Debunking Popular Technology.net

This page is a response to the "Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories" page at Popular Technology.net and to Pat Curley of the Screw Loose Change blog who thinks "it links to lots of terrific sources."

Debunking Penn and Teller's Bullshit! 9-11 episode

PharmaWhores: The Showtime Sting of Penn & Teller

Debunking the BBC's 9-11 Conspiracy Files



Factual back-up, sources, and further research materials.



The Sounds of Loud and Clear

They tested one steel beam that was just laying across a pit with a pool of jet fuel? It's interesting how they never mention that Underwriters Labs had created full scale models of the WTC floor sections, tested them in hotter and longer fires, and that they didn't collapse. Clearly the conditions were going to be different and have different results. Namely: the fact that their test was out in the open with plenty of oxygen fueling the fire while the Twin Towers clearly had oxygen starved fires; the fact that their beam wasn't attached to anything and therefore had far less support than in the WTC; and that they aren't clear how similar their beam was to the ones in the WTC. - Source: National Geographic Should Stick to Documentaries About Girls Who Cry Blood

Why the Towers Fell - An Exclusive Investigation into the Collapse of the World Trade Center (2002) by Garfield Kennedy and Larry Klein, directors

This video by NOVA presents FEMA's explanation for the total collapse of the Twin Towers. NOVA's companion website to the video is critiqued here. NOVA does not consider whether controlled demolition was involved. - Source

World Trade Center - Anatomy of the Collapse (2001) by Steve Spak Productions

This documentary uses computer graphics to explain the collapses of the Twin Towers. It blames a flaw in the design of the Twin Towers for their total collapse. A simulation of the initiation of a collapse explains that the floors held up the walls. It shows perimeter walls bowing out immediately following the severing of connections between the trusses under a floor and the walls. Like the NOVA special, this explanation is based on the truss failure theory, later abandoned by NIST. - Source

References Debunked:

"Skeptics" or Dupes? Skeptic Magazine Not So Skeptical on 9/11 Lies

Debunking Popular Mechanics' 9/11 Lies

"Popular Mechanics and the military should get their stories straight on NORAD! As it is, we have caught Popular Mechanics and the military lying about NORAD's true capabilities on 9/11." - Dean Jackson

The NORAD Papers--NORAD's Mission To Monitor and Control Territorial Airspace on 9/11

Scientific American's Dishonest AttackOn 911Research - a critique of Fahrenheit 2777: 9/11 has generated the mother of all conspiracy theories published in Scientific American

The Pentagon - The September 11th Attack

Official Pentagon Investigations - Sketchy Reports by Volunteer Investigators and Academics

BBC Hit Piece a Tissue of Lies, Bias and Emotional Manipulation

Critique of Manuel Garcia's The Physics of 9/11

Critique of Manuel Garcia's The Thermodynamics of 9/11

Holocaust Denial Versus 9/11 Truth

Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Science, Engineering, and Speculation - added comments are in red

Reports Debunked:





Responses to NIST's FAQs



The Facts Speak For Themselves

"Here's a 'Debunking' of my article.

http://www.smoking-bun.com/?tag=jon-gold

Here's a short film I made about 'debunkers.'" - Source



The 9/11 Commission Cover up

FEMA's Investigation - The FEMA WTC Building Performance Study


http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2009/04/wtc7-and-british-brainwashing.html


http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2010/02/ultimate-proof-nist-is-lying-about-wtc7.html

References Debunked:

Keep Your Hats On: Keith Seffen's "Mathematical Model Of The WTC Collapse" Is Incoherent, Inappropriate, And Almost Meaningless

The BBC's The Third Tower

Reply to Protec's A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE COLLAPSE OF WTC TOWERS 1, 2 & 7 FROM AN EXPLOSIVES AND CONVENTIONAL DEMOLITION INDUSTRY VIEWPOINT

WTC 7 - the Case for no Collapse - Debunking the WTC 7 Conspiracy Theory of NIST - and some Thoughts how WTC 7 was destroyed

Critique of Manuel Garcia's Dark Fire The Fall of WTC 7

"Conspiracy Theory Videos"

Debunking '59 Deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11'

Debunking the 59 Deceits: Deceits 50-59

Factual Back-Up For Fahrenheit 9/11

A detailed rebuttal to the film Screw Loose Change- Not Freakin' Again Edition.
Note: This critique only addresses the WTC, as many issues about the Pentagon, Shanksville, and the hijackers are geniuely misrepresented in Loose Change.



