them yet? They're a layperson's attempt to make sense of the technical issues surrounding the collapses of the WTC Buildings, in a respectful way. Because neither you nor I have the technical expertise to understand this from our own knowledge base, the kind oa research I did is about the best a layperson can do. What do you make of it? And whaqt do you make of the long parade of real experts outside of 9/11 Truth or Skeptic forums like this, whom I quote and summarize, every one of which supports the common narrative and explains to me in layman's terms why they do?

Hi Jango,
I recorded these videos in a wedding chapel I used to own.
On the "expert" issue, I know that expertise alone is not the final answer. Still, you and I have to rely on experts... even experts have to rely on experts, because no one has expertise in chemistry, physics, high-rise architecture, fire safety, demolition practices, etc etc etc.
So, when I meet a New York LIHOP advocate who is also a structural engineer who explains to me how natural collapse could have occurred but not CD in the Towers, I have to listen. When I approach 50 physicists and 100% of the 14 who are willing to talk to me say there i enough momentum in a collapsing buildng for it to collapse progressively, when I find two fire chemists who both explain how near adiabatic temperatures in highly localized areas of fires can create iron-rich microspheres when the bulk temperature is only 1400F, when I talk to metallurgists, architects, fire safety experts, structural engineers, and on and on and on, and get 100% consensus on the technical aspects in their fields to explain the natural collapse of the Towers and Building 7, I take notice. Then, when I investigate a claim by the 9/11 Truth experts, they all fall short or can be disproven. Every time. Either by people here who give me links or people in the universities etc who I approach for answers.
As for column 79, JSanderO believes in natural collapse and questions aspects of the NIST narrative. He also agrees with you politically in many ways. So does the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat on some technical points they disagree with re NIST. There is room for this. If a better hypothesis than progressive collapse after column 79's failure comes along, it doesn't change the big picture: planes, fire, collapses, another fire started in another building, collapse. After all, everything happened inside a standing perimeter wall which blocked our direct view. I doubt you'll ever get 100% explanation, and if one existed, neither you nor I would be able to fully understand it.
But a really good exercise for you would be to do at least a little of what I have done, and that is to ask physicists etc specific technical questions. For example: since 9/11 Truth people say the Towers were constructed too well for a global collapse and would have stopped even if one floor had collapsed, ask this question: Once collapse initiation occurred on one or two weakened floors of the WTC Towers, is there enough momentum for the collapsing building to go into progressive collapse?

 

[jaydeehess]

One of the reasons cited by Jango for a reinvestigation was the supposed suspicious nature of FF Palmer stating he had small fires on the 78th floor.
THAT particular item was addressed and yet despite being specifically asked if this is satisfactory, Jango has yet to reply.
Perhaps it was missed so I repost it again. I would appreciate an answer, no matter how short, to the question hilited at the end of the post.

]Re: fire on the 78th floor of WTC2
Cobbled together from several posts above


Fire fighter Palmer calls from the 78th floor saying he has multiple injured and dead up there and that the fires on that floor are isolated, small and he needs two lines to put them out.

The 78th floor is the lowest fire involved floor in either building. Anyone reaching the 78th floor of WTC1 would have found no fires.
Flt175 impacted several floors, 78 being the one that the far end of the port wing sliced into. The 78th floor had little to no aviation fuel dumped onto it as a consequence of being hit by the outboard most part of the wing.
The vast majority of fuel was dumped onto the next few higher floors and that is where the greatest fires were. However, Palmer isn't going to send guys higher up until he at least has water supply so that he does not risk isolating his own people up there. It is hard enough getting manpower up there. In addition its going to make the most sense to fight this fire floor by floor, get 78's fire knocked down before proceeding to 79, etc.


The vast majority of fuel was dumped on floors in line with where the tanks on the planes were. That much needs little reasoning to determine. Those floors also took the brunt of physical damage as they are also in line with the greater mass and dense parts of the aircraft. Again not a lot of reasoning to manage to understand that.

More damage includes damage to perimeter floor portions, and core areas, which includes the most obvious paths, vertically, through the building, the damaged floors where maximum damage was done, again higher than 78, and the elevator shafts.
Any fuel going through shattered floor sections goes down one level and this occurs only nearer the perimeter. Inner flooring was intact. Fuel in elevator shafts goes where gravity sends it, down until it encounters either an elevator car or the bottom of the shaft. One shaft went all the way to the basement, others terminated at various floors. While 78 was one of those floors two things are possible; fuel did spill out from one shaft onto the 78th and is the source of at least one of the fires Palmer reports on; the elevator(s) from above that terminate at the 78th did not have fuel flow in it(them).

