skepticalcriticalguy
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Split from: First Impressions are everything...
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William Rea
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No, I am paid by my employer to work, not to discuss Politics in work.
No, in my professional capacity discussing politics would be extremely inappropriate.
No, I understand that saying what I think about politics does not extend to the time that my employer pays me for. I am perfectly at liberty to discuss disputes and disagreements relating to work and in these activities I say what I think.
No, the beer thing won't happen to me, I am a respected mentor in the office that I work in and I am regularly invited to social occaisions outside of working hours.
I do not know what your level of intelligence is or how to measure it. Some people choose to judge other's intelligence by the way they speak and handle themselves in daily communications. I tend to think that is a pretty good measure but you decide for yourself how you come across.
You mean the 300,000 pound plane I use to fly was based on opinions? Best guess opinions. Darn they were good opinions. I am not sure what you do but I sure do not want opinions building my next plane.
Yes I know F=ma is just our representation of what does not exist. I know we used those representations when applied to certain frames of reference to go to the moon. But you are wrong about mixing you opinion BS with science. You are out of your area. Are you telling me I can not with great accuracy describe the real world with equations? Are you saying scientist and engineer just make up stuff from opinions? Are you making up how you think engineer and scientist work at making up stuff.
Facts? You want to argue how a plane flies? And then you want to call it all opinions? You want to call the work of NIST opinions based on facts? Or that their facts are based on opinions?
What crazy kind of junk are you doing at work? It is an opinion my planes stalls. Oh, it is an informed opinion confirmed by flight test?
Actually there are many things that happen on 9/11 that can be answered with a nice clean number. There are certain facts that can be calculated on 9/11 to help understand what happen. You can calculate the energy in the WTC due to g. You can calculate to the joule what the energy at impact of flight 11 was. You can live in your opinion world if you wish but I do not consider engineering as an opinion. Only fools do. And when fools override engineers and scientist they can kill people by their opinions base on feeling.
I consider you have an opinion everything is just an opinion now. After reading about your NIST ideas I see you have no real idea what science and engineering is about. So you should stick with your opinions and make sure you make no life and death decisions for others. Since you think all of 9/11 is just opinions, then you can just vote for your favorite one. Since you lump all of NIST as just opinion then you can just ignore it.
But when I show the impact energy of flight 175 to be around 2200 pounds of TNT equal energy, it is not an opinion. It is a fact. You want to argue the fact, then do so. But if you think it is an opinion you are just flat wrong. Can we argue and come up with a different number based on facts; yes. But I bet your job it will be close to a 2000 to 2200 pounds of TNT energy figure. As is flight 11 at 1300 pounds and we can go on. In fact, engineers estimated the impact at the Pentagon to be 450 KIAS just from the damage done. Guess what the FDR showed 463 KIAS. Was that an educated opinion. Not an opinion, it was engineering work which you put as an opinion which begs the question why are you in the real world since it is only opinions holding it together as we speak. You must be wrong, and there is more than opinions in engineering and science than you understand.
Your post said it all. You are upset with politics, you do not care what NIST does, and treat the work NIST did as opinions. Much of your post that sums up your CT stand is good for the political forum. You said the 3000 dead was a drop in the bucket, you missed how we kill 40,000 people each year, and how Iraq is 5 to 7 times safer than being in Vietnam. Not exactly a 9/11 CT topic. We were lucky on 9/11 that the buildings stood as long as they did, they were very strong. They were engineered with facts not opinions.
We could have lost 10 or 20,000 people on 9/11. Some of the lessons we learned in 93 helped save lives. Now using science the new buildings will have features added learned from 9/11 and work of NIST, and real engineers and scientist who study 9/11. WTC7 is rebuilt using lessons learned. Facts, not opinions,
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William Rea
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Like I said educated opinions.
How many Twin Towers did you test to destruction to test your opinion?
Why do you build redundancy into every single rivet and electronic fly by wire component on your plane. Why do you check on the hot turbine section of the engines at increments of flying hours?
Surely if we are surrounded by facts we will know exactly what service intervals you should apply to a plane and not do it at more frequent intervals. Or do plane companies like spending money on service intervals so much that they do more than is required by fact?
Your quote...
"In fact, engineers estimated the impact at the Pentagon to be 450 KIAS just from the damage done."
They estimated it? You mean they didn't know it as a fact?
William Rea
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What's the weather going to be like in my area in August 2007?
The point is Beachnut, I am an Engineer.