Hoax-Promoting Videos

In Plane Site
Loose Change (Editions 1,2)
9/11 Eyewitness
PentaCon

Constructive Criticism of the Films Loose Change 2nd Edition and 9/11 Mysteries



Factual back-up, sources, and further research materials.

Debates

News that the Democracy Now! radio show was scheduling a debate on 9/11/2006 between a spokesperson for the Popular Mechanics book Debunking 9/11 Myths and the creator of Loose Change Dylan Avery prompted the following letters

Democracy When? a timeline of Amy Goodman's not-so-good coverage which avoids 9/11 complicity and Peak Oil Wars

Debunking Mark Roberts

Excerpt from "Taming the Beast: A Short History of the AE911Truth Debates":

The next debate took place on June 18, 2008, between Richard Gage, AIA, and Mark Roberts (a.k.a 'Gravy” on the James Randi Educational Forum) on the TV access show “Hardfire” with host John Clifton, past chair of the Libertarian Party of New York. Mark Roberts, a New York tour guide, said he has “no specific expertise” in 9-11 matters but became interested in 2006 when he heard some of the “conspiracy theories” and found them “suspect.”

Roberts could barely contain his hostility towards Gage, accusing him of lying several times and impugning his motives. The ill will Roberts brings to the discussion is evident in many of his online posts where he goes by the name of “Gravy.” One such post on a James Randi Educational Forum refers to “Gage and his gang of lazy, lying, despicable creeps,” which indicates that he doesn’t just disagree with his opposition; he despises them.

Towards the beginning of the debate Roberts said of Gage, “He's got a 542-slide presentation that he encourages everyone to see on his website.... I found 311 false statements, 114 misleading statements, and 137 logical fallacies.” He did not elaborate. Roberts took the approach that NIST fully explained everything; that anomalies, such as witnesses hearing explosions, simply didn't happen or the witnesses were mistaken. He also said the evidence of foreknowledge that Building 7 would collapse was simply a matter of experts thinking the building might fall because it had been damaged.

Excerpt from "Waiting for Seven: WTC 7 Collapse Warnings in the FDNY Oral Histories" by Prof. Graeme MacQueen:

Mark Roberts, for example, has set forth a detailed collection of collapse warnings, many of which are drawn from the oral histories of the New York Fire Department, [2] and has tried to use these to support his hypothesis of a natural collapse.[3] Ryan Mackey has used this material in a similar fashion.[4] Since I find Mackey’s reasoning more clear than Roberts’ I will take him in this paper as representative of this position.

Response to Mark Roberts' “WTC Not a Demolition” video

He oughta know better: Mark Roberts and the iron spherules

Email debates, and more about Mark Roberts

Mark Roberts, an Apologist for EPA Lies

Mark Roberts: 9/11 "Debunker" or just Dishonest?



Factual back-up, sources, and further research materials.

Mock Debate: Strongest 9/11 Myth Arguments Crumble as Truth Prevails.











Debunking Dave Thomas, Ryan Mackey, and Zdenek Bazant et al.

And of course pretty much everything posted at the Debunking the Debunkers blog is a debate! If one searches our content for popular "debunkers" or their sites they will find refutations of much of their material.

Books

Books: The World Trade Center

Books: Other Topics

Google Books: Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory

Peer-Reviewed Papers

What you need to know about "Peer-review"

Anders Björkman Published in "The Journal of Engineering Mechanics"

Another Peer Reviewed Paper Published in Scientific Journal - 'Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust...'

James Gourley Published in "The Journal of Engineering Mechanics"

Kevin R. Ryan, James R. Gourley, and Steven E. Jones - Published in "The Environmentalist"

9-11 Truth Movement: Publication in a Peer-reviewed Civil Engineering Journal

Dr. Crockett Grabbe published in "The Journal of Engineering Mechanics"

9/11 Debunkers Hide From Slam Dunk Evidence Of Controlled Demolition

"The closed mind, if closed long enough, can be opened by nothing short of dynamite." - Johnson, Gerald W.

If nano-thermite can't do it dynamite doesn't stand a chance either!