WRT fuel in the elevator shafts, depending on the amount of fuel and the duration of the fall, a substantial amount of it will aerosolize in the process, making it a substantial ignition risk.

Victims were trapped, as they themselves reported, on higher floors. Stairs were destroyed and fire was cutting people off. Does that sound like minimal damage, does that sound like minimal fire? Do the videos not show intense fires?(yes they do unless one specifically searches, dishonestly, for photos showing faces of the 200 foot by 200 foot structure, that show less fire at some periods). There really is no question whether or not there were large area fires above the 78th floor of WTC2

I believe that this coherently, understandably and unemotional explains the situation. This is an aspect of the fires often opined upon by the truthers side.
Jango expressed that this aspect of the fires gave him pause as being odd.
I must inquire again if this fully addresses that and makes it non-odd?

 

[JayUtah]

True science gathers all facts, organizes them, discards falsified bits, and in time converges on an explanation that covers all the available evidence.
Conspiracy theorists keep falsified bits, piles then up, discards evidence at will, and their theories diverge more and more, never stating concretely, unequicocally, concisely and consistently what they consider to be true.

Let me add some insight to this.

True science, in the academic sense, often gets to set up fairly rigorous frameworks of deduction using empirical methods to gather and collate data selected to create a meaningful test among various hypotheses.

The investigation of happenstance events follows that same scientific ideal, but must work with the observations at hand. The real world is a very messy data set. The information we want to see, in order to test some particular hypothesis, is either there or not, contaminated or not. You get what you get, and that's that. Even worse, the information that pertains to the important questions is mixed in with irrelevant information. It's not conveniently labeled "Important" or "Not Important." Determining what information is relevant and what isn't is a big part of investigation.

Now here and there we can do some real rigorous science. For example, in attempting to understand the ferocity of the fires in the Twin Towers, fire propagation and intensity studies were done using different configurations of typical office furniture. This was to investigate previously poorly-understood effects. The hypothesis was that if the furniture were knocked down first into a heap, then set ablaze, it would burn hotter than properly arranged furniture. And so a scientific experiment was set up to test this.

But the bottom line is that while we do indeed converge toward a likely hypothesis, I don't think the investigation of a happenstance event can ever promise to cover all the available evidence. In any real-world examination, some questions remain unanswered. But it's usually possible to say how much confidence you can have in your conclusions based on the nature and scope of the unanswered questions.

Conspiracy theorists maintain that any credible mainstream theory has to account for all observations, regardless of what arguments apply to the relevance of any observation. That unaccounted for evidence and those unanswered questions are the margin of the problem, but it is in those margins that the conspiracy theorists focus their efforts. "The official story can't explain ...." becomes the preface to nearly everything they say. And the implication is that the official story is thus somehow entirely useless because these "important" details were not properly considered.

The whole point is that those marginal details didn't lead to a parsimonious story. So no, you're not going to get one from conspiracy theorists. The details on which a conspiracy theory is based are inherently elusive, inconclusive, and contradictory, which is why each one has to have its own elaborate, implausible scenario that's incompatible with what you use to explain some other detail, and with how some other conspiracy theorist tries to explain it. In either case, these scenarios provide absolutely no greater explanatory power because they only raise more unanswerable questions, and they don't connect with each other to form a parsimonious whole.

 

[JSanderO]

This is an excellent reply. Chris you have truly gone the extra mile to understand the science and engineering... and the very nature of this sort of complex problem. Very commendable. Thank you!

 

[Nick Terry]

* = Official narrative being the 9/11 Commission Report, the 2002 Joint Congressional Investigation Report, the F.B.I.'s investigation, NIST's reports, etc etc other government sponsored reports and/or investigations as well the statements of government workers and the leadership.

So, in your opinion, is there a legitimate reason to question the official narrative?

The fundamental flaw with your question is presuming there's such a thing as an "official narrative" in the first place. There isn't.

Our knowledge of 9/11 rests on a mass of information gathered by non-governmental organisations and individuals, first and foremost the media. They are the ones who filmed or broadcast the film of the planes hitting the towers and the ensuing collapses. Print journalists and book authors did a lot of the legwork of interviewing eyewitnesses and fairly quickly also compiling oral histories. Media reporters were the ones who recorded Osama Bin Laden's statements about the attacks.

