A 9/11 Truth Response to Harvard Professor Steven Pinker's Treatise on Faith and Reason

Replying to this op-ed in today's Crimson: http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=515314#

They have not posted my comment yet, but here's hoping!

Re: Less Faith, More Reason

It is amazing that Professor Pinker could raise so many valid points on the value of scientific literacy and the dichotomy of faith versus reason while failing to address, among the other socio-historical allusions in his piece, the greatest example that illustrates all of his points.

No issue paints the interaction between science, reason, faith, and their impact on society in more stark relief than the events of September 11, 2001. One faith in particular is held responsible for the destruction of the three towers (yes, three) at the World Trade Center, and while we would expect such a significant accusation to be based on sound science and reasonable standards of evidence, such is not at all the case.

Honest scientists are hard-pressed to explain, for example, the fact that pools of molten steel were discovered in the rubble piles of WTC 1 and 2 (the twin towers) and WTC 7 (the 47 story building that collapsed at 5:20 p.m. though no plane hit it and it suffered minimal damage from the collapse of the towers.)

Jet fuel burns at a maximum of 1200 degrees fahrenheit in an open fire, and 1800 under the most ideal controlled conditions. Steel, however, melts at 2750 degrees fahrenheit, no less.

Galileo's law of falling bodies, moreover, tells us the rate at which a body in free fall will accelerate towrds the ground. The fact that the top of each tower fell through hundreds of feet of intact structure at very nearly the exact rate we would expect from free fall through empty air suggests that something other than gravity was involved in the collapses, a fact buttressed by the many eyewitness accounts, from firefighters and other rescue workers, of powerful explosions before, during, and after each tower was struck by the respective airplanes.

Perhaps the problem with faith is not that it is, as Prof. Pinker suggests, solely a euphemism for religion, but a method by which people can avoid having to back up their beliefs and opinions with hard scientific fact.

Which brings us to the real crux of the crisis in academia today--the moral and ethical failure of scientists, who know full well that the official account of the twin towers' and building 7's collapse is a physical impossibility, to take their responsibility as public intellectuals seriously.

I would challenge Professor Pinker to rise to the occasion and stand by his stated principles and address the science behind the conventional account of the events of September 11th in the enlightenment spirit of reason and science over faith and politics.

Pinker may even be preparing people for 9/11 Truth...

This is from his op-ed (emphasis added):

 ...there are methods for ascertaining the truth that can force us to conclusions which violate common sense, sometimes radically so at scales very large and very small; that precious and widely held beliefs, when subjected to empirical tests, are often cruelly falsified.

 Hells YEAH. Now, will they allow RT to take the obvious next step, or is RT hoping against hope that his comment will not be censored? Well if they censor it, RT will write directly to Prof. Pinker and perhaps even pay him a visit (he works very close to RT!)

____

Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero

WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force

ah

ah - molten steel.

that showed'm

John, why are you belittling my efforts?

____

Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero

WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force

 

i'm not

i apologize

although last time i checked i was not immune to criticism either.

i guess i am just a little discouraged. i feel like the molten steel thing is just not working.

No apologies. Bothers in Arms have deeper understandings.

I see you responded before my own comment was posted... non-the-less, I do not feel that ANY angle of leverage to pry loose the tower of lies should be discounted or mocked. We all have our stronger and weaker positions, style, and form. Yet our efforts, the more divers the better, all work against the machine.... and add up.

"The truth shall make you free." Why not make the truth free? We live on a priceless blue pearl, awash in a universe of fire and ice. Cut the crap.

Hey, no worries John!

I take your point, though I don't agree with it, and truly that wasn't THAT horrible a thing to say. I DO think molten metal is self-evidently an issue with traction, especially in an environment like Harvard where people are expecting to learn things and use critical thinking to do so. Since Pinker's op-ed was about fiath being subordinate in that process to reason, I thought I would take him to task.

Now to self-criticize, I surely could have chosen a better way to respond to your comment, instead of just playing the hurt martyr. I'm glad that others jumped in and sparked a much needed discussion on solidarity. Indeed the only way to counter the COINTELPRO that would have us all descend into Lord of the Flies like tribal bickering is to periodically reassert our common goals and have our better natures emerge once in a while to make amends when sensibilities have been offended.