They Are the Ones Who Are Not Skeptics

In his post "They Are Not Skeptics," Pat Curley of the Screw Loose Change blog informed his rearders today that we 9/11 skeptics do not fit the bill to be called as such. Here is the intro to Debunking the Debunkers blog contributor Scootle Royale's new blog, which refutes this assertion:

Scootle The Anti-Skeptic

December 31, 2010
SkepticDenialism.blogspot.com

Hi I'm Scootle Royale. I'm 20 years old and I'm from Wiltshire in England (The home of Stonehenge).

When I was a young teenager going through secondary school, I was very supportive of the scientific establishment. I was strongly anti-religious, I was pro-globalism, and I genuinely believed the only way to make poverty history was to genocide everyone living in poverty and start again! In the summer of 2007, as I was about to start a university course on the wonders of data-mining, I watched an episode of South Park that completely changed my life. It was called "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce" and it was a parody of 9/11 truth. Although the episode was basically a hitpiece, the writers inserted enough points in there to spark my interest in the subject.

Unlike most people however, I took a more neutral approach. I read the Popular Mechanics debunking piece quite early on and at first I fell for it as it seemed very authoritative and credible. When I did deeper research however, I realised that the piece was nothing more than propaganda. It was full of strawman arguments, ad-hominem attacks, arguments of ignorance/incredulity and appeals to authority. The biggest shock I got from studying 9/11 was the revelation that scientists lie! I never really trusted the government or the media, so I had no problem coming to terms with the idea that they were lying about 9/11, but I was very naive when it came to the scientific community. I always thought of it as as an open forum, free from political motivation, religious persecution and corporate control, where anyone can voice their dissent and put forward alternative theories. Oh, how wrong I was!

Most "skeptic" and "anti-denialist" arguments, seem to fit the following template: "9/11 truthers claim ___, science says ___", "global warming deniers claim ___, science says ___", "creationists claim ___, science says ___", "anti-vaxers claim ___, science says ___" etc. What they never seem to understand is that it's the so-called "science" that these groups are questioning! For one thing, it isn't "science" saying those things, it's scientists ... difference! I know the scientific method. I trust the scientific method. What I don't trust is scientific institutions. Investigators at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a supposedly credible scientific authority, have been caught commiting so many blatant acts of scientific fraud in their so called "investigations" of the World Trade Center collapses, that it's hard to keep track of them all!

And when you look into other things as well, such as the climate change debate, the vaccine debate, and the intelligent design/evolution debate, you see more examples of fraud and persecution on the part of the scientific establishment. This is why, when it comes to these issues, one needs look at both sides equally from a more neutral perspective, and not invest yourself entirely in one side. I check out the 9/11 debunking sites just as often, if not more often, than I check out the 9/11 truth sites. And they do have alot of good points. They do a good job at debunking things like Pentagon no-jetliner claims and other stuff that I believe the truth movement needs to drop. But when it comes to the forensic evidence of demolition of the three World Trade Center buildings, they're completely full of shit! And again, it's the same story in the other debates.

If I were to sum up my world view in one word it would be "anti-skeptic". I am a skeptic, a true skeptic. But unlike so-called professional skeptics like James Randi, Michael Shermer, Richard Dawkins, the SGU people etc, I don't violate my own rules and commit blatant logical fallacies when it's convenient. It is they who are the real denialists, and I guess that makes me a skeptic denialist!

This is my personal blog. After contributing to the 9/11 debunkers blog for more than a year, I decided to start my own blog so I can talk about things outside the scope of that blog. On this blog I'll discuss all kinds of things, including 9/11, other conspiracies, the Illuminati, mind control, intelligent design and evolution, unexplained mysteries, the nature of reality and other random stuff I find interesting or entertaining, such as music and pop culture.

If you wish to contact me you can do so either through my YouTube account or my Prison Planet Forum account. I'm on these sites pretty much all the time and I check my private messages more often than I check my emails.
___________________________________________________________

Pat does mention one thing that could convince him:





Related Info:

Debunking PseudoSkeptics - CSICOP, James Randi, Michael Shermer, etc

Why James Randi, Michael Shermer and other Pseudoskeptics are NOT real skeptics!

How Pseudoskeptics hijack "Skepticism" to mean its opposite: Disinformation, Mind Control and Suppression

I have seen the light! [Satire]

Circular Rationalism

JREF Forum posts: "Comprehensive characteristics of the pseudoskeptic"

911 Truth: Michael Shermer's Amateur Disinformation Attempt Fails (again!)

Debunking Myths on Conspiracy Theories