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Outing a bogus structural Engineer

8den

Graduate Poster
8den
Joined
Oct 10, 2006
Messages
1,293
On another, UK website I have someone claiming to be a structural enigneer, spouting woowoo stuff.

I don't want to call him a liar, but well, er, no I cannot find a way to finish that sentence. He's lying.

Can any boffins give me any good ways to catch him out?
 
I'm not an engineer, but I shut down a bogus engineer on another site just by asking to see his calculations.

If he calls your bluff and shows his work, you can always bring it back here and have Mackey and Guinn look at it.
 
get him to write a paper for peer review that shows his calculations for 9/11 and why the official explanation isnt. Ask him to produce this (he must have already to reach the conclusion he has) or tell him you'll forever assume him to be lying.
 
8den said:
On another, UK website I have someone claiming to be a structural enigneer, spouting woowoo stuff.

I don't want to call him a liar, but well, er, no I cannot find a way to finish that sentence. He's lying.

Can any boffins give me any good ways to catch him out?
Click to expand...

I'm a structural engineer by education and profession. Have him pop out some calculations and let's see what he can come up with. I've had CTers claim to be mechanical engineers, mathematics professors and chemists, and yet every time I threw down actual calculations and scientific references, they couldn't match wits.

Though I agree with hellaeon, if this guy is a qualified engineer, he should have no problem publishing his work in an engineering journal.

You know, that math he did that proves that hundreds of practicing engineers in the ASCE, at NIST and in private industry are all wrong. He should probably publish that.
 
When i was in undergrad, i had some ME friends of mine arguing about whether or not the Starship Enterprize could have withstood the crash with earth in the 5th movie (i think 5th movie). They were performing a whole bunch of structural calculations based upon some published ship schematic.

The point is, being an engineer doesn't prevent someone from spouting out pure nonsense. Simply ask for his calculations and many here would be happy to review it.

I don't know about structural engineering, but being a Chem E, you always have to start with your assumptions in solving a problem. Find out what assumptions he made. ask for them. I'd be very suspect if he claims to not have made any.
 
joobz said:
Find out what assumptions he made. ask for them. I'd be very suspect if he claims to not have made any.
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That's a good point. Looking at Judy Wood's Billiard Balls stuff, her application of newtonian mechanics is correct, but her first assumption was that each floor was strong enough to stop all of the falling mass above it. That one simplification invalidated her entire argument.
 
The Almond said:
That's a good point. Looking at Judy Wood's Billiard Balls stuff, her application of newtonian mechanics is correct, but her first assumption was that each floor was strong enough to stop all of the falling mass above it. That one simplification invalidated her entire argument.
Click to expand...
Yup, they are always the most likely source of problems. look at any free energy or PPM. "Well, if we have a frictionless..."
 
8den said:
On another, UK website I have someone claiming to be a structural enigneer, spouting woowoo stuff.
I don't want to call him a liar, but well, er, no I cannot find a way to finish that sentence. He's lying.
Can any boffins give me any good ways to catch him out?
Click to expand...

got an url for that site 8den?
i'm UK (swansea) but find that our woos are much less entertaining than their american counterparts. bit like comparing trisha to the jerry springer show. we just haven't got the same class of trailer trash they have over the water.
if there was a world cup of woo the USA would win hands down no probs.

BV
 
The Almond said:
That's a good point. Looking at Judy Wood's Billiard Balls stuff, her application of newtonian mechanics is correct, but her first assumption was that each floor was strong enough to stop all of the falling mass above it. That one simplification invalidated her entire argument.
Click to expand...

Actually her application of Newtonian mechanics is decidedly incorrect. Her model is very obviously flawed, but she still manages to incorrectly run the math on her model, incorrectly predicting how a column of billiard balls would fall. In her calculation, the top floor is the floor which is responsible for knocking every other floor off it's perch. This is clearly wrong since the 99th floor knocks the 98th, and the 98th for the 97th, and so on. This error results in some seriously goofy predictions and some seriously goofy graphs.
 
8den said:
On another, UK website I have someone claiming to be a structural enigneer, spouting woowoo stuff.

I don't want to call him a liar, but well, er, no I cannot find a way to finish that sentence. He's lying.

Can any boffins give me any good ways to catch him out?
Click to expand...

