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Shermer vs. Fetzer: Bad Idea

Gravy

Downsitting Citizen
Gravy
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This September 11, Michael Shermer had a radio debate about 9/11 with Jim Fetzer on a St. Cloud, Minnesota radio show. Part 1 (mp3) Part 2 (mp3)

I imagine that Shermer heard that Fetzer was a "Scholar for Truth" and figured he'd dismantle him with logic. Shermer makes good points, but he's not well-versed in the specifics, and he's wholly unprepared for Fetzer's manic torrent of taurine excrement. Nor did he seem to realize that Fetzer is a proponent of the Star Wars hypothesis (I wonder if he'd have agreed to the debate if he knew that). Result: Fetzer's site proudly links to his encounter with skeptic supreme Michael Shermer.

I only made it through part of the debate. If anyone gets through part 2, let us know how it went.
 
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Let me guess, uncle Fetzer is jumping haphazardly around from one subject to the other without giving Shermer anytime to catch his breath and understand what he's talking about...

*sigh*
 
It's something a lot of skeptic types learned (or should have learned) from past experience debating slick creationist professional debaters of the Duane Gish variety -- these guys have their patter down and they can talk for hours without drawing a breath, spewing out so many cockamamie notions that you'd need 12 hours to address every one of them. I saw the hard time you and Ron had keeping up with Fetzer's endless babbling on "Hardfire," and both of you are more skilled at cutting in and talking over people than I think Shermer is.
 
Pardalis said:
Let me guess, uncle Fetzer is jumping haphazardly around from one subject to the other without giving Shermer anytime to catch his breath and understand what he's talking about...

*sigh*
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Correct you are. Shermer was making a point about the terrorists indeed being dead and using Popular Mechanics as a source. Fetzer then went on to completely change the subject and talk about how Popular Mechanics had some sort of hostile take over (Not sure what he was talking about). He also goes on to suggest that flight 77 flew OVER the Pentagon and just didn't hit it. That one is new to me.
 
Quad4_72 said:
Correct you are. Shermer was making a point about the terrorists indeed being dead and using Popular Mechanics as a source. Fetzer then went on to completely change the subject and talk about how Popular Mechanics had some sort of hostile take over (Not sure what he was talking about).
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I assume he was talking about the shuffling of editorial staff after the previous editor-in-chief retired and was replaced by Jim Meigs, which truthers seem to think is suspicious due to their lack of contact with the real world or actual gainful employment. I'm surprised he didn't start in on Jason Bermas's beloved notion that because PM is owned by the present-day Hearst Corp., it must be operating according to the same journalistic standards William Randolph Hearst was infamous for 100 years ago. (Or did he?)


He also goes on to suggest that flight 77 flew OVER the Pentagon and just didn't hit it. That one is new to me.
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Ay yi yi, Fetzer has jumped on the Ranke-Marquis express train to the funny farm now? I guess after he joined Judy's space-beam movement, anything is possible.
 
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Is Fetzer still considered a player in the truth movement. I thought he was a lame duck?

TAM:)
 
tacodaemon said:
Ay yi yi, Fetzer has jumped on the Ranke-Marquis express train to the funny farm now? I guess after he joined Judy's space-beam movement, anything is possible.
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Oh and apparently Flight 77 crashed in the Ohio river as well after it flew over the Pentagon. After I heard that I uninstalled iTunes to make sure I could never here the mpeg again.
 
T.A.M. said:
Is Fetzer still considered a player in the truth movement. I thought he was a lame duck?
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The "Scholars" gave him the boot after he joined Judy Wood's space-cadet academy last year. If he's endorsing the "Pentacon" flyover theory now, I guess he's just flailing about looking for any goofy notion to grab onto.
 
Quad4_72 said:
Oh and apparently Flight 77 crashed in the Ohio river as well after it flew over the Pentagon. After I heard that I uninstalled iTunes to make sure I could never here the mpeg again.
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Oh my gosh, it's 1 am here and I think I just woke up the entire neighborhood.

