Science vs Teleology: Which lens is best for viewing 911?

[~enigma~]

Max, so A20 cannot post anymore?

Was that quote from here? If it was from anywhere else you can't post it without circumventing Apollo's ban which is a big bad no-no but we have come to expect that of truthers.

 

[tanabear]

Remarkable stupidity. America's enemies are easy to name. They include North Korea, Iran, Syria, and China, in addition to stateless jihadist organizations.

By what criteria are those countries our enemies? The neo-cons say so. If so, we have been in Iraq for over 5 years killing Iraqis. Which "enemy" are we killing in Iraq?

 

[Max Photon]

Cui bono is a useful tool for speculating about new hypotheses

I can answer that.

In between all the derails and pointless bickering, there is actually a useful discussion here, one that I think is about the philosophy of science. It would probably fit on three pages if posters could be bothered to stick to the OP, but I digress.



This is basically correct, but the question also reveals some subtleties.

Science in specific is not generally concerned with "who benefits," but there is a careful study of cause and effect. Correlation does not always imply causation, but it often reveals one. In addressing this related question, science has evolved some sophisticated tools for testing the relation -- statistics, double-blind experiments, sensitivity analysis. This often applies even if the mechanism is poorly known or not known at all. Heredity, for instance, was well understood and even quantified centuries before even a cursory understanding of DNA.

Criminal investigation differs at the top level because, again, we are treating an invidiual rather than a population, so our use of statistics etc. is limited. The standard of the criminal hypothesis is method, opportunity, and motive, where the latter is the best fit to your question. Method fits the concept of science quite well.

As for motive, this on its own is neither sufficient nor necessary to close a criminal investigation. It is only a clue. Many crimes have no motive, at least no sane rationale. Many crimes have no beneficiary. Others may have many possible motives. The same properties that make individuals difficult to treat scientifically -- impulse -- also create any number of default answers to the question of "who benefits." As in, "the Twinkie made me do it" or "it seemed like a good idea at the time."

I find cui bono is a useful tool for speculating about new hypotheses, e.g. "follow the dollars," but it is not so good at excluding hypotheses. Similarly, guessing what a particular process might be good for can lead to new scientific hypotheses, especially in the biological sciences, but we need to determine whether cause and effect are really that and not just coincidence, or related effects, independently.

Thanks Ryan, that's a superb response - beautifully worded! (I knew you were the perfect guy for the job.) And more than that, I really appreciate that you see merit in what I am trying to discuss, and are putting effort into cutting through the noise to keep the spirit of the discussion alive. Yours is a model post. (Pomeroo is a model of a post.)

I especially like what you wrote about the cui bono lens:

"...cui bono is a useful tool for speculating about new hypotheses, e.g. "follow the dollars," but it is not so good at excluding hypotheses."


Allow me to ask a related question:

What role does suspicion play?

 

[Max Photon]

There seems to be a chill in the air today.....

~enigma~:

Cool you jets. Apollo20's quote came from this very thread.


Major Tom:

Very well said.

As to A20, I know he has posted at physorg in the past...

 

[Grizzly Bear]

Guh, philosophy ian'r particularly my strong point so forgive me if my response isn't particularly specific... I'll define my position as best as I can Xd

On the lens which I view 911, I'm not sure I fit very well in either category, but since I've come to my conclusion based on engineering, construction, and architectural standards I suppose science would above all best describe my stance. When I try to establish motive I look first at whether the characteristics of the event or rather, the design of the buildings in this case, is in any way relevant to what I am seeing (in other words, I look for precedence that would validate what I would expect to see, just like I would use precedence when formulating a design concept). Then I approach it from a motive-based position and consider practicality.

In essence a combination of teleology and science 'could' work, particularly for me who has a reasonable familiarity with what I would expect from the event in an engineering standpoint but either lacks the authority or the expertise to efficiently express it to my critics.

Does that make any sense at all???

 

[pomeroo]

Max, so A20 cannot post anymore?

Is he on any other forums that you know of? Any other discussions involving A20accessible?


