Textbook Example of Truther Confusion

[DaveThomasNMSR]

While surfing around for responses to colleague Ted Goertzel's article "The Conspiracy Meme – Why Conspiracy Theories Appeal and Persist," in the January/February 2011 issue of Skeptical Inquirer, I stumbled on this bizarre little piece, "The Night of the Conspiracy Meme," by Donald E. Stahl on a site called "Before It's News." This site lets anyone upload their own stories; as of this writing, since January 13th, 2011, there have been a whopping 261 page views of Stahl's piece.

Here's the bizarre example of Truther Confusion: towards the end of "Night of the Conspiracy Meme," Stahl writes

... Rather than being "turned into dust," which they obviously were, the buildings are said to have "collapsed" (in the case of the Towers, outward in all directions, symmetrically.)
"The obvious stares you in the face."
I would only add that one can see the South Tower disappear suddenly, an hour after the airplane strike, at: thecameraplanetarchive.magnify.net/video/Ball-of-flame-as-South-tower-go .

If you click the Camera Planet Archive link, you'll see the YouTube video titled "Ball of flame as South tower goes down, shot from ground..."


Is it just me, or does anyone else notice that this clip is NOT the collapse of the South Tower an hour after it was struck by the airplane, but rather, United Airlines Flight 175 striking the South Tower at 9:03 AM on September 11, 2001? For one thing, at the end of the clip, there's still a South Tower!

Obviously, both Stahl and someone at Camera Planet Archive are very, very confused. While this thread may shower Stahl's piece with page views, perhaps it's worth it to expose this textbook case of Truther Fail.

 

[Horatius]

Is it just me, or does anyone else notice that this clip is NOT the collapse of the South Tower an hour after it was struck by the airplane, but rather, United Airlines Flight 175 striking the South Tower at 9:03 AM on September 11, 2001? For one thing, at the end of the clip, there's still a South Tower!

The only thing I can think of that might explain this is he stopped watching after the first 10 seconds or so. With the angle that video was taken from, the cloud of smoke obscures the tower a lot more than in other views we've seen, and did kind of look like the clouds of smoke and dust we saw at the start of the collapse.


But as you said, if he watched the whole thing, then he's right off his rocker.

 

[DaveThomasNMSR]

But as you said, if he watched the whole thing, then he's right off his rocker.

Indeed!

I should also mention that AE911Truthiness responded to Goertzel's article.

In this regard, see "AE911Truth's Pathetic Response to Ted Goertzel" by Conspiracies R Not Us.

 

[NoahFence]

Textbook example of truthers blatantly lying is more like it.

 

[slyjoe]

...snip

Obviously, both Stahl and someone at Camera Planet Archive are very, very confused. While this thread may shower Stahl's piece with page views, perhaps it's worth it to expose this textbook case of Truther Fail.

What isn't a textbook case of Truther Fail^TM? The textbook would contain every claim they have made.

I would be more interested in a textbook of Truther Succeed^TM. Easier to carry around.

 

[kookbreaker]

I would be more interested in a textbook of Truther Succeed^TM. Easier to carry around.

Tear a business card in half and write real big. You'll still end up with a lot of whitespace but you don't want to lose the text in with your pocket lint.

 

[Horatius]

Indeed!

I should also mention that AE911Truthiness responded to Goertzel's article.

In this regard, see "AE911Truth's Pathetic Response to Ted Goertzel" by Conspiracies R Not Us.

God, I love this....

For 35 years, Skeptical Inquirer has fought the good fight. The bimonthly magazine publication of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry seeks to “criticize claims of the paranormal and pseudoscience,” promote “a balanced view of science in the mass media” and “teach critical thinking in schools,” according to CSI founder Paul Kurtz. Despite this noble mission, Skeptical Inquirer recently delivered what its author probably believed was a fiery smack-down to the 9/11 Truth movement.

How many times now have we seen claims like this? "Oh, you're such a great skeptic! You've done wonderful work for decades! You've exposed countless scam and hoaxes! But, why oh why then do you not believe this one whacked out thing I think is true?!?!?!?"

 

[slojoe]

This part is funny,

Goertzel has a litany of the deplorable practices resorted to by the people who are his subject, such as “cherry-picking facts”, and raising “a long series of questions illustrated by tendentious information.” Being tendentious, I had thought, was simply making your case, but it seems to be a bad thing.

He probably should have looked up tendentious.

having or showing an intentional tendency or bias, esp a controversial one

So that's how to make a case? I've always preferred argumentation myself.

Would Stahl be illustrating the meme here?

 

[DaveThomasNMSR]

God, I love this....
How many times now have we seen claims like this? "Oh, you're such a great skeptic! You've done wonderful work for decades! You've exposed countless scam and hoaxes! But, why oh why then do you not believe this one whacked out thing I think is true?!?!?!?"

It's happened many times at NMSR, which is loosely affiliated with CSI(COP) and Skeptical Inquirer. I've had creationists say "You folks at NMSR are right about those UFO nuts, but oh-so-wrong on evolution." And next day, a UFO believer will say "You've got those wacky creationists pegged alright, why don't you apply real science to UFO's?" And so on.

There are fringe alliances, however - creationists and global-warming deniers are becoming increasingly allied, for example.

9/11 Truth is interesting sociologically, as it has many believers in common with several other bizarre beliefs (holocaust denial and JFK assassination conspiracies come to mind.)

 

[DaveThomasNMSR]

This part is funny,
He probably should have looked up tendentious.

So that's how to make a case? I've always preferred argumentation myself.

Would Stahl be illustrating the meme here?

Yeah, you could argue that!

 

[DaveThomasNMSR]

So the Moral of the story is...

... that your average Truther pundit/blogger can make a terrible mistake, confusing the impact of a jetliner with a tower collapse, and ...

it's just par for the course, nothing unusual going on here, business as usual, please return to your seats and observe the seatbelt sign...

Doesn't say much for the IQ of truthers...

 

[Horatius]

Yeah, pretty much. If these guys were capable of not making such huge errors, they wouldn't still be Truthers.