That said, we should never allow ourselves to be manipulated into blanket agreement when none is warranted solely for the sake of presenting a unified front. This is not a political party (thank God) but a grassroots movement. Our goal is not to be stagnant and loving, but to be dynamic and, at times, sharp.

____

Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero

WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force

 

Out of place

John:

I have personally complimented, and specifically commended your work on numerous occasions.... yet I too find your comment here very out of place. If you're working through a difficult personal time and just letting off some steam, I'm sure we can all understand such frustrations (I'm on the verge of losing my business, shop and home "for the cause")... however, please reflect and consider editing your comment above.

Thank you, dear man,

Erin

"The truth shall make you free." Why not make the truth free? We live on a priceless blue pearl, awash in a universe of fire and ice. Cut the crap.

i am just a cranky old man

my doctor says i need more bran in my diet.

i made this comment early in the morning - before my coffee. do the math.

i think this commeht was just a continuation of a very long thread from the other day where Jon Gold and I engaged in a debate on the merits - pro and con - of controlled demolition as an activist's tool. but my comments on this particular thread was misplaced and rude.

sorry

Again, no need to 'sorry'...

My doctor says I need a bit more truth from government, otherwise the nutrition deficiency is going to kill me.

It's all cool, John. I'm going to make another pot of coffee. Cream and sugar?

e
"The truth shall make you free." Why not make the truth free? We live on a priceless blue pearl, awash in a universe of fire and ice. Cut the crap.

real truther, i just wanted

real truther, i just wanted to tell you that i enjoy all of your posts...

i think that there is something funny about both of the "Jons"... thier shit only works on the internet...

but props to you, bud..

thanks for the support

I'd like to think their hearts are in the right place, and as long as we keep our disagreements civil it can only help further our understanding of the issues.

____

Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero

WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force

 

“Honest scientists are

“Honest scientists are hard-pressed to explain, for example, the fact that pools of molten steel were discovered in the rubble piles of WTC 1 and 2 (the twin towers) and WTC 7 (the 47 story building that collapsed at 5:20 p.m. though no plane hit it and it suffered minimal damage from the collapse of the towers.)”
What do you mean by hard pressed? Do you have any documentation whatsoever that any scientist said “Gee, I’m stumped” in response to such a question? I suspect most of them would ask for proof of molten steel. If you have any forensic proof, not “Person X said there was molten steel” , then present it. Don’t state it as fact without substantiation. Since there were thousands of pounds of other metals in the building, including aluminum, glowing or molten metal need not be steel.
And what do you mean by “minimal damage”? Is the use of a subjective description your idea of scientific fact? I don’t know if 20 burning floors in a 47 story building is minimal, but someone using “fact” instead of “faith” would determine, scientifically, if such damage was sufficient to cause the collapse. Otherwise, you have no factual basis for your argument. “It just doesn’t seem like it would” DOES NOT COUNT AS FACT!
“The fact that the top of each tower fell through hundreds of feet of intact structure at very nearly the exact rate we would expect from free fall through empty air suggests that something other than gravity was involved in the collapses, a fact buttressed by the many eyewitness accounts, from firefighters and other rescue workers, of powerful explosions before, during, and after each tower was struck by the respective airplanes.”
First, there are many explanations for explosions that were heard. Many combustible materials are found within office buildings – has this been ruled out as a cause for the explosions that were heard? Second, controlled demolition does not occur with detonations going off at different times as witnesses reported (before, during, and after the planes hit) – but with all the detonations going off nearly simultaneously (but of course it’s not your job to explain the inconsistencies that arise from YOUR theory). Third, the towers fell that quickly because there was not enough resistance in the floors under the crash to stop the momentum of the falling floors above it. Remember that the vast majority of the volume of any office building IS actually “empty air” (you know, all the offices) and will not put up much resistance when faced with the momentum of the top 15 stories (for WTC 1), falling on top of it. The initial momentum would be in the neighborhood of 1 X 10^18 kg*m/s and would only increase as it fell. If you want to make a scientific argument for the collapse being impossible, argue that the underlying structure could have withstood such momentum. Once again “It just doesn’t seem like it would” DOES NOT COUNT AS FACT!
The fact that you have no direct evidence of controlled demolition, nor have you put forth any scenario in which controlled demolition might have occurred, especially since the tallest building ever taken down by controlled demolition was 1/3 the height of WTC 1 and 2 and was even shorter than WTC 7, demonstrates again that you are the one using faith.
“Perhaps the problem with faith is not that it is, as Prof. Pinker suggests, solely a euphemism for religion, but a method by which people can avoid having to back up their beliefs and opinions with hard scientific fact. Which brings us to the real crux of the crisis in academia today--the moral and ethical failure of scientists, who know full well that the official account of the twin towers' and building 7's collapse is a physical impossibility, to take their responsibility as public intellectuals seriously.”
How arrogant and ignorant can you be? First of all, neither you nor anyone else has come anywhere near to establishing that the official account of WTC 7 is a physical impossibility, other than just stating it. And how could you possibly know that scientists “know” that the official story is a physical impossibility? Even if, for the sake of argument, you were right, that doesn’t mean that they all know it and are lying. You once again demonstrate a quintessential example of faith, claiming that you know what others are thinking.

