If you've been following the news in sports, you know that no new players will be inducted into the baseball hall of fame this year. Why? Because too many sports writers (the voters) don't want players from the "steroid era" of baseball to be included in the hall of fame. I didn't watch much baseball in the 90s. My Tigers weren't doing so well and baseball had lost much of its interest to me. My feelings about the game were best expressed in a Shoe cartoon, where Shoe and the Perfessor are at a baseball game. The Perfessor says, "Baseball is a game of great mental activity." And Shoe replies, "It must be, because nothing's happening on the field."
Apparently many sports fans felt this way about baseball. Then a funny thing started happening. Baseball hitters started hitting home runs like crazy. There was the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run chase. And then Barry Bonds blew everybody away, hitting 73 home runs in one season. Of course, it generated a LOT of interest in the game of baseball. Some people think it may have even saved baseball (there had just been a players' strike, and fewer people than ever were watching the game). Or course, since I was strictly a Tigers' fan, I still didn't watch baseball. But I paid attention to it on my favorite escape from reality -- sports talk radio. And everyone was speculating on why there was such a sudden surge in home runs. The usual opinion, by sports writers, baseball veterans, and sports talk hosts, was that the baseball had been "juiced" -- they had done something to the ball to make it livelier and likelier to travel farther. That sounded like a good theory to me. Something like that had happened way back in 1920, after the Black Sox scandal of 1919. Suddenly we went from the "deadball" era to the "live ball" era, and Babe Ruth was able to hit 50 home runs or more per season on a regular basis, and "save baseball."
So I accepted the "juiced ball" theory....until I saw a picture of Barry Bonds. I knew that Bonds was a good hitter, but he wasn't built like a typical, bulky home run hitter. Or at least, he hadn't been. I've included "before" and "after" pictures below:
After I saw what Bonds now looked like, I quickly rejected the "juiced ball" theory and adopted the "juiced player" theory. Here was a guy who obviously had bulked up using steroids. As far as I know, Bonds has never admitted to using steroids, but no one believes that he didn't. Eventually someone had the courage to investigate and report the obvious: the home run era of the late 90s and early 2000s was due to players using steroids.
But they were reporting what everyone connected to baseball must have already known. If I, who had stopped watching the game decades before, could immediately recognize steroid use, based on a single picture of Barry Bonds, then certainly all the veterans, sports writers and radio sports hosts had known all along that the real reason players were hitting so many home runs had nothing to do with a juiced ball and everything to do with steroids. Why had they not told us the truth? To protect baseball? To save their jobs? Fear of angering players, managers, general managers, owners, baseball officials, publishers, editors, owners of radio stations, sponsors? Probably.So what does Barry Bonds have to do with WTC7?
WTC7 was the third World Trade Center building to fall on 9/11/01. It was 47 stories high, was not hit by a plane, yet at about 5:20pm that day, it collapsed into its own footprint. If you didn't see the collapse when it was first televised on 9/11, chances are good that you never did see it until Youtube was born in 2005. I doubt that most people have seen it even now. Why did it fall? The official story is office fires. But fires have never made a steel-framed building (which is what WTC7 was) collapse before. But hey, if they didn't mind lying to us about why baseball players were hitting home runs, they sure as hell won't mind lying to us about why WTC7 collapsed. So when I hear or read about people trying to deny that the video below is a controlled demolition, I just think about Barry Bonds and smile.UPDATE: I had thought that Barry Bonds achieved his season record 73 home runs some time in the late 90s. My mistake. It was in 2001. Interesting bit of irony.
15 comments:
The analogy fails because, in the case of baseball (as you've presented it), there was not (1) an inquiry like the NIST inquiry, which was (2) subsequently accepted by the expert community. Had this happened, it would almost certainly have been epistemically unjustified for laypersons with respect to steroid use to believe that Bonds was using steroids. The "they" has to be an expert community with respect to the issue (in this case, steroid use) linked with an unprecedentedly massive government/military-led conspiracy, not "sports writers, baseball veterans, and sports talk hosts", who rely on experts for their knowledge of steroids, and who have no special knowledge themselves.