What you have been hinting at can be considered a 2 tiered (or level) system. You mentioned as much.

Level 1 consists of events as they superficially seem to happen. A bunch of engineers doing a scientific study functions on this level.

Level 2 is "the man behind the curtain", cunning, sly, the secretive part of the magician, covert operations, tricking or "outsmarting" level one existence. Puppeteering level one existence when useful.


Level one is associated with routine, innocence, naivete, a belief that rules largely govern man, authority should be trusted at face value. Associated with "sheep"

Level 2 is inherently secretive. One of it's strongest defenses is in getting the sheep to believe it doesn't exist. "Nothing to fear, sheep. Just go on grazing".

It's nature is secretive and predatory, and in this sense is dominated by it's own egoistic cravings. Feeling, empathy is weakness. Traditionally associated with snake (serpent) or fox.

Level 2 behavior instinctively hides it's tracks. It's nature is to destroy evidence which can lead to exposure of the deed.




This 2 level interaction is just a basic model to illustrate some points.

People do speak of NIST's scientific investigation as if it was performed in a vaccuum.

What science can properly analyze "cunning"? Motive? Ulterior motive behind decision making? None.




For example, Frank made the following comments concerning the sceintific method used by NIST:





These are decent objections. Haven't seen any valid responses yet.


A dovelike innocence allows people to ignore the fact that there may have been people in high places that wished to sort through columns debris before NIST was allowed access.

When NIST claims it was only able to examine 4 of over 3oo core columns from the fire affected regions, motive and reason for choosing to examine such a tiny, insignificant fraction of samples escapes attention for those practicing the NISTian faith.


Therefore if you look at the 911 "problem" from the possibility of 2 general levels existing, you cannot just sheepishly accept purity of the scientific method without paying close attention to whether the imput data, or the scientists themselves, can be manipulated.

NIST's examination of only 4 of over 300 columns of the most important areas of the bulidings, the fire affected regions AND the collapse initiation zones, should raise a red flag to anyone not totally blind to the possibility of the manipulation of evidence.

You keep promoting this lie, but the metallurgists I've spoken to claim that they examined a great deal of steel before it was shipped away. People here inform you of this fact frequently, but you don't process the information.

 

[R.Mackey]

A bit off-topic, but don't you mean decades? Who before Mendel had any sort of a proper quantitative understanding of heredity. Certainly not Lamarck!

No, much more than decades. Mendel formalized it. But the rough concept of heredity and selective breeding is as old as -- and some would say the very definition of -- civilization itself.

And the 9/11 Commission considered how many hypotheses? One? That's called junk science.

What makes you think they only considered one hypothesis?

This is why a discussion on the philosophy of science is needed. Very many people get confused on this point. The 9/11 Commission presented facts and then explained how those facts fit their best guess hypothesis. This is extremely typical of investigation, scientific or otherwise. It is also not junk science. By presenting those facts, they are inviting others to propose their own hypotheses that are also consistent with those facts.

Sometimes a scientist can anticipate other hypotheses and perform a comparison, but this is typically only done in survey papers. In the case of the 9/11 Commission, there are a literally infinite number of possible hypotheses, but there are also so many facts in play that a credible alternative is difficult to imagine, let alone anticipate. Indeed, the Truth Movement has been consistently unable to propose one. But as a scientist, I welcome and encourage any attempts to formulate an alternate. I offer that challenge to you as well.

 

[R.Mackey]

I especially like what you wrote about the cui bono lens:

"...cui bono is a useful tool for speculating about new hypotheses, e.g. "follow the dollars," but it is not so good at excluding hypotheses."


Allow me to ask a related question:

What role does suspicion play?

I see "suspicion" in much the same way. Science doesn't progress without the human element of imagination. We need to start somewhere. Fortunately we have the benefit of many generations, who developed language, philosophy, mathematics, and so on, so we have plenty of concepts already in our consciousness with which to imagine new ideas.