I work with a process that has hundreds of variables and thousands of interactions. Some of them are controlled as Key Input Variables, others aren't. I know some facts about the process but I don't know every single interaction. As an Engineer I get lots of data which I have to form an opinion about and then make judgements. My analysis may not always be one that my colleagues agree with but, it's my shout. My employer trusts my educated opinion to make that shout, if I couldn't make that shout I'd be a Technician.
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Babbylonian
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Thread reported. This derailing has, IMO, gone over the line, especially considering the spirit of TAM's original post...
William Rea
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I agree. I don't have a problem with it being split away.
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I think I can agree with you on this. Was that an opinion you want, an estimate, or want a TLAR.
Yes, an estimate is a better word for some of those educated opinions. I am glad if I was your bank I could just have an opinion on how much money you have and as soon as I can locate all your business partners, we will have educated opinions on how much money you owe us, no matter how many facts or educated opinions you have on your real bank balance which is now just an educated opinion.
As you wish we will no longer confuse you with facts and we will be very nice as you have pointed out to be better at our interaction with each other.
I see what you mean and next time I present my weight and balance for flight I will remember despite the fact they stick it in the fact section of the accident board report it was just an educated opinion. Or an estimation would be okay, but not sure why they stick it in the fact section.
I can tell you for a fact when it is raining, but now I am not sure if it is rain. With you if you say no one is coming and you are directing me to back up, when the other car hits me was it a fact it was a car or an educated opinion it was clear so it was not the car that him me but an error in an educated opinion, a simple bad estimate, etc. ? ? A world without facts, amen. So actually planes hitting buildings is not a fact but an educated opinion.
The fact you say you are a mentor is an educated opinion?
TLAR -
William Rea
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"The only facts are that aircraft collided with the towers, they subsequently collapsed and many people lost their lives."
Quote - William Rea 19 posts ago
At this point I call your strawman and end my posting here subject to the Moderators response to Babbylonians bad post report.
From your example, your weight is a fact (subject to local variations in g) but how it interacts with the flight will be an educated opinion.
You might be able to tell me how much money I have but it would be an educated opinion as to how much I might have in 12 months time.
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As am I an engineer. I use facts and logic. I am also a pilot. As engineer and a pilot, I do not use opinions as a professional tool.
I work with a process that has hundreds of variables, and thousands of interactions. Some of them are controlled as Key Input Variables, and other are variables I can not control. I have to know all the facts about the process, and I must be familiar with every interaction. As a pilot I get lots of data which I have to make decisions and provide judgments almost at an instant. Never based on opinion, always based on facts and desired outcomes. My judgments must be correct or I could kill people, there is no time for opinions. My employer trusts my knowledge and my judgment to make the decisions and bring the jet home, complete the mission and not kill his people. I deal with facts. Opinions are not part of flying a jet. I can not afford to base flying on things not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof, or make a decision on prevailing view. Knowledge and Judgement based on facts not opinions.
If you want an opinion call a doctor, if you want knowledge based decisions for flying or building a better computer system, flight control system, or other engineering advice based on facts call me. Like I said if you what an opinion call a doctor. I will send all interested parties who want their systems built on opinions to your firm.
I think you have underestimated NIST overall and the work NIST does is based on facts not opinions.
I think NIST goals and objectives are more important than your defining post make them out to be:
- improvements in the way buildings are designed, constructed, maintained, and used;
- improved tools and guidance for industry and safety officials;
- revisions to building and fire codes, standards, and practices; and
- improved public safety.
- why and how the World Trade Center buildings 1, 2, and 7 collapsed after the initial impact of the aircraft;
- why the injuries and fatalities were so low or high depending on location (by studying all technical aspects of fire protection, evacuation,
and occupant behavior and emergency response); - the procedures and practices that were used in the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of the World Trade Center Buildings; and
- which building and fire codes, standards, and practices warrant revision and are still in use.
- analysis of building and fire codes and practices;
- baseline structural performance and aircraft impact damage prediction;
- forensic analysis of structural steel;
- investigation of active fire protection systems;
- prediction of the thermal and tenability environment;
- structural fire response and collapse;
- occupant behavior, egress, and emergency communications; and
- fire service technologies and guidelines.
If you want you can make all your decisions on opinions. That is great. But do not define my decisions as such. Your opinion is noted, and rejected. Thank you.