There are tens of thousands of accounts, i.e. narratives, of the events leading up to and on 9/11 that have been published in the past 14 years. By a huge margin, the authors of these narratives are not 'official'. Nor are they necessarily American (Jason Burke and Anthony Summers, both British writers, are two that spring to mind straight away). Nor are they necessarily print narratives - there are documentaries and feature films as well.

Multiple government agencies gathered evidence relating to 9/11 or evaluated and assessed it, thereby producing what could be lazily called 'official narratives'. However, there has never been a singular official narrative. The 9/11 commission focused on intelligence failures leading up to the attacks, as did the joint House/Senate committee hearings on intelligence activities before and after the attacks. These were undoubtedly political commissions of inquiry, but the overwhelming majority of investigative work was done by the relevant professional agencies - FBI, NTSB, NIST, and so on - from the executive branch. Crucial evidence was generated or assessed by county, city or state officials, while there were also contributions from foreign governments, e.g. Germany did a lot of legwork on identifying the prior movements of many of the hijackers.

One might add, underlining the value of non-official sources, that the identities of the hijackers were determined from passenger manifests generated by commercial businesses, i.e. the airlines.

In order to make sense of all this evidence and all these narratives, one must naturally 'question' them, use source criticism and assess scientific evidence. No narrative is perfect; indeed the very reason we tend to generate so many narratives about big events is because it's impossible to produce a perfect narrative. Thus, there are always legitimate criticisms of parts of any narrative. It is exceedingly rare that any narrative must be rejected in toto, and there is therefore usually no legitimate reason to reject an entire narrative.

 

[Miragememories]

"* = Official narrative being the 9/11 Commission Report, the 2002 Joint Congressional Investigation Report, the F.B.I.'s investigation, NIST's reports, etc etc other government sponsored reports and/or investigations as well the statements of government workers and the leadership.

So, in your opinion, is there a legitimate reason to question the official narrative?"

The fundamental flaw with your question is presuming there's such a thing as an "official narrative" in the first place. There isn't.

Our knowledge of 9/11 rests on a mass of information gathered by non-governmental organisations and individuals, first and foremost the media...

Jango in his opening post was reasonably clear about his criteria regarding what kind of reports he felt were most representative of the "official narrative". "Official" meaning those reports which were government agency sanctioned.

It is obvious that Jango's focus is on what the government accepted as the 9/11 narrative, and not the morass of "unofficial narratives" which you are trying to include.

 

[beachnut]

​

Jango in his opening post was reasonably clear about his criteria regarding what kind of reports he felt were most representative of the "official narrative". "Official" meaning those reports which were government agency sanctioned.

It is obvious that Jango's focus is on what the government accepted as the 9/11 narrative, and not the morass of "unofficial narratives" which you are trying to include.

Yepper, clear as mud... and could be indicative of why some believe the lies from 911 truth as reasonable.

etc etc other government sponsored reports and/or investigations as well the statements of government workers and the leadership.

Wait, it included, etc, etc. What exactly is etc etc reports and narrative?

Unlike your fantasy of thermite where etc etc is clear, the OP was not clear, or limited. 13 years and for some 911 truth followers and true believers reasonably clear narrative is a dumbed down lie from Jones and Harrit.

 

[Nick Terry]

​

Jango in his opening post was reasonably clear about his criteria regarding what kind of reports he felt were most representative of the "official narrative". "Official" meaning those reports which were government agency sanctioned.

It is obvious that Jango's focus is on what the government accepted as the 9/11 narrative, and not the morass of "unofficial narratives" which you are trying to include.

The point still stands: it's simply not possible to reduce our knowledge of 9/11 to a select number of 'official narratives'.

1. The Perpetrators

On the day itself, and in the papers the next morning, bin Laden was identified as the most likely suspect to have masterminded the attacks. Talking heads would have gone on TV and the radio or been quoted in newspapers saying as much. Some might have been retired government officials, others academics, there were official comments that urged caution until the facts were in, while Bush's address to the nation did not name bin Laden.

Confirmation of bin Laden's involvement can in no way be reduced to the work of US government agencies; as mentioned, other nation states played a crucial role, as did the media, while bin Laden himself offered final confirmation by claiming responsibility for the attacks in video messages. By this time, there was a strong consensus inside and outside the US federal government that Al Qaeda had carried out the attacks, based on a broad range of evidence from multiple sources. Since 2001, journalists and academics have written reams of research confirming Al Qaeda's involvement as well as premised on Al Qaeda's involvement. They have chronicled the evolution of Al Qaeda from the 1980s to 2001 and beyond (eg the work of Lawrence Wright and Jason Burke, both journalists).