Suspicion, inspiration, intuition -- these all enable leaps of logic that a scientist files under the broad heading of "speculation." Speculation is never a bad thing, provided we keep track of what is merely speculative, and what has actually been verified or reproduced. That is the mechanical side of science, namely testing our speculation, refining it into hypothesis, theory, and where needed, axiom. Suspicion can give us a lead, but we have to prove that the lead is correct.

 

[Major_Tom]

the metallurgists I've spoken to claim that they examined a great deal of steel before it was shipped away. People here inform you of this fact frequently, but you don't process the information.

Some others have mentioned examination stations at GZ. So natural questions to ask are:

Why is it that NIST looked at only 4 of the over 300 core column sections from the collapse initiation zones-fire affected areas? Did they freely choose only 4 samples for themselves? Were they constrained to only 4 core column samples?

A direct quote by NIST on this subject follows:

In the two buildings, there were 329 core columns (each three stories tall) traversing floors involved in fires. NIST has portions of four of these columns, and on average about half of each column was recovered. While these pieces allow some comparison of metal and paint condition with the predications of the fire model, the recovered steel represents less than one percent of all the core columns intersecting floors with fire. Thus, the forensic analysis indicating moderate temperature excursions in the recovered core columns does not, and cannot, give a picture of temperatures seen by the vast majority of the core columns. NCSTAR 1-3C, page xivi (PDF page 48)

The wording here suggests that only 4 of these more than 300 core columns from unquestionably the most important areas to study were "recovered".

Does this imply that all the others couldn't be recovered?

Was NIST constrained to only 4 core columns or did they decide that only 4 columns would be sufficient?

Others have suggested that the FBI was supervising activity at examination stations. These examination stations recorded and documented the major column components of the buildings.

If this is true, then how can NIST claim that only parts of 4 large 36 foot core column sections from over 300 large 36 foot sections were recovered?

 

[T.A.M.]

For what it is worth, if it has not been mentioned, Dr. Greening also posts at Physorg.com

I think he posts as Neu Fonze (a play on 9/11).

TAM

 

[Clippy]

No, much more than decades. Mendel formalized it. But the rough concept of heredity and selective breeding is as old as -- and some would say the very definition of -- civilization itself.

Rough concept, sure. But certainly not 'well understood and even quantified', which is what I was objecting to.

What makes you think they only considered one hypothesis?

Who besides al Qaeda was considered a suspect by the commission? Did they investigate complicity of US intelligence services in the attacks?

This is why a discussion on the philosophy of science is needed. Very many people get confused on this point. The 9/11 Commission presented facts and then explained how those facts fit their best guess hypothesis. This is extremely typical of investigation, scientific or otherwise. It is also not junk science. By presenting those facts, they are inviting others to propose their own hypotheses that are also consistent with those facts.

Ok, I also have a number of hypotheses. Like Dave Frasca's superiors knew that he was quashing investigations. Now how am I supposed to check that hypothesis out? I can't. That was the job of commission.

Sometimes a scientist can anticipate other hypotheses and perform a comparison, but this is typically only done in survey papers. In the case of the 9/11 Commission, there are a literally infinite number of possible hypotheses, but there are also so many facts in play that a credible alternative is difficult to imagine, let alone anticipate. Indeed, the Truth Movement has been consistently unable to propose one. But as a scientist, I welcome and encourage any attempts to formulate an alternate. I offer that challenge to you as well.

Sure there are an infinite number of possible hypotheses. But how many of them make sense? Does complicity of elements of the intelligence services in a massive intelligence failure seem like a wild hypothesis?

 

[Clippy]

There were 7,000 agents from the FBI alone, over 1,000 researchers with NIST, the thousands of engineers in ASCE, the air traffic controllers, the police and firefighters, the forensic examiners, the military personnel--your imaginary conspiracy exceeds 10,000 accomplices, willing and unwilling. I selected 1,000 as a number that is much smaller than the conspiracy you imagine. I used .99 as a probability of keeping one's mouth shut higher than any human, excepting possibly James Bond or G. Gordon Liddy, could conceivably aspire to. My estimate that the secret would be leaked is wrong on the low side. The actual probability that the imaginary conspiracy dreamed up by fantasists would unravel approaches 1, or certainty.

