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Someone bent my ear again on 911 conspiracy theories, and I've had jigsaw-puzzle-solving fun digging through the details. Also, I feel we should consider evidence for even pretty crazy-sounding claims when the evidence offered meets high enough standards. To his credit physicist Steven Jones has published papers meeting such standards:
J. of 911 Studies: Tiny iron-rich spheres were common in 911 dust, showing very hot fires.
The Environmentalist: Surprisingly energetic stuff kept rubble burning long and hot.
Open Chemical Physics J.: Advanced nano-thermites were common in 911 dust.
I conclude the twin towers probably held big chucks of hitech pyrotechnic materials quite uncommon in office buildings. And a few hundred pounds of this stuff spread around the pillars of a single floor might well bring down a tower.
BUT, I am unpersuaded by claims that plane crashes could not have induced the towers falling as they did, the sounds heard, the warnings voiced, etc. (E.g., hear him and him.) Aside from the above findings, the match between simple theory and observation seems about as close as we should expect, given this complex and unusual situation; it would be crazy not to expect a few anomalies between simple predictions and what we saw.
So I see two main scenarios to consider:
Huge buildings known to include CIA offices happened to hold big chunks of hitech pyrotech when the planes hit.
Someone conspired to make planes, by themselves able to topple towers, hit the floors where very-well-protected pyrotech was hidden, and then triggered that stuff just when buildings might have fallen anyway.
Without some further concrete evidence, scenario #1 seems to me overwhelmingly more likely.
This post made me reflect again on why moderate uncertainty here feels like "uncanny valley." If I told everyone there was a 10% chance of something they thought pretty crazy, nine times out of ten, it would confirm that I'm crazy. One time out of ten I'd be vindicated, but even then folks might say I was crazy but lucky.
Or hindsight bias might make them think it should have seemed pretty likely. I'm acutely aware that the few of us who predicted the web when others called it crazy get little credit today; in hindsight the web seems inevitable.
911 Puzzling
@ Ben Phillips
re “The controlled demolition theory is not a rational theory to default to when the primary theory has holes.”
You base this conclusion on the following:1.The unprecedented nature of the demolition.2.The possibilty of something 'going wrong' 3.The difficulty in wiring the building and therefore the number of people needed to be involved in such a 'conspiracy'
What's interesting about this is that though have you set the 'controlled demoliton' theory up to a high evel of scrutiny (which is good, if one wishes to be rational) you have failed to apply this level of logic to the 'planes alone caused the building to collapse theory' (or, in your words, 'primary theory').
If we go through your points with reference to this 'planes only/primary theory':
1. Prior to 9/11 how many sky-scrapers had collapsed as a result of plane collision (WTC1&2) or localised fires (WTC7)? All these events were unprecedented yet you accept them.
2. You say: “some of the explosives could have failed to go off the timing could have been off and the towers could have collapsed at a different rate than that predicted by our knowledge of physics, bad timing could have caused a part of the tower to fall sideways instead of vertically, etc”
Do you not find it odd that an uncontrolled event such as the impact of a plane into one side of a building, or the outbreak of fire in only a certain area, should have produced collapses that were vertical and (in the case of WTC) symmetrical?
What you fail to acknowledge is that the towers did collapse “at a different rate than predicted by our knowledge of phyics” should one accept the “planes only hypothesis”. Without wishing to go too much into the details, you may want to consider:
- WTC7 collapsing at free-fall speed (a fact now acknowledged by NIST), symmetrically and into it's own footprint, implying that all its supporting columns were removed virtually simulteaously – incompatable with localised fires.(http://www.youtube.com/watch v=V0GHVEKrhng&feature=related)
- The uniform downward acceleration of the upper portion of WTC1 generating insufficient force to destroy the building beneath it, suggesting something else was needed to create the necessary energy. (http://www.youtube.com/watc...
3. All we can do is speculate as to the number of people needed to rig the three buildings with explosives.
Not being a demolition expert I am not qualified to comment. All I can say is that Danny Jowenkwo (a Dutch demolition expert) is on the record as saying it would take 30-40 men to have wired WTC7 - but that was if they had been forced 9/11 after the collapse of the other towers (note. Jowenkwo was not implying anything machiavellian, simply if WTC7 had to be imploded for safety reasons). http://www.youtube.com/watc...
In conclusion, I agree that the 'controlled demolition' hypothesis is currently weak. However, the only suggested alternative – the 'planes only hypothesis' - has been completely discredited: it fails to explain explain either the collapse sequences of the buildings, or the presence of nanothermites in the dust.
Infact the only things this 'official conspiracy theory' has going for it, are that it was the first theory to be offered, it is government-endorsed, and it has been parrotted unreflectively for the last eight years.
Personally, if forced to choose between a weak theory and an insane one, I'll take 'controlled demolition' every time.
@Robin
"You are welcome to publish links to longer stories elsewhere, but that is too long for a tangential comment."
Thanks. For those interested, my long story with some allegorical moral can be found here.
Perhaps Robin you could post some guidelines on how long comments should be and the form you would like them to take?