The sentence, "fires have never made a steel-framed building ... collapse before" is a non-starter, because it is acknowledged on all sides. It is dishonest to use as a purportedly damning argument a sentence acknowledged right off the bat by all sides.
Hi JDB,
First, there eventually was an inquiry . But my point is that nobody, but nobody, was suggesting the obvious: that baseball hitters were hitting more home runs because they were taking steroids. For anyone to look at Barry Bonds and to not even suspect it would require a level of ignorance that would be unfathomable in the world of sports, which already had plenty of experience of athletes taking steroids, expert or not. Now if the subsequent inquiry had said that there was no evidence of steroid use, and the evidence was open to public scrutiny, then one would have a case for rejecting the steroid theory.
Likewise, there was eventually an "inquiry" into the collapse of WTC7. The findings were not released until late 2008, as the Bush administration was tying up loose strings. NIST has consistently refused to release the computer data upon which they claim to base their conclusions. For you to claim that their findings have been accepted by the scientific community is either dishonest or just plain ignorance. There has been no peer-review of NIST's findings. AE911TRUTH.ORG has challenged those findings.
But let's leave the question of NIST's "inquiry" aside for the moment. From 2001 until 2008, news media knew about the collapse of WTC7, but with a few exceptions which proved the rule, they refused to report on it after the first day, and they refused to ask questions about it. So here we have a supposedly open and free press turning a blind eye to what looks to anyone who has ever seen a controlled demolition, to be a controlled demolition. You can count on your hand the number of times the collapse was shown on national television after 9/11. This is the clear sign of a media that refused to consider glaring problems with the official account of 9/11, just as they refused to countenance obvious steroid use in baseball.
There is nothing dishonest about my pointing out that fires have never made a steel-framed building collapse before. That was why the media should have been asking questions. The fact that they refused to ask them is what makes the analogy to baseball a very close one.
I forgot to address your "unprecedently massive government/military-led conspiracy" remark. Are you saying that there have never been any other government/military-led conspiracies? Or are you saying that they haven't been as massive? I assume the latter. If so, how massive do you think this conspiracy would have been, assuming it took place?
The analogy would be moderately compelling if (1) there was an expert inquiry that denied any steroid use; (2) this thesis of the inquiry was accepted by the expert community; (3) the same expert community in any case never thought there was steroid use - before, during, or after the inquiry; then, finally, (4) it turned out that there was steroid use. This would achieve the status "moderately compelling analogy." Why only moderate? Because it would also help if there was a massive conspiracy involved, that included everyone from military officials to office workers to academics. The conspiracy remark mentioned in your second comment was in this context: what would be required for the steroid case to be analogous. Another analogy that would fail, for all of these same reasons, would be the recent case of Lance Armstrong.
"For you to claim that their findings have been accepted by the scientific community is either dishonest or just plain ignorance."
NIST's endorses something like: planes crashing into nearby subsequently collapsing buildings, office fires burning all day, and so on; this is accepted by the scientific community. Unlike the demolition view, which is rejected by the scientific community. My point is of course acknowledged even by the 9/11 Truth community, which has as one of its goals convincing the academic community, which to date rejects its claims. In this area I more or less share the sentiments and experiences of "Angra Mainyu", who you debated on Rauser's blog. S/he, like me, was misled by how the seriousness of journals was presented, in how the details of published disagreements were presented, and so on.
AE911TRUTH.ORG has challenged those findings.
The people who produce this website are highly unreliable, for reasons beyond those just mentioned. For one thing, the site is littered with confident claims the authors can't possibly know, e.g. "most of those who take the time to examine this evidence acknowledge that the official story can't be true." These people are also responsible for the DVD you loaned me (er... gave? I still have it...), which was also highly unreliable, e.g. in its presentation of credentials. Credentials are what they need to get a layperson, like you and me, to even begin to (rationally) take the matter seriously - so it's unsurprising that they have to be so dishonest about them. It seems to me that you entered into this particular Internet sub-culture much less critical of what you read and see than I have been (and you did so when there were less than a third as many supposed expert signatories!).
"what looks to anyone who has ever seen a controlled demolition, to be a controlled demolition."
