I am neither an uncritical supporter nor a fanatic detractor of Bush, but I don't have to be either to question these papers. I will have a longer analysis another time, but begin with this:
The probability that the buildings were brought down in the pattern in which they fell is 1.0. Every explanation of the way they fell turns out to be a low probability event -- but the probability that one of those low probability explanations is true is one, because the buildings did fall in the improbable way that they fell.
Now: is it more or less probable that a dozen people were able to plant explosives -- at least a hundred pounds per building, and likely a lot more -- without being observed; that they were so expertly placed as to work perfectly, given the high level of expertise that it takes to do this; that despite the damage done by the fires, the preplaced explosives worked just right as planned; that someone wanted the buildings to fall straight down instead of toppling; that the wires and primacord connectors to the explosives survived the fires and went off in the proper sequence at the proper time; that the hijackers knew where the preplanted explosives were and struck the buildings in just the right places so that the buildings began to collapse at the floor where the airplane hit in both the main buildings; and that someone wanting to bring down the buildings and having the ability clandestinely to plant these explosives and their detonating circuitry and the primacord to link them in the right patterns would then take the trouble to hijack airplanes and use up good agents in order to hide the fact that explosives had been planted --- is all that more probable than that the darned things fell due to fires, and that jet fuel fanned properly with a chimney effect is just a lot hotter than we thought it would be?
Professor Jones says his is a simple and elegant explanation. I would not have said so. He posits a near perfect conspiracy, with no one observing the planting of the explosives and the stringing of wires: and this is simple and elegant? Perhaps so, but three can keep a secret if two of them are dead. And in this case if all those who planted the explosives died in the fires and crash, it was a very large sacrifice of trained agents willing to die for the cause.
Not, I think, so likely.
There are plenty of anomalies in the 911 building collapses, and having them fall in the way they did is a low probability event (apparently; I will accept the professor's word on that). But they did fall the way they did, and I don't find it more likely that the complex sequence of events that would have had to happen had there been hidden explosives took place. And see below.