There are of course many standard CT talking points designed to throw mud in people's eyes about AQ and 9/11, but there is no coherent narrative from 'doubters' that explains all the evidence relating to Al Qaeda and 9/11 as well as the international consensus explanation does.

That doesn't mean that the 9/11 Commission Report is accepted as gospel - like any "official history", it has its flaws, but the core narrative has been confirmed repeatedly.

2. The Collapse of the Twin Towers and WTC7

As I already mentioned, confirmation of the hijackers' identities came from sources provided by commercial airlines. Disputing that fact was one of the original stupidities of the early Truth Movement, although it seems to have been forgotten of late. The fact of hijacking was confirmed by calls from within the planes to private individuals as well as the authorities. Disputing that fact was one of the original stupidities of the early Truth Movement (the long-forgotten A.K. Dewedney's cellphone experiments).

The actual plane crashes into the Twin Towers were captured on film - by non-official sources. Claiming no planes actually struck the Twin Towers and the video was manipulated elsewhere was one of the original stupidities of the early Truth Movement.

On September 12th, 2001, the New York Times published a story on page 3 entitled 'Towers Believed to Be Safe Proved Vulnerable to an Intense Jet Fire, Experts Say'. Riddled with numerous cautions about 'what may have occurred', the article quotes the construction manager for the original project, Richard M. Kielar, saying that 'no structure could have sustained this kind of assault' before discussing why WTC7 probably collapsed - because of "a combination of falling debris and a less intense fire - one not accelerated by jet fuel - lasting several hours". The COO of Skilling Ward is quoted saying that a building like WTC 7 "is basically designed to resist heat buildup for three hours."

The collapses of the towers unfolded before a large audience of professionals as well as laypeople, many of whom concluded before their collapse that they were going to come down, and as used to be pointed out, the BBC prematurely reported the collapse of WTC7 because the professionals on the ground were convinced it was coming down.

The exact sequence and causes have been discussed in a clear dialogue between non-governmental and government-employed experts. NIST subcontracted aspects of its research outside the government. As Oystein pointed out above, the conclusions reached by NIST employees were peer-reviewed by non-governmental academic journals.

It's simply not possible to isolate 'official' from 'non-official' sources or conclusions with 9/11, so presuming or pretending otherwise is at best grossly ignorant, at worst thoroughly dishonest.

 

[JayUtah]

​

Jango in his opening post was reasonably clear about his criteria regarding what kind of reports he felt were most representative of the "official narrative". "Official" meaning those reports which were government agency sanctioned.

Unfortunately defining an "official narrative" (i.e., that which a conspiracy theorist often assumes his critics are bound to defend) is part of conspiracy rhetoric. He can define what he thinks is or ought to be the source of the majority view, but that doesn't mean his critics follow that definition and draw their beliefs from only those sources. Nor does it mean that disputing some conspiracy theory means necessarily defending those specific sources to the utmost.

As you may note from the early points of the discussion, not everyone who rejects 9/11 conspiracy theories automatically puts implicit faith in the sources Jango named. For example, one can believe that the 9/11 Commission was too lenient on the Administration for its inattentiveness, but that doesn't mean he believes "inside job," "let it happen," or "controlled demolition" conspiracy theories.

That was just one of the ways mentioned in which Jango's question was poorly formed. If the question is meant to investigate the standard of evidence that would compel greater consideration of alternate narratives, then it is too limited in scope. Since conspiracism is more about rejecting conventional narratives than about advocating specific alternative narratives, it makes sense to artificially narrow what is meant by the conventional narrative because more people will express some degree of dissatisfaction if asked in that way. That dissatisfaction -- however motivated or directed -- is then wrongly interpreted as support for some conspiracy theory or for conspiracism in general. This is a straw-man technique, and an old trick.

 

[Oystein]

... Since conspiracism is more about rejecting conventional narratives than about advocating specific alternative narratives, ...

