TAM, I don’t generally submit to loyalty oaths, but okay, just this once.
As for what I believe, for starters, I believe that neither you nor I know what happened on 9/11, in no small part because we weren't there and didn't participate in the crimes (I trust).
You say you want to know what my beliefs are, but let’s be honest. What you really want to know are my biases. I’ll save you the trouble of asking, because from where I stand the two are the same. (Whoops, there goes one.) Anyway, you asked, so I'll tell you. But before I go any further, I think you should also tell me what sort of biases govern your views, or those of your friends on this board.
In particular, I’d be interested in knowing whether, by claiming the mantle of scientist, you and/or your fellow posters believe you’ve managed to sidestep the corrupting influences of biases, emotions, and finite mental capacity that afflict the rest of us, regardless of one’s station in life.
The arrogance displayed in these pages is plentiful, and often gleeful, but I don't think it advances anyone's case. My experience in the reality-based world tells me that arrogance and credibility are usually inversely proportional; if you can’t be trusted to admit that you're as human and fallible as the rest of us, then why, regardless of all the intellectual bludgeoning you dish out, should the rest of us believe anything you have to say (not you personally, since I confess I haven’t seen a lot of your stuff yet)? That said, a lot of folks here don't seem interested in much more than intellectual [sic] masturbation, group style, nor in their ability to persuade anybody outside of the clique.
Here are a couple more of my biases/beliefs: in the reality-based world, it’s power that determines what we call truth, and science is no less malleable than statistics when someone has an agenda to declare the truth, and the power to enforce it. Those of you in the science academies who aren’t liars, naifs, or fools must admit to at least a passing familiarity with theory wars, tenure battles, and publishing intrigues that had little to do with the scientific merit of another’s work, and everything to do with professional- or institutional- or interpersonal-politics, or the threats that paradigm-shifters pose to the old guard, or gender, or age, etc. Scientists are no less worried about their statuses, careers, incomes, and reputations as anyone else, and it’s simply a myth to suppose that they’d be unwilling to chuck the pursuit of some greater cosmic truth were any of the former interests seriously threatened, and fight as dirty and dishonestly as anyone. When that happens, the minority-view science usually gets trashed, and the majority, old-guard science lives to see another day.
And while we’re at it, let’s please not forget all of the accepted science that not so long ago was marshaled in support of such obscenities as superiority based on race, ethnicity, or gender; nuclear war; frontal lobotomies; forced sterilizations and other experimentation on unwitting or involuntary human subjects; non-carcinogenic tobacco; and the introduction of countless toxins into the environment for the benefit of industry, etc. What proof do you have that the impulses that drove the scientifically-minded consensus of other eras to pursue such ignoble ends has somehow vanished from ours? And if you agree that these impulses are still present among the contemporary consensus, then tell me, how, and in what way? Who are the latter day victims of ostensibly “reputable” science in service of power for the few, against the interests of the less powerful, and often, the many less powerful?
Here’s another bias/belief: I think that in our country, whenever there’s an attack on one of our “vital national interests” that needs to be explained, our government and other powerful institutions have always reserved for themselves the presumption of truth, and the right to define the status quo—which means that anyone who disagrees is required to rebut that presumption, like a prosecutor who has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. You must admit, that’s a pretty steep hill to climb for those of us who are neither government-issued nor institution-approved.
Now, for 9/11. To date, what the US has told us is that it has provided an accurate accounting of the destruction of the WTC buildings that is consistent with physics, structural engineering, fire science, metallurgy, you name it. To which I say, they missed a step, because when the government or other powerful institutions go about the task of altering the status quo—and what was the status quo in the immediate aftermath of the planes hitting the towers, if not a vacuum of knowledge regarding causation?—they, not we, have the burden of proof, and to meet that burden, they cannot assert theories which substitute plausibility for demonstrability.
Here's what I mean: I have yet to see a plausible, let alone convincing case to explain how two steel highrises could be made to mostly dissolve due to plane impact and fire, or in the case of WTC7, due to impact by falling debris and a fire. Nor have I seen one that would explain how three buildings, on the same day, in the confines of several New York City blocks, could be reduced to mostly steel beams and dust despite their being subjected to assaults that were significantly different from each other, and in the case of WTC7, vastly so.
On the other hand, what I have seen with my own eyes is, for example, that when WTC1 started its final descent, the upper floors did not fall as a block, as many of the posters here contend, but rather began listing heavily, and dissolving, before passing through the plane impact zone. Nor could the upper block have fallen symmetrically, unless one accepts the plainly implausible notion that virtually every single central core and perimeter column failed simultaneously. And yet, this supposed block was somehow the sledgehammer that caused that building to telescope into itself.
As I see it, the consensus, majority view of most of the scientists on this forum proceeds from the hypothesis that the buildings were probably brought down by plane impact, debris impact, and fire. If that’s your hypothesis, then it necessarily follows that you’re going to place a high value on evidence and theories which support your hypothesis, and comparatively less value on evidence and theories that suggest your initial hypothesis was wrong. More to the point, there are multiple biases underlying such a hypothesis—chiefly, that the mechanism of the building’s destruction is more relevant than the improbability of any number of anomalous events occurring that day (incompetent pilots flying commercial jets with dead-on accuracy and no military intercepts; virtually straight down collapses in free fall time despite asymmetric and non-global defects in the tower support columns; the utter pulverization of virtually all the concrete and office furnishings; molten non-aluminic metal flowing out of one of the towers pre-collapse as a result of hydrocarbon-fueled fire at normal atmospheric pressures, et al.).
If, by comparison, one of your biases is that the anomalies are too numerous, and that governments (not just ours, but all governments) usually lie, you probably start with a different hypothesis, namely, that plane impact, debris impact, and fire did not cause the destruction of the three WTC buildings, and that something else was afoot.
Are you on to me yet? Well hold up, because here’s just a few more: I don’t think that conventional CD can explain the buildings’ collapses, nor high energy weapons for that matter. Nor do I think that objects other than planes were flown into the towers. I also don’t believe the USG was behind it. I don’t know who was behind it. The point is, and here’s my last one for now, if you mostly agree with the main conclusions of NIST or the 9/11 Commission, you don’t know, either.
Cheers.
Welcome to the forum. Great post.