But you seem to be assuming that any one of these people has the explosive inside information that would crack 9/11 wide open, which is absurd. Perhaps some of them have information that seems to contradict the official version, but it is unlikely that it would prove an inside job. Why would they risk their careers to point out something they find a bit weird? And Coleen Rowley was such a whistleblower. The commission just was't too interested in following it up. And there are well-known ways to get your .99 probability to 1.

 

[R.Mackey]

Rough concept, sure. But certainly not 'well understood and even quantified', which is what I was objecting to.

You also said "decades." Agriculturalists have had a concept of heredity for longer than recorded history.

I'm not going to get drawn into another pointless derail. There are plenty of books that touch on the subject in the popular press, the best known perhaps being Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Or talk to your local American Livestock Breeds Conservancy representative.

Who besides al Qaeda was considered a suspect by the commission? Did they investigate complicity of US intelligence services in the attacks

Ok, I also have a number of hypotheses. Like Dave Frasca's superiors knew that he was quashing investigations. Now how am I supposed to check that hypothesis out? I can't. That was the job of commission.

Again, this is why you are confused. You have no idea how science works.

One more time, the 9/11 Commission report contains facts. These facts exist regardless of what hypothesis we have in mind.

You aren't proposing hypotheses. You are instead asking about certain facts and trying to cast out others.

For example, "did Dave Frasca's superiors knew that he was quashing investigations." So what if he did? So what if Dave Frasca actually did what you claim? So what if investigations were actually quashed? What you have here is a purely speculative question that is three layers deep in speculation. And even if you were right, it wouldn't eliminate any of the facts that we've already got.

Supposing your question was answered in the affirmative, you still need to come up with a hypothesis. And this hypothesis would have to be consistent with your new fact, and all the facts we already have.

No one has ever proposed such a hypothesis, including you.

How are you supposed to do it? Go right ahead. I'm asking you to speculate. Hypothesis demands speculation. But it's informed speculation, i.e. speculation that is consistent with the facts on the ground.

What you're doing, instead, is speculating about the fact-finding process itself. That you cannot do.

Do you understand the difference?

Sure there are an infinite number of possible hypotheses. But how many of them make sense? Does complicity of elements of the intelligence services in a massive intelligence failure seem like a wild hypothesis?

Depends on what you mean by "complicity." If you mean the intelligence failure was deliberate, then at the moment that is indeed a wild hypothesis. There are no facts to support it, and there are consequences of that hypothesis that are inconsistent with the facts we do have. If instead you mean that organizationally the intelligence services were unable to do their job properly from the outset, that's not wild at all.

So, what do you mean?

 

[Clippy]

You also said "decades." Agriculturalists have had a concept of heredity for longer than recorded history.

I'm not going to get drawn into another pointless derail. There are plenty of books that touch on the subject in the popular press, the best known perhaps being Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Or talk to your local American Livestock Breeds Conservancy representative.

Yes, decades. Mendel published his work in 1865. DNA only began to be understood in the early 20th century. And if you consider Miescher's work, it's only a few years. I agree, let's call a truce on the derail. And I see you managed to squeeze in another dairy reference!

Again, this is why you are confused. You have no idea how science works.

One more time, the 9/11 Commission report contains facts. These facts exist regardless of what hypothesis we have in mind.

I am talking about how the Commission generated the report. The Commission's job was not to just assemble facts that were already in the public domain. They carried out an investigation. You've said that there is no practical difference between the Scientific Method and a criminal investigation. So let's cast the Commission as scientists and see how well they did.

You aren't proposing hypotheses. You are instead asking about certain facts and trying to cast out others.

For example, "did Dave Frasca's superiors knew that he was quashing investigations." So what if he did? So what if Dave Frasca actually did what you claim? So what if investigations were actually quashed? What you have here is a purely speculative question that is three layers deep in speculation.

Those are three layers? It looks like the same question being reworded. If you got a prelimary result suggesting some mechanism at work, wouldn't you look into it?