This claim seems unjustified. You are not an expert observer of controlled (and uncontrolled) demolitions; so to make the claim you must have a survey of expert observers of controlled (and uncontrolled) demolitions, which you don't. You just have a number from some website, made by people who are demonstrably dishonest on exactly the point of credentials. And even if their number was honest, it still wouldn't justify the exaggerated claim.
As for the media, the collapse is shown about as many times as dead soldiers are shown. This doesn't provide evidence for anything other than the poor quality of the media. On what issues does the (television?) media ask interesting questions? Maybe things like Watergate, when rich people break into each others buildings. Or when Mitt Romney puts a dog on top of a car. But not issues like 9/11 (including the important explanations, like the historical relationship between the perpetrators and the United States), or the invasion of East Timor, or global warming, or... most other issues of serious public interest.
Btw I can't believe we spend this much time on the Internet.
1. The analogy holds because nobody in the media was willing to even suggest the most obvious reason for the sudden surge in home runs, just as nobody in the media was willing to suggest the most obvious reason for the collapse of WTC7, before there was a "scientific investigation."
2. Was the NIST investigation of WTC7 scientific? They did no experiments to support their findings. They came up with a computer model. And then they refused to release the data that the model is based upon. By definition, that is not science.
3. Does the scientific community accept their findings? I know of 1,750 architects and engineers who do not. How many do you know who do?
4. I admit that AE911truth exaggerated a couple of their claims about credentials, e.g., David Chandler, who shows no hesitancy in admitting that he is only a high school physics teacher. However, Chandler's credentials are adequate to understand the physics involved. This isn't nuclear or quantum physics. It's basic high school Newtonian physics. That's all it takes to understand the objections to the official version of events. Of course, if you managed not to take high school physics, then I understand you inability to follow the arguments. In which case, I blame our educational system.
5. I am not an expert on controlled demolitions. But then I am not an expert on the use of steroids, either. That didn't stop me from seeing the obvious when I saw Barry Bonds. What stopped everybody else from seeing it? But Danny Jowenko, who was an expert on controlled demolitions, did see that WTC7 was one. It probably helped that he didn't know at the time that it had collapsed on the same day as the first two buildings.
6. You have brought up Angra as a role model? Really? I had higher expectations for you.
7. You did say something rather reasonable: On what issues does the (television?) media ask interesting questions? Maybe things like Watergate, when rich people break into each others buildings. Or when Mitt Romney puts a dog on top of a car. But not issues like 9/11 (including the important explanations, like the historical relationship between the perpetrators and the United States), or the invasion of East Timor, or global warming, or... most other issues of serious public interest.
Exactly. Therefore, media silence on such questions cannot be used as evidence that 9/11 was not an inside job.
8. You have repeated the claim that if 9/11 was an inside job that it would have required a massive conspiracy. I asked you before how massive it would have to be. I ask you again, how massive would it have to be?
9. If you don't want to talk about Barry Bonds or 9/11 Truth, feel free not to respond. But that reminds me that I need to add an update to my post.
Darn, I let you get away with calling the collapse of WTC7 not interesting. As my father would have said, horse puckey. They showed the collapses of WTC1 and 2 over and over and over again, until I couldn't watch anymore. The collapse of WTC7 wasn't shown again after the first day. In addition, there have been times when showing the collapse would have been relevant to the television broadcast. For example, Carlton Tucker interviewed Prof. Steven Jones and asked him for evidence of controlled demolitions. Jones asked him to show the video of the collapse of WTC7 that he had sent to the show. Tucker said that they couldn't show it. No doubt technical difficulties. If you search my blog, you will find a post entitle, "What's missing from this video?" Watch it and tell me that showing the collapse of WTC7 wouldn't have relevant or interesting. If you watch the ae911truth.org video, "Explosive Evidence: Experts Speak Out," one expert after another admitted that they didn't doubt the official story until they saw a video of the collapse of WTC7. It is reasonable to suppose that the reason we did not see the collapse of WTC7 on television wasn't because it wasn't interesting, but because it was too interesting.
What's Missing from this Video?
