... And that illuminates a bigger point (sorry to run off on a tangent like this): Real criticism illuminates. False criticism stated with an agenda in mind - in the case of 9/11 Trutherism, the impugnment of the US Government - obsfucates. How many people are still stuck on the notion of steel having to have melted for the towers to collapse? How many people can be led into thinking incorrectly of the military response that day because some conspiracy peddler asked "Why did the planes fly around for 40 minutes without being intercepted"? It's necessary to retail the first narrative in order to build the case for thermite, and the second for the stand down, but it doesn't truly shed light on what really happened that day. Inquiries like Astaneh-Asl's - even if the engineering world ends up falsifying the charges - lead to better understanding of the engineering issues involved. Look at the true, genuinely considered criticisms that have occurred: Arup, Edinburg, Quintiere's statements for example... all those may pose more questions, and in regards to the fireproofing in those specific examples actually contradict NIST's model, but they ultimately build a path towards further illumination. What about conspiracy fantasies does the same thing?
A movie critic - was it the late Gene Siskel? I forget... - once said that the real difference between independent and mainstream movies wasn't the production company, the funding, the director, or anything like that. It was whether the storyline confirmed or challenged the dominant view of whatever subject matter the film was covering. A most independent source of funding for a film with a most un-Hollywood director would not result in an independent film if the storyline confirmed society's views on the subject, whereas the most commercial studio using the most inside-Hollywood director could make an independent film if they chose to challenge how the audience normally looked upon a topic. While incomplete, the definition is useful in separating what truly chooses to exist outside the zeitgeist, and what chooses to flow with it. This framework is very much applicable to conspiracy fantasists and the entire subject of 9/11. Who really challenges existing thought? And who simply chooses to follow the current of the particular zeitgeist? When Astaneh-Asl, for example, questions the view of the towers being properly constructed, he may be doing so within the rigid rules of engineering, and he is doing so from well inside the engineering community, but he's very much offering an illuminating challenge to the dominant mode of thought regarding the towers. Were they in fact truly well built? We're the builders' "10 unusual elements" truly bad practices? Regardless of code, was the choices made in the design of the towers truly bad ones to make? Against those questions, you have the dominant NIST model which exonerates the design. Where lies the truth? Who knows, but the interplay between the positions will shed light on that question.
Now, consider the conspiratorial claims: Thermite. Stand down. Pull it. Claims like these and others pose as though they stand against the dominant paradigm, but do they really? Do such claims that tap into the common feelings of powerlessness in the face of such a large government as the United States's one really challege orthodox thinking? Does tapping into the common mistrust of government really stand as independent thought? Does any of the conspiratorial narrative truly achieve any real state of rebellion? Or are they mere confirmations of the lazier parts of the zeitgeist that says this monster in Washington is all-powerful and all-capable, and willing to do whatever it takes for power/money/influence/forward the "NWO"/etc.? And on top of that, what do conspiratorial claims illuminate? Is it anything original? Does it truly generate genuine scholarship, and really illuminate new considerations inside well known fields? Or is it yet another "confirmation" of government's willingness to act against society, as the zeitgeist says?
In the end, the disappointment I feel towards the conspiracy addicts is not merely in their lack of discriminating thought (although that is certainly a component of it), nor in their abuse of freedom of speech (many "abuse" this right). It is that the energy spent on the faulty narrative ultimately does not challenge or change anything. What are all these arguments we have here, other than bricks in the ediface of the conventional? Even when Christophera, Balsamo in his various sock puppets, Swing Dangler, RedIbis, etc. put forth superficially challenging arguments, what puzzle are they completing other than the conspiratorial one that ultimately says "Government bad"? For all the poses of original thought, what they put forth is every bit as conventional as the arguments we muster; they simply have the flaw of being contextually or outright factually wrong as well. They don't plow new ground; they only tred in the tracks of previous paranoids. And they do nothing to get people to look at anything in any new way. Even those who consider 9/11 an "Inside Job" end up painting a picture no different from that painted by those who looked askance at government for Ruby Ridge, the JFK assasination, Waco, the Oklahoma City Bombings... calling government an antagonist, a contravida, is as old as the history of formal governments, and every bit as established. So what do they accomplish, other than forward a conventional narrative disguised as rebellion?
Ultimately, the problem in the so-called truth movement is that they neither illuminate, nor challenge. Much energy is wasted to convey a message that is ultimately flawed, and no true enlightenment comes of it. Whereas looking at the critiques of Quintiere, Astaneh-Asl, or other genuine critics really gets you thinking outside the mainstream. They challenge conventional wisdom: Was NIST's presumptions regarding the fireproofing truly erroneous, therefore demonstrating that the fireproofing is actually irrelevant in these situations? Were the building practices truly deviated from? Those of us outside the engineering community cannot definitively answer those because we don't know; the answers would be genuinely original scholarship. And even inside the community, I'd bet that the questions stimulates thinking, even if it does not ultimately result in change. But the point is that the rebels who are creating genuinely original thought are not the ones proclaiming "Inside Job" or finding ways to spin Steven Jones's latest findings. They're in fact very much a part of the establishment they seek to criticize.
...), but as I noted back in 2008, real questioning is aimed at illuminating the situation, not steering towards a predetermined conclusion. 