And even if you were right, it wouldn't eliminate any of the facts that we've already got.

Why does it have to?

Supposing your question was answered in the affirmative, you still need to come up with a hypothesis. And this hypothesis would have to be consistent with your new fact, and all the facts we already have.

No one has ever proposed such a hypothesis, including you.

How are you supposed to do it? Go right ahead. I'm asking you to speculate. Hypothesis demands speculation. But it's informed speculation, i.e. speculation that is consistent with the facts on the ground.

Well, an obvious hypothesis is that there was a high-level decision made not to interfere with the hijackers.

What you're doing, instead, is speculating about the fact-finding process itself. That you cannot do.

Do you understand the difference?

I'm criticizing the fact-finding process.

Depends on what you mean by "complicity." If you mean the intelligence failure was deliberate, then at the moment that is indeed a wild hypothesis. There are no facts to support it, and there are consequences of that hypothesis that are inconsistent with the facts we do have. If instead you mean that organizationally the intelligence services were unable to do their job properly from the outset, that's not wild at all.

So, what do you mean?

I mean a deliberate failure, i.e. aiding and abetting, a crime. You call it wild. I call the actions of Dave Frasca wild. Wild enough that any serious investigation should have grilled him. But I think this is the reason we will not agree. There are no units for suspicion.

 

[applecorped]

So you think.

 

[R.Mackey]

Those are three layers? It looks like the same question being reworded. If you got a prelimary result suggesting some mechanism at work, wouldn't you look into it?

There are three distinct questions:

• Did Dave Frasca attempt to quash investigation?
• Was this successful?
• Did his superiors know about it? (I.e., did he do so on orders or freelance)

You only asked the third, but for the answer to have any bearing at all, the other two have to be true as well. The 9/11 Commission is not Dave Frasca's performance review. It's an attempt to find out what happened, regardless of any attempted or suspected "quashing."

There are no such preliminary results, so there's no reason to look into it. You might want to review the Commission's charter.

Why does it have to?

Because the facts we have now aren't consistent with the FBI coordinating the attacks. Quite the opposite. Read the report.

Well, an obvious hypothesis is that there was a high-level decision made not to interfere with the hijackers.

You need to elaborate. Who made the decision? What does "not interfering" mean? What actions were taken, and what evidence was ignored? What was destroyed?

At present, we have facts, and we have a hypothesis that meets those facts. There is no reason to go find additional facts unless you can come up with another hypothesis that also meets the facts. In that case, a test needs to be devised to discriminate who is right, and more fact-finding is needed.

But so far, you haven't presented an alternate. Just tiny snips of uncoordinated suspicion. That's not actionable.

I'm criticizing the fact-finding process.

But not with any apparent justification. What did they do wrong? What did they miss? Justify your suspicion.

I mean a deliberate failure, i.e. aiding and abetting, a crime. You call it wild. I call the actions of Dave Frasca wild. Wild enough that any serious investigation should have grilled him. But I think this is the reason we will not agree. There are no units for suspicion.

Yes there are. I explained it above. If you can elaborate an alternate hypothesis, then suspicion is valid. If not, you've got nothing.

Now does it make sense? I stress again, if you want to prove your case, you have all the tools to do so. Come up with a valid alternative. Surely it isn't that hard?

 

[pomeroo]

But you seem to be assuming that any one of these people has the explosive inside information that would crack 9/11 wide open, which is absurd. Perhaps some of them have information that seems to contradict the official version, but it is unlikely that it would prove an inside job. Why would they risk their careers to point out something they find a bit weird? And Coleen Rowley was such a whistleblower. The commission just was't too interested in following it up. And there are well-known ways to get your .99 probability to 1.

Your embarrassingly feeble response underscores the crushing blow dealt to your fantasy by simple math. All that is necessary for you liars to make a genuine case is for ONE person with relevant professional expertise--an air traffic controller, a forensic examiner, a structural engineer, a physicist, a demolition expert--to reveal a significant error in the mainstream account. There are over ten thousand people who, according to your fantasy, know that it was an inside job. Your "well-known ways to get [the] .99 probability to 1," of course, do not exist. The probability of .99 is absurdly high. For normal humans, it wouldn't exceed .5, and in the case of ordinary people covering-up a monstrous crime, it would be much lower. If your imaginary conspiracy were real, dozens, if not hundreds, of whistleblowers would have emerged. Coleen Rowley lent no credence to your fantasies.