I like your numbering system; I'll follow it.
1. The media sells audiences to advertisers, so it is not surprising that they aren't interested in enforcing athletic ethics. As for WTC7, uncontrolled historical events of enormous complexity require technical expertise and analysis. The controlled demolition hypothesis didn't catch on among those with the relevant technical expertise, so there was no good reason to report on it. The investigation that did occur, and previous and later papers on the subject in the academic community, agree on their main thesis, which is inconsistent with the controlled demolition hypothesis. Thus there is no good reason for the media to report on it. (Of course, here and there the media, in their irresponsibility, has reported on this, as they have reported on birther controversy and other oddities of that nature).
2. Doing experiments, in the high school way, is not a necessary condition for science, and I think never has been in the whole history of science. But this highlights nicely your reliance on high school physics.
I would be extremely irrational if I concluded anything based on your claim about the unreleased modeling data; before concluding anything, I'd have to know from a source with first-hand knowledge of academic practice what the usual procedures are here, which kinds of data get released and how, and so on. Even then, the strongest conclusion to make here would be that one should become agnostic.
3. AE911truth is dishonest about credentials; so it's extremely unlikely that you know of 1,750 architects and engineers who don't accept the NIST study (I would just say, main thesis; my understanding is that there are always quibbles and disputes in science, which people on the Internet misrepresent as rejections or fundamental disagreements). After all, I have seen the same number you have, and I certainly don't therefore know of 1,750 architects and engineers who don't accept the NIST study. But, even if you did know 1,750 architects and engineers who don't accept the NIST study, this would have nothing to do with whether the scientific community accepts the main thesis of the NIST study. For example, suppose 1,750 high school biologists rejected evolutionary theory, but near 100% of academics accepted evolutionary theory; this would make it almost impossible for a layperson to rationally doubt evolutionary theory - certainly not on the basis of the testimony of the BS's (and certainly not 500 or so of them, which is when you accepted the 9/11 thing, right? Or was it before even then?).
4. You write that, "Chandler's credentials are adequate to understand the physics involved." But you have no justification for saying this, and I would be very stupid to accept it based on you saying it. This was an event of enormous complexity for which more than a bachelors degree is required, which is why inquiries into such events are done by professional researchers. I did take high school physics, which helps me know that it would be extremely irrational for me to hold forth on a technical subject like the collapse of particular building - much less to hold forth against a community of people who know incomparably more than my on the subject.
5. The dishonest manipulation of Jowenko is pretty bad, and it's too bad you endorse it. It is correct that based on Youtube, no knowledge of what was going on inside of the building, and no knowledge of the explanations provided by his intellectual peers, Jowenko gave an armchair judgement that it looked like a controlled demolition. In your words, "that is not science." I'd be interested in seeing interviews by truthers done with experts who didn't think it was a controlled demolition, where the stupid trick didn't work - hey, why don't they post those? that would be "scientific"!; I'd also be interested in seeing if Jowenko ever had any judgements about the event, or the manipulation of him, after becoming more informed.
6. Angra is not my role model. In terms of looking for serious academic discussion of this issue, I just have the same experience as Angra: virtually everything supports or is silent on the main thesis, which is inconsistent with controlled demolition; and virtually everything is against or is silent on the controlled demolition hypothesis. And whenever I pursue a rabbit trails posted on that user-unfriendly website, I repeatedly find that a credential for a person or publication, or the specific content of a claim, has been exaggerated.
7. As far as I know, I never used media silence as evidence that 9/11 was not an inside job. However, I will do so right now: media silence is pretty slim evidence that 9/11 was not an inside job, because of the high probability of sensationalist leaks and whistle-blowing in the United States, particularly in the age of Wikileaks (only slight evidence, because the media is not always friendly to whistleblowers; the actual lack of genuine whistleblowers is itself much stronger evidence, but has nothing to do with the mainstream media).
8. I don't get your banging on about the "massive conspiracy" comments. The comments are just about the original analogy: for the analogy to even approach the level of "compelling," there would have to be a comparably massive conspiracy, which in the 9/11 case involves "everyone from military officials to office workers to academics." But there obviously wasn't one. What's the confusion here?