Try asking him about his professional credentials.

I cannot speak for the UK, of course, but here in my state of West Virginia anyone can easily verify the status of any Registered Professional Engineer (and I am one of them) via the West Virginia Professional Engineer web site. There may be something similar in the UK and if this guy has legitimate credentials, then it may be quite easy for you to check him out as well.
 
8den said:
On another, UK website I have someone claiming to be a structural enigneer, spouting woowoo stuff.

I don't want to call him a liar, but well, er, no I cannot find a way to finish that sentence. He's lying.

Can any boffins give me any good ways to catch him out?
Click to expand...


Yea, point me in the right direction for his website and I'll have a go at it too.


You could also ask the UK Insititute of Structural Engineers or Institute of Civil Engineers if he's on their registers; I don't know if either allow online searches (note, a lot of structures guys hold ICE membership in lieu of IStructE because of the way the exams are set up).
 
In truth, if someone asked me for my License number and state, I wouldn't give it to them. The internet is too amorphous, and I don't trust people with my professional information. Companies and public officials have many levels of private data security they must abide by when requesting registration information.
 
joobz said:
Yup, they are always the most likely source of problems. look at any free energy or PPM. "Well, if we have a frictionless..."
Click to expand...

That is because there are so few problems that have anylitic solutions that you have to remove certain things for the problem to be solveable, by some means other than brute computing power.

Hence the spherical cow joke about physicists.
 
Not every engineer is a PE. As a degreed Computer Engineer, I've never bothered to take the PE exam. I've never been asked about it at a job interview. I did (breifly) look into it, just to help pad my resume', but never followed through.
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Perhaps, but it would be pretty much unknown in the UK for a degree qualified structural or civil engineer not to be in one of the two institutes. He'd be unable to carry out a significant part of his professional duties, for example producing Design Certificates for the statutory building control system.
 
urban75.net/vbulletin is the forum

The thread is

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=187912&page=4

and the user is pocketscience. He's a weasel, when I asked him what aspects of the conspiracy theories are sound to him as a structural engineer, he comes out with guff
like
pocketscientist said:
"Initially no, but I'm keeping an open mind on it nowadays. Nothing along these lines would surprise me anymore,
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Jazzz is the resident 28thkingdom

Work away fellas one of my dogs fell critical ill this morning, and I don't have the stomach for this nonsense today.
 
The Almond said:
In truth, if someone asked me for my License number and state, I wouldn't give it to them. The internet is too amorphous, and I don't trust people with my professional information. Companies and public officials have many levels of private data security they must abide by when requesting registration information.
Click to expand...


Interesting point.

I refused to post my registration details on line because I didn't want spammed at work by CTers, and the partners would take a dim view of it.

However I did pass the details on to someone respected and trusted by most posters on the board - Gravy - in order that someone else had all the relevant details and could confirm my bona fides if required.

In any event, if the chap publishes (internet or otherwise) a paper on the subject then I would expect him to properly identify himself.
 
Architect said:
Perhaps, but it would be pretty much unknown in the UK for a degree qualified structural or civil engineer not to be in one of the two institutes. He'd be unable to carry out a significant part of his professional duties, for example producing Design Certificates for the statutory building control system.
Click to expand...

Well he could have the degree but not be working in the feild.
 
In California (I assume other states have similar restrictions, the UK may too as it combats fraud), one cannot call themselves a Civil Engineer unless they have passed the Civil PE examination. For Structural Engineers, you must pass a Structures exam. If you claim to be such an engineer and lack the qualifications, you can be arrested and charged with a Misdemeanor (Article 6787 of the Professional Engineer's Act
 
patchbunny said:
In California (I assume other states have similar restrictions, the UK may too as it combats fraud), one cannot call themselves a Civil Engineer unless they have passed the Civil PE examination. For Structural Engineers, you must pass a Structures exam. If you claim to be such an engineer and lack the qualifications, you can be arrested and charged with a Misdemeanor (Article 6787 of the Professional Engineer's Act
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Ironically, no; but architects have to be registered with the ARB (Architects Registration Board) before they can use their title (or anything in the style of "architect") for exactly the same consumer protection issues.

However a chartered engineer MUST be in one of the institutes, who do insist on accredited courses, entrance exams, and so forth.
 
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