 

[gumboot]

Some others have mentioned examination stations at GZ. So natural questions to ask are:

Why is it that NIST looked at only 4 of the over 300 core column sections from the collapse initiation zones-fire affected areas? Did they freely choose only 4 samples for themselves? Were they constrained to only 4 core column samples?

A direct quote by NIST on this subject follows:



The wording here suggests that only 4 of these more than 300 core columns from unquestionably the most important areas to study were "recovered".

Does this imply that all the others couldn't be recovered?

Was NIST constrained to only 4 core columns or did they decide that only 4 columns would be sufficient?

Others have suggested that the FBI was supervising activity at examination stations. These examination stations recorded and documented the major column components of the buildings.

If this is true, then how can NIST claim that only parts of 4 large 36 foot core column sections from over 300 large 36 foot sections were recovered?

NIST staff selected steel of interest from Ground Zero and had it marked to be transported to their warehouses for storage. They had free reign to select as much steel as they wanted, and according to their report, they collected sufficient steel for their purposes.

I believe the only element of the structure they feel they didn't collect sufficient samples of was the floor trusses because the floor trusses had collected in massive piles of acre-sized grids of steel, and recovery workers had rolled these up into enormous balls to make them manageable. As such it was impossible for NIST to determine where a given truss originated in the structure, and without this information the steel was of little value.

It should probably be pointed out that the primary reason for examining the aftermath of an event (be it a murder, a plane crash, or a building collapse) is because there is seldom primary evidence of the event as it happened, thus to reconstruct what happened investigators have to work backwards from what is left and piece it together.

Of course if you have hundreds of hours of television news footage, thousands of photographs, and recorded radio communication of the event as it unfolded this renders much of that reconstructive examination work moot.

When you have this primary evidence of the event unfolding, it is only wise to use this as a blueprint, and only use your aftermath-based examinations to fill in the blanks. As such the amount of examination work required is significantly less.

This is why, for example, the FBI appears not to have asked the NTSB to evaluate aircraft wreckage in order to identify the aircraft involved - the FBI already had ample circumstantial evidence to establish the identity of the aircraft involved, and tasking the NTSB with identifying aircraft wreckage simply would have been a waste of time, with no benefit.

 

[Major_Tom]

Thanks Gumboot.

It is generally assumed within this forum that the following quote is true.

NIST staff selected steel of interest from Ground Zero and had it marked to be transported to their warehouses for storage. They had free reign to select as much steel as they wanted, and according to their report, they collected sufficient steel for their purposes.

The quote uses the most popular key phases:

NIST staff selected steel of interest
free reign to select as much steel as they wanted
collected sufficient steel for their purposes


The recurring theme:


Free to choose
Selected all they needed
Had sufficient samples
unhindered in movement
experts
unhindered access



As I mentioned before, they claim to have "recovered" only parts of 4 of over 300 core columns from the regions of interest, the fire affected and collapse initiation regions, less than 1%.

They then claim that the samples were so few that they couldn't give an indication as to whether the computerized fire similation yielded correct values.

They couldn't verify damage estimates of the core columns to the aircraft strikes because they only had parts of 4 samples (average 2 samples per tower).

They couldn't even verify how hot it was inside the core because they didn't have enough samples.

 

[~enigma~]

Of course if you have hundreds of hours of television news footage, thousands of photographs, and recorded radio communication of the event as it unfolded this renders much of that reconstructive examination work moot.

Not to mention the testimony of a PAPD Sgt. named Robert Vargas who survived IN THE CONCOURSE OF THE SOUTH TOWER DURING THE COLLAPSE. I really do not nor will I ever understand the sheer idiocy of the inhuman scum that is called the truth movement.