9. I feel free not to respond - so you may rest at ease.
10. Where did I say the collapse of WTC7 was not interesting? Maybe I did, but I haven't fount it, at least not by re-skimming. Of course I'm comfortable saying that it is less interesting, from a media perspective, than the other collapses, because there were zero casualties. Much more interesting and important than WTC7 are for example, dead American soldiers, which are never shown. Or the human consequences of U.S. sanctions on Iran. Or the fact that the United States and Israel violate most of the rules they demand others to follow. But there's no deep conspiracy going on here.
I'll wait until I get to the library to respond.
"I'll wait until I get to the library to respond."
Why respond when you can concede instead?
1. The controlled demolition hypothesis didn't catch on because almost nobody saw it.
2. In order for something to be considered science, there must be the ability for public scrutiny and replicability of the experiments involved. If one wants to substitute computer simulations, then there must be the release of the data that the simulations were based upon. Failing this, it is not science. That's standard practice. NIST did no experiments and refuses to release the data for their computer simulation. Therefore it is not science. I don't know how to make it any clearer to you.
As far as my "reliance on high school physics," that actually works in 9/11 Truth's favor. Chandler demonstrated rather clearly that there was a period of almost 2.5 seconds of free-fall acceleration. NIST had to revise their final report on WTC7 and remove the term "scientific" from it, because of Chandler's remarks regarding that fact. Newtonian (high school) physics won the day.
3. You paint AE911Truth with a rather broad brush. Because they called Chandler a "physicist" in their video, therefore their very detailed list of architects and engineers, with degrees and often licenses, doesn't count? Seriously? True, 1,750 A&Es doesn't prove the scientific community rejects the official account of 9/11. But that's 1,750 more on record as rejecting it than accepting it. Your claim that the scientific community accepts the official account is based upon...what?
4. Chandler's comments on WTC7 are confined to the free-fall acceleration time of the building. In order for that to happen, the supports for the building would have had to have been removed simultaneously for a distance of 100 feet. Nothing very complicated about that. What is complicated is coming up with a way of accomplishing that feat without a controlled demolition.
5. Nothing dishonest about the use of Jowenko. In fact, that was an ideal use of an expert: Show them a video that they know nothing about and ask their opinion about it. Jowenko was quite adamant that it was a controlled demolition. Someone called him months or years later and asked him if he had changed his mind and he said, he was still certain it was a controlled demolition. If you wish, you may question his judgment. I'm sure you know more about controlled demolitions. But he won't be able to change his mind, now. He's dead. "Accident."
6. Everything is in favor of controlled demolition. The symmetrical, vertical, global collapse; the ground temperatures exceeding temperatures of fires for days or weeks; the eutectically melted steel; the nano-thermite red/gray chips; the iron spheres in the dust.
7. I agree that lack of media coverage of 9/11 Truth is very slim evidence of lack of a conspiracy.
8. I guess I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying that if 9/11 was an inside job, then it would be an unprecedented massive conspiracy. Apparently you don't hold that view.
9. I misread your original comment. I thought you were complaining that we were spending too much time on 9/11 Truth. I re-read it and saw that you were complaining that we spend too much time on the internet. I agree.
10. My point is that the media had no trouble showing the collapses of WTC1&2 over and over, but never showed WTC7 after the first day. Why? And Tucker didn't show Jones's video of WTC7, even though he demanded that Jones provide evidence. And the local Fox News show that talked about the collapse of WTC7 didn't show video of the collapse, even though that was certainly relevant to their segment. Why? I suggest the obvious: They knew that if people (especially scientists) saw the video of the collapse, they would immediately suspect controlled demolition.
Bilbo,
Here is the problem with the controlled demolition theory for WTC 7. First, look at the collapse. Yes, it looks like a controlled demolition. Next, close you eyes and listen (your clip has sound) to the collapse. Then go to youtube and repeat the process with known controlled demolitions. I think you will immediately "see" the difference.
Hi Frank,
I think David Chandler's youtube video offers a pretty good answer to your objection:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tlRmaUCE8sM
In fact, I think I'll make that my next post.
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