In the unlikely event you aren't a troll:

"Third, the towers fell that quickly because there was not enough resistance in the floors under the crash to stop the momentum of the falling floors above it. Remember that the vast majority of the volume of any office building IS actually “empty air” (you know, all the offices) and will not put up much resistance when faced with the momentum of the top 15 stories (for WTC 1), falling on top of it. The initial momentum would be in the neighborhood of 1 X 10^18 kg*m/s and would only increase as it fell. If you want to make a scientific argument for the collapse being impossible, argue that the underlying structure could have withstood such momentum."

What you have here is maybe, possibly an argument for why the collapses were total. It is by no stretch of the imagination an explanation of the speed at which the buildings fell, which was barely slower than freefall speed. Hello? The lower portions of the building provided virtually no resistance whatsoever to the falling portions?

No, energy was clearly added to all three events that obviated the resistance of the lower floors (the pulverization of the buildings and the pyroclastic flows of the pulverized material are another indication that there was energy present far in excess of what gravity would provide.) This fact should be immediately apparent to any observer.

Intuition is not a branch of physics

"the pulverization of the buildings and the pyroclastic flows of the pulverized material are another indication that there was energy present far in excess of what gravity would provide"

Based on what? How much energy would have gravity provided and how much in excess of this would be needed to collapse the buildings? Do you have these quantities handy? If you don't know the values of X and Y, how can you say that X is less than Y?

Actually, it is not a question of gravity. Gravity, although described as a force, is actually just acceleration (9.8 meters per second per second). The amount of energy that gravity provides is dependent on the mass of what is falling and the momentum that it attains (which is mass squared times velocity squared).

Regarding the speed of the fall, once the first floors under the initial collapse give way, the momentum will only increase as the amount of falling mass increases and as its velocity increases due to the acceleration due to gravity. So, the lower the floor, the less resistance it will provide to an increasingly greater momentum.

The fact that you say it is "immediatly apparent to any observer" tells me that you are using intuition rather than science to arrrive at your answer. This is not an answer that one can arrive at by observing or eyeballing. The question is - what was the momentum of the collapsing floors, and how much resistance did the lower floors provide? Maybe you have some analysis of the momentum and resistance involved that you can provide?

Here is a link to an article accepted by the Journal of Engineering Mechanics that describes the fall of the WTC. I understand the basic equations but it is still over my head. The last paragraph speaks to your point about the resistance of the lower portion of the building and the amout of "cushioning" it would have provided.

http://www.iti.northwestern.edu/research/wtc/media/bazantwtcstory.pdf

the concrete was pulverized

the concrete was pulverized before it hit the ground, therefore the only energy that can be used to explain this is during the collapse sequence.

Concrete does not pulverize, it fractures at an angle roughly 45degrees normal to the force being applied.  Thus to pulverize that much concrete indicates a gargantuan force being applied to the floors even at the initiation of the collapse sequence. 

and Kinetic energy is

and Kinetic energy is 1/2*mass*velocity^2, your little error would not only double the result but 2*mass times the result.

tsk tsk...

The data has got to be right, first.

It wasn't 20 burning floors in 7

And yes, if it *was* twenty burning floors the building *still* would not collapse in the manner in which it is shown to have, via video documentation.

And I do agree that it's nonsense to assume the molten metal was steel.

Metal glow give off a particular light (color) depending on its temperature. Without testing the sample you can't tell what kind of metal it is purely from the color.