The facts speak for themselves, just be sure you have them. When I fly, most will be happy if I fly using facts instead of opinioins. I have seen too many accidents where the pilots forgot to use facts, and crashed due to making his decisions on his own opinions instead of decisions based on facts. I guess I am a fact guy when it comes to my professional duties. Maybe the right seat pilot is still working with opinions, but I have to be the guy incharge and facts are used to make decisions. I included the defs for guys like Charlie Sheen so he can learn more about facts and opinions. Kind of a helping hand, instead of being rude and not helping the CT chaps out with some knowledge. Tally ho.
o·pin·ion ( -p n y n)
n. 1. A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof: "The world is not run by thought, nor by imagination, but by opinion"Elizabeth Drew.
2. A judgment based on special knowledge and given by an expert: a medical opinion.
3. A judgment or estimation of the merit of a person or thing: has a low opinion of braggarts.
4. The prevailing view: public opinion.
5. Law A formal statement by a court or other adjudicative body of the legal reasons and principles for the conclusions of the court.
fact (f kt)
n. 1. Knowledge or information based on real occurrences: an account based on fact; a blur of fact and fancy.
2. a. Something demonstrated to exist or known to have existed: Genetic engineering is now a fact. That Chaucer was a real person is an undisputed fact.
b. A real occurrence; an event: had to prove the facts of the case.
c. Something believed to be true or real: a document laced with mistaken facts.
3. A thing that has been done, especially a crime: an accessory before the fact.
4. Law The aspect of a case at law comprising events determined by evidence: The jury made a finding of fact.
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William Rea
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If you prefer to call it judgement instead of opinion in order to save face then I'll meet you half way and agree I was right all along.
I'm still calling your strawman.
PS I'm guessing that as the mods haven't reacted by now that the thread is fine to proceed in the direction it's going so I start posting again.
Your opinion. I still will use facts to my favor.
Call my stawman if you wish, but you can have your opinions, and your opinions on your opinions, thus there is no dismissing your position. You can keep your position, and call your judgements opinions.
Thus there was no strawman.
If you think I was trying to dismiss your opinion that your opinions are based on opinions I was not.
I will continue to base my decisions on facts.
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Frankly I am astonished that anyone working as an engineer would write this kind of tripe.
The simple fact is that while one might argue that modeling of physical phenomena and forensic investigations are not “100% start to finish” accurate, if you are an engineer and can’t make it to the 95% correct solution and be confident in your ability to do so, you need to get out of the field because you don’t know what you’re doing.
What NIST got 100% correct: the location of collapse initiation, the fact that local collapse would progress to global collapse once initiated. What part of this scenario is seriously “open to debate” among the structural engineering community? Any "debate" on the NIST models among structural engineers is not over anything that would affect the final result.
William Rea said:
What exactly "could they be" wrong about? Anything significant? Or just nitpicking over whether column "A" buckled before column "B"?
Darth Rotor
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It isn't a debate worthy of the name if one side does not have any facts to support its position, but rather fantasy masquerading as "truth."
As to the amount of vitriol, the topic is an emotionally charged one in the first place, if 9-11 is what the general topic is.
The number of threads entitled "Truthers are dumb" "the stundies" and other such drama hounding , as well as the coverage of the goings on at various "troofer" boards and internal disputes do not, IMO, do the JREF community any credit at all. Self inflicted spam.
Lastly, flaming idiots is sometimes necessary. You can argue degree and frequency, RAMS' appeal to "kill 'em with kindness" considered.
DR
William Rea
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As long as your opinions are based upon reasonable application of facts I won't have a problem (that was and continues to be your strawman although I sincerely congratulate you on actually having the self awareness to spot it at last).
Here's the rub. This forum looks, sounds and feels like the Fundie Christian websites I used to have fun with years ago before they locked them down.
"Skeptic" has become a fundamentalist religious belief system to just as much of a degree as the "truth movement" has. The problem is that these belief systems become so dogmatic and rigid that true believers cannot accept fallacy in any single part of the doctrine. When I refer to the orthodoxy on here it is intentional, I am hinting at an almost religious fervour. I accept that it is probably a broad church and that there may be some on here who have a more academic approach (PhD in Skeptology?). My experience is that they are few and far between.
Just like most other religious belief systems there are sacred texts based upon some facts that have been used as a framework for an opinion. Everyone forgets that the opinions are just that, the extrapolated opinions are not facts.
I am essentially a 911 agnostic. I don't know enough and probably never will, but I won't cheer for "Team Skeptic" or "Team Truth".
Agreed.
Architects can have differing opinions regarding what constitutes good design, because these are matters of aesthetics.
But engineers have to work within real world parameters where the difference of opinion regarding how much load a beam could support would very probably lead to a structural failure.
NIST established the mechanism for failure and no one with any validity has come forward to prove them wrong.