This claim has been confirmed by a psychology study I discussed earlier today one forum up the tree - here:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=10421771#post10421771

... These tendencies in persuasive communication can be understood as a reflection of an underlying conspiracist worldview in which the details of individual conspiracy theories are less important than a generalized rejection of official explanations.
...
Dean...described most conspiracy theories as “bits and pieces without a plot… [that] fail to delineate any conspiracy at all. They simply counter conventional narratives with suspicions and allegations that, more often than not, resist coherent emplotment”
...
conspiracy advocates showed a tendency to spend much more time arguing against the official explanation of 9/11 than advocating an alternative
...
There is much less of a focus on defending coherent explanations that can
better account for the available evidence
...
In general, conspiracy belief is not based around specific theories of how events transpire, though these may exist as well. Instead, conspiracism is rooted in several higher-order beliefs such as an abiding mistrust of authority, the conviction that nothing is quite as it seems, and the belief that most of what we are told is a lie. Apparent anomalies in official accounts seem to support this, even if they do not point to a specific, well-defined alternative.

 

[JayUtah]

[T]here is no coherent narrative from 'doubters' that explains all the evidence relating to Al Qaeda and 9/11 as well as the international consensus explanation does.

Disputing that fact was one of the original stupidities of the early Truth Movement.
[...]
Disputing that fact was one of the original stupidities of the early Truth Movement...
[...]
Claiming no planes actually struck the Twin Towers and the video was manipulated elsewhere was one of the original stupidities of the early Truth Movement.

I think these highlights tell the story of 9/11 Truth in a way that shows just like how every other conspiracy theory it really is. It meshes well with my comments above, wherein the "truth" claims are basically just complains with tidbits here or there, and no emplotment arises for them that is able to sway more than the fringe. And even then, the alleged smoking guns come and go in a way that shows just how inept these claimants are at research and study.

Now the focus is on WTC 7 because that's how far afield the Truth movement has to go in order to find ambiguity that's soupy enough for them to live in. So now the rhetoric is all about showing how allegedly relevant that building is to a proposed conspiracy. Part of that rhetoric is how the world has "forgotten" about WTC 7, which is arguably true. But the fact is that it wasn't a big part of the Truth movement either until people lost interest in their claims about WTC 1 and 2.

Ever-shifting, fragmentary tidbits are all we ever get. In 13 years there is no emergent alternative narrative for 9/11 that all who dispute the conventional story will get behind, much less their critics. And that makes it little different from the JFK conspiracy movement, which has preached the same sort of tidbits for 51 years with no coherent alternative, and the UFO-extraterrestrial group that is pushing 70 years with isolated tidbits and no coherent story.

In terms of the scope of inquiry -- what constitutions the "official narrative" -- you note astutely that

The actual plane crashes into the Twin Towers were captured on film -- by non-official sources.

This is important because the Truthers often do dispute this third-party photographic evidence, or conversely at least consider it and use it in their own claims. Since both Truthers and their critics refer to this evidence and show that they form various opinions based on it, why should it be artificially excluded from consideration in order to answer the question?

I honestly don't know of any person who gets his opinion of what happened on 9/11 strictly from the reports put out by government agencies and commissions. I guess that just belabors why it's not useful to ask the thread-title question in that way.

 

[JayUtah]

This claim has been confirmed by a psychology study I discussed earlier today...

Yeah, that's where I got the word "emplotment" from in my post above. Thanks for posting it.

Granted that article didn't tell me anything I didn't already know from having observed conspiracy theorists "in the wild" for so many years, but it's nice to see methodical, systematic studies that confirm my own informal analysis.

 

[Oystein]

Yeah, that's where I got the word "emplotment" from in my post above. Thanks for posting it.
...

I knew I had seen that word before

 

[JayUtah]

I knew I had seen that word before

It's a good word. Up until having read it, I had to use awkward phrases such as, "...unable to form a coherent, comprehensive alternate scenario."

I'd say at least half the conspiracy theorists I've engaged excuse themselves from any sort of responsibility to "emplot" their suspicions into a coherent narrative and test it. "That's not my job," they say. "We just want a new investigation." Or they try to shift the burden of proof.

But that's again the reason we discussed why the thread-title question is so poor -- it lumps together people who have an unknown spectrum of reasons for suspicion or disbelief and conveys the impression that they might all favor some affirmative claim.

People who express some sympathy for a "let it happen" scenario have a plethora of incompatible reasons they speculate might have been the reason. And they can't give you much if any proof that any of them is a good reason. Look at the trumped-up Atlantic article from 2004 arguing feebly that it was a long-con by certain officials to invoke contingency powers. Or instead, maybe a pretense to start an open-ended war.

People who consider a "controlled demolition" or other inside-job scenario can't agree on who, where, how, when, and by what means this may have occurred. You run the gamut from mini-nukes to paint-on magical substances, from the CIA to the Zionists, and so forth.

Until there is something to unite behind, it's improper to suggest a consensus simply on the basis of responses to a negative proposition.