Monday, September 27, 2010

What We Believe According to JREFers

So I've just taken a look over at ae911truth.info to see if Mr. Joseph Nobles has been up to anything recently. His latest addition to his site concerns a post by someone on the JREF forum on a thread titled "Why do you still believe that a collapse due to fire wouldn't be possible?". I was ready to write a quick response to this, but looking through the thread I quickly saw that someone had already responded to it. Poster "Sivan Kurzberg" posted this excellent response, which I've reposted here with some of my own comments in red, some links:

1 - Steel does lose strength at high temperatures.
Where was it ever claimed otherwise? You need to prove those temperatures though. Absolutely. And NIST has not done this.

2 - The fire protection were removed from the truss on the floors where the impact occurred.
This is speculation that's never proven. Exactly how much was removed and exactly how? Exactly how much was needed to remain to keep the building up longer than an hour or until it was completely evacuated? What's more, fireproofing is only good for up to 2-3 hours. Other skyscrapers have burned over 5 hours and have not collapsed.

3 - It is not necessary to remove all fire protection to make the structure susceptible to fire.
See number 2

4 - The failure of a structural element can cause the failure of others.
Sure, but will it bring on sudden rapid global collapse of the entire structure? It may, but we have no examples of this outside of controlled demolition.

5 - Progressive collapse does exist.
Sure. But not sudden rapid global collapse complete in a matter of seconds like what was witnessed three times on 9/11. The only real progressive collapse caused by fire was everything one would expect: localized, asymmetric, and nowhere near free fall rate.

This thread is not about evidence of controlled demolition nor NIST findings. It's about arguments that support the claim the towers (WTC 1 and 2) couldn't have collapsed due to fire.
It's still unprecedented and unproven. This is the problem. I couldn't agree more.

Sivan Kurzberg also mentioned something that debunkers have yet to do:

"What the debunkers will never be able to show is the sudden global collapse of an entire high-rise complete in a matter of seconds. Especially of a building only on fire for about an hour."

Looking through the thread more, I was surprised to see that poster "Patriots4Truth" posted several of my videos from my "9/11 Un-debunked" series in response to debunker claims. Poster "Grizzly Bear" had some thoughts on my videos. Once again, I've reposted that here with my comments in red with some links:

A quick comment while I'm on break...

Fires Insufficient To Cause Collapse
Mister citizen assumes the only fuel available for the fires was the jet fuel. It's a repeat of the "no steel over 600oF" claim which itself is based on a bastardization of the NIST report's conclusion. Given his premise is incorrect, his video is of little to no relevance. I do not assume that jet fuel was the only source of fuel, and I never will. The point of my video was to show that the amount of fuel in each of the Towers was smaller than debunkers had portrayed in the past. This is supposed to be a crucial difference between the fires in the Towers and other skyscraper fires. Clearly jet fuel would have created higher temperatures than office material.

Buildings Built To Withstand Airplane Strikes
Quote:
When the WTC towers were built there was extensive controversy over their safety in emergencies. The NYC Fire Department protested, as did a host of other agencies and professional associations. The buildings were constructed in bulk and height far in excess of what municipal construction and zoning codes allowed. However, the Port Authority, a quasi-governmental agency with exceptional powers inherited from the regime of Robert Moses, was specifically exempt from compliance with municipal codes. The real estate, construction and finance industries were powerful supporters of the project.

Aside, I add that in 30 some years of examining buildings in New York, I have found none, zero, which are fully compliant with municipal building codes. It is a terrible, little reported scandal of the city in which it is considered to be bad business to fully comply with codes.

Also, pertinent to the video's specific claim: the effect of fires following such an impact were not considered. This ignores the several pre-9/11 sources which indicate the fires were taken into account. All Dr. Shyam Sunder had to say about this was that "Whether the fuel was taken into account or not is an open question."

Speed Of The Collapse Was Too Fast
Why the speed issue is always brought up is beyond me... Once the collapse initiated it was collapsing regardless of whether it took 10 or 30 seconds... Mr citizen obviously cites the commission report, which for whatever reason truthers to this day still hold the absurd belief it was intended to be a engineering report as opposed to a bipartisan investigation concerning what lead to the attacks happening, not determining how or why the towers failed. This is pointless rambling. I only cited the Commission Report to make clear that the official investigators were the first to make claims of "10 seconds." The speed issue is very important, and it has been shown the the fall rates of the Towers were at the very least consistent with controlled demolition.

The First Steel Framed High-Rise Fire Collapses
"First time in history" is a bowl of laughs... To claim this requires an absolute bastardization and ignorance of steel material properties and general design case studies. His opinions being based on such faulty premises renders his video irrelevant. Exactly how is my video irrelevant? Debunkers find it unacceptable to compare other high-rise skyscraper fires to the Towers and Building 7, but comparing them to badly built toy factories and elementary schools is just fine. The only steel structures debunkers apparently do think are comparable are structures that have collapsed from fire, with none of them being steel skyscrapers.

Throughout the thread some JREFers brought up Building 5's partial collapse from fire, which they seem to think supports the "fire can cause collapse" theory.
Here's the reality.




WTC Collapse
This was a regurgitation of all the videos in your list preceding it. None of which had any reasonable argument made against them.


WTC 7's Collapse Is Still A Mystery
This comment was pretty stupid, considering only "on-tenth" or so of WTC 1 & 2 each were burning.

Makes me genuinely curious if he's ever seen a building up close while it was on fire. However, as I've already shown, Building 5 was almost fully engulfed and performed much better.

He also believes the smoke emanating from WTC 7 was not from WTC 7... similar to the DRG/Jones claim that the smoke instead came from WTC 5... Which is what I do claim. He completely ignores the photos which show the exact same thing happened to WTC1.

Apparently his "mystery" is part of his faulty premise... and this video is also not relevant to any degree. It is relevant because debunkers still cry claims of "25% scooped out!" or "there were fuel tanks in the building!" As long as debunkers keep making these claims, I see it as very relevant.

South Tower Should Have Toppled
Absolutely fail, the towers were not solid trees. And I never claimed them to be. What I do claim is that at least three times as much weight was acting on one side of the building, but instead of toppling it lost its moment of inertia and disintegrated.

patriots4truth, these videos are little more than psuedoscience and regurgitation. I would be interested if you can offer your own argument instead of offering a regurgitation of 2006 from unqualified individuals. Thank you. These arguments clearly are groundless, and JREFers themselves have been shown to be nothing but psuedoskeptics.

Hopefully, this will put what the Truth Movement believes in better perspective for the debunkers.

Related Info:

The neverending incredulity of JREFers

JREF Forum posts: "Comprehensive characteristics of the pseudoskeptic"

Gordon Ross is pretty sure he exists.