:dl:
 
Gravy said:
I imagine that Shermer heard that Fetzer was a "Scholar for Truth" and figured he'd dismantle him with logic. Shermer makes good points, but he's not well-versed in the specifics, and he's wholly unprepared for Fetzer's manic torrent of taurine excrement. Nor did he seem to realize that Fetzer is a proponent of the Star Wars hypothesis (I wonder if he'd have agreed to the debate if he knew that). Result: Fetzer's site proudly links to his encounter with skeptic supreme Michael Shermer.
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Yeah, well. Look on the bright side. Fetzer may be proudly displaying the debate, but it won't serve him in the end. Stomping all over someone else in real time may sound exciting, but we can always go over his recordings and prove, after the fact, that he's a lying fool. By making those materials available, he exposes himself to even further discredit and ridicule. There's no win possible for him in the long run.

This is why science rarely takes the form of a debate. It's not a sprint, it's here for the long game. Possibly longer than we will last as a species.
 
Gravy said:
This September 11, Michael Shermer had a radio debate about 9/11 with Jim Fetzer on a St. Cloud, Minnesota radio show. Part 1 (mp3) Part 2 (mp3)

I imagine that Shermer heard that Fetzer was a "Scholar for Truth" and figured he'd dismantle him with logic. Shermer makes good points, but he's not well-versed in the specifics, and he's wholly unprepared for Fetzer's manic torrent of taurine excrement. Nor did he seem to realize that Fetzer is a proponent of the Star Wars hypothesis (I wonder if he'd have agreed to the debate if he knew that). Result: Fetzer's site proudly links to his encounter with skeptic supreme Michael Shermer.

I only made it through part of the debate. If anyone gets through part 2, let us know how it went.
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It's just like scientists trying to debate Global Warming with the likes of Michael Crichton.
 
That is just plain bad radio. I have always thought that part of the idea of bringing two people on at the same time was to present two sides of an issue. They have switches on those microphones, you know.

The hosts are either biased toward Fetzer or are wussie boys who are intimidated by him. I guess they went to the Sean Hannity school of journalism.
 
T.A.M. said:
Is Fetzer still considered a player in the truth movement. I thought he was a lame duck?

TAM:)
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The schism caused by the Kennebunkport Bunk has happened along generational lines and Tarpley is being supported by Uncle Fetzer and Kevin Barrett. This has worked very much to Fetzer's favor, because those three are all well-known to the media for their Trooferism.

Among the activists, Fetzer's actually despised by both the no-planers and the plane-huggers. But he's still a big player because the activists only make up a small portion of 9-11 Deniers and because of his media experience.
 
Unfit4Command said:
Where did people get the idea that the buildings could support 2000% of their live load?
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Ooh! Ooh! I remember this one too. Here's how R. Mackey explained it back in June:

R.Mackey said:
The "perimeter columns could handle 20 times their normal load" is a badly butchered quote-mine from comments that John Skilling made to the Engineering News Record in 1964. He is quoted as saying the live loads on the perimeter columns could be increased by 2000% before the perimeter columns would fail.

Assuming the quote is even accurate, this ignores, of course, the fact that the perimeter columns were sized for the overall load, e.g. the dead and superimposed dead loads, live loads, and also the wind loads. If you juggle the math such that every drop of margin gets treated as live load, i.e. on a windless day, you might get to a factor of 20. However, even that is suspect.

In other words, it's a lie. A stupid one.
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I haven't listened to this yet, but by the sounds of it, Shermer doesn't do too great. Michael Shermer is a great mind, but it just sounds like the Hovind debate. Whereby, he didn't know his opponent's material enough, and was ambushed with a barrage of nonsense.
 
Hyperviolet said:
I haven't listened to this yet, but by the sounds of it, Shermer doesn't do too great. Michael Shermer is a great mind, but it just sounds like the Hovind debate. Whereby, he didn't know his opponent's material enough, and was ambushed with a barrage of nonsense.
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Same thing came to my mind. Shermer's brilliant and articulate, but he only does well in real structured academic debate settings. Shermer v. Hovind highlighted that.
 
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