It is niave to think that describing the actual collapse, floor by floor, beam by beam and truss by truss would be either possible or worthwhile.
Arkan_Wolfshade
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http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?ch...5C-152E-A9F183414B7F0000&pageNumber=2&catID=2
SKEPTIC
November 2006 issue Wronger Than Wrong Not all wrong theories are equal By Michael Shermer
In belles lettres the witty literary slight has evolved into a genre because, as 20th-century trial lawyer Louis Nizer noted, "A graceful taunt is worth a thousand insults." To wit, from high culture, Mark Twain: "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." Winston Churchill: "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." And from pop culture, Groucho Marx: "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." Scientists are no slouches when it comes to pitching invectives at colleagues. Achieving almost canonical status as the ne plus ultra put-down is theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli's reported harsh critique of a paper: "This isn't right. It's not even wrong." I call this Pauli's proverb. Columbia University mathematician Peter Woit recently employed Pauli's proverb in his book title, a critique of string theory called Not Even Wrong (Basic Books, 2006). String theory, Woit argues, is not only based on nontestable hypotheses, it depends far too much on the aesthetic nature of its mathematics and the eminence of its proponents. In science, if an idea is not falsifiable, it is not that it is wrong, it is that we cannot determine if it is wrong, and thus it is not even wrong.
Not even wrong. What could be worse? Being wronger than wrong, or what I call Asimov's axiom, well stated in his book The Relativity of Wrong (Doubleday, 1988): "When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
Asimov's axiom holds that science is cumulative and progressive, building on the mistakes of the past, and that even though scientists are often wrong, their wrongness attenuates with continued data collection and theory building. Satellite measurements, for instance, have shown precisely how the earth's shape differs from a perfect sphere.
Scientists' wrongness attenuates with time.
The view that all wrong theories are equal implies that no theory is better than any other. This is the theory of the "strong" social construction of science, which holds that science is inextricably bound to the social, political, economic, religious and ideological predilections of a culture, particularly of those individuals in power. Scientists are knowledge capitalists who produce scientific papers that report the results of experiments conducted to test (and usually support) the hegemonic theories that reinforce the status quo. In some extreme cases, this theory that culture shapes the way science is conducted is right. In the mid-19th century, physicians discovered that slaves suffered from drapetomania, or the uncontrollable urge to escape from slavery, and dysaethesia aethiopica, or the tendency to be disobedient. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, scientific measurements of racial differences in cognitive abilities found that blacks were inferior to whites. In the mid-20th century, psychiatrists discov-ered evidence that allowed them to classify homosexuality as a disease. And until recently, women were considered -inherently inferior in science classrooms and corporate boardrooms. Such egregious examples, however, do not negate the extraordinary ability of science to elucidate the natural and social worlds. Reality exists, and science is the best tool yet employed to discover and describe that reality. The theory of evolution, even though it is the subject of vigorous debates about the tempo and mode of life's history, is vastly superior to the theory of creation, which is not even wrong (in Pauli's sense). As evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins observed on this dispute: "When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong."
Simply wrong. When people thought that science was unbiased and unbound by culture, they were simply wrong. On the other hand, when people thought that science was completely socially constructed, they were simply wrong. But if you believe that thinking science is unbiased is just as wrong as thinking that science is socially constructed, then your view is not even wronger than wrong.
Michael Shermer is publisher of Skeptic (www.skeptic.com). His new book is Why Darwin Matters.
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/middle-ground.html
Being neutral is not always a better option.
Darth Rotor
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Fixed that for you, William.
My participation with CT discussions was triggered by the outright slander against Captain Chick Burlingame by Dylan Avery, and aped by any fool who supported the line that he was in any way complicit with a terrorist act as part of a government conspiracy.
Killtown's deliberate slander and harassment of a nice woman in Pennsylvania is another strike against any so called "truth" person.
Physics, and the properties of steel under thermal stress, are not subject to your opinion.
As to your agnosticism, if one keeps company with brigands, or fails to recognize them as such, one ought not be surprised if one is occasionally mistaken for a brigand, or a brigand's ally.
As to LIHOP, I have my suspicions, but too little evidence to make an even modestly convincing case. So I don't try to, just as I don't try to repair my house with Playdough(TM). It won't withstand the stress.
DR
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DavidJames
Penultimate Amazing
It seems to me you are the one being dogmatic about "skepticism" when you make the comment:
I would like to hear your response to Augustine last question. You could also run around with your fingers in your ears saying, "they could be wrong", but that's ignorance being passed off as skepticism.
