Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe
http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM

20 minutes with the president
http://www.prisonplanet.com/20_minutes_bibliography.html

Go read, and try to debunk Charlie Sheen’s 20 minutes with the President. Address all 20 points.
While you’re at it look up Niels Harrit’s article titled: ‘Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe’.

Erm … references?

Or were you, in a fit of post-modernist irony, attempting to demonstrate that you don’t know how to cite the research that you criticise us for not having read?

Quite, it would take all of that to ensure success. But dont the conspiracy theorists believe something similar about the existing story?

Eh?

I must have missed that memo. What do you think the 9/11 truthers feel is wrong with the hijacking airliners explanation for what happened? After all, an airliner loaded with several tens of thousands of gallons of aviation fuel does make an impressively explosive projectile. What’s their beef?

Oh and im not arguing against evolution. But it could well turn out to be an emergent behaviour that gets superceded by a more encompassing theory in the same way newtonian physics did. In that respect we should keep an open mind.

Maybe so, but you ignore the fact that Newtonian gravitation is still (even though it is “wrong”) a very good approximation in most circumstances.

We know for a fact that evolutionary theory is at the very least a good approximation to reality. Therefore, your quibbling about it still being a theory (and ignoring the point that Steve made) is irrelevant. Even if it’s “wrong” in some way, it’s a pretty good approximation. Therefore, it is only logical to proceed as if it were correct, unless we find evidence to show it is wrong or that (like Newtonian gravitation) it breaks down in certain situations.

Evolution *is* a theory.

It just happens to be a very good one with the closest and bestest explanatory model of what we observe.

Lose that uncertainty and you’re no better than a religious believer.

This betrays a woeful ignorance of the modern state of science.

There are some theories – evolution among them – that are so well-supported by evidence, that have stood up so well to every test to which they have been subjected, that they are treated by scientists as fact. This is not blind faith. This is down to logic and reason.

We know for sure that our best theories are either correct or very good approximations of the way reality is. This would be in the same way that Newtonian gravitational theory is a very good approximation to reality in most situations. The reason we can state this with confidence is that if there were situations in which these theories do not accurately describe reality, we would have spotted them, unless these situations require extreme circumstances or extremely subtle measurements to detect.

Good point, but unproved does not equal wrong.

True, when taken in isolation. However, the lack of evidence where your conspiracy theory predicts evidence must be is an indication that the proposed alternative (e.g. the postulation about US govt involvement in 9/11) is wrong.

Also, the lack of consistency of any given conspiracy theory with what we know about human nature is also a strong indicator that the conspiracy theory is wrong. For example, one incarnation of the moon-hoax theory requires that we believe approximately 400,000 people have held their silence for about 45 years (they started building the Apollo hardware in about 1964 or thereabouts). Alternatively, it requires that the extremely clever people who deisgned and built the hardware thought they were doing it for real, in the which case the hardware would indeed have done what they said it would.

Conspracy theories like 9/11 “truthers”, moon-hoax believers etc. get lumped in together because they all have one thing in common – a refusal to believe the one version of events that really does fit all the available evidence.

If we group all conspiracy theorists together, we inevitably include some who beliefs are provable, that’s the problem.

But this is not what is done. Instead, there are conspiracies that have been uncovered and are simply a matter of historical fact. OTOH, you have the unproven conspiracy theories, all of which comfortably fit into the description I made above. IOW, not merely unproven, but unbelievably improbable and with little or no correlation to reality.

Moreover, you are ignoring the generally-accepted meaning of the term “conspiracy theorist”, which implies the element of disconnection from reality.

Is it really ‘out there’ for me to wonder how a 47-story, over-designed steel-frame building (WTC7) could experience (according to NIST’s final report) 2.25 seconds – or 8 stories – of free-fall collapse into the path of most resistance? Is it ‘out there’ for me to wonder why the collapse of WTC7 is not even mentioned in the commission’s official report? Is it really ‘out there’ for me to wonder how multi-ton pieces of steel and how pieces of human bodies (no bigger than a shoe) were expelled vertically and then horizontally from the Twin Towers for distances as great as 200 yards (as demonstrated by David S. Chandler)? Is it really ‘out there’ for me to wonder how there was enough mass to create a ‘natural collapse’ in the towers when the visual evidence from the day shows much of the buildings’ mass (i.e., steel, cement) being expelled and pulverized during the collapses. Is it really ‘out there’ for me to question why an explanation that says “mass hit other mass in the collapse” should not have generated a collapse (based on the principle of conservation of momentum) that occurred in an accelerated fashion as it did? Is it really ‘out there’ for me to wonder how active nano-thermite (a highly engineered explosive) wound up in samples of dust from the collapses that were collected before clean-up efforts began? Is it really ‘out there’ for me to wonder why NYC officials tried to suppress reports from first responders who heard and experienced multiple explosions in the buildings prior to the collapses, until a FOIA by the New York Times made those reports public?

Do I know for sure what happened that day? No. Do I believe that a fair and impartial investigation into the day has occurred? No. Is it ‘out there’ for me to feel this way when I know that the Bush administration named Philip D. Zelikow executive director of the 9/11 Commission, a person who previously co-authored a book with one of the people who would be brought before the committee to testify (Condoleezza Rice)? Testimony, by the way, that the White House initially refused to allow in public until receiving pressure from relatives of 9/11 victims, commission members, and politicians (http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/08/rice.transcript/). Does that sound like a fair and impartial process to you?

I really think you are on to something when you suggest that critical thinking is needed; I just don’t think you understand what that actually means.

I guess no-one’s told her that today’s skeptic movement requires that you subscribe to a set of dogmatic beliefs before joining the club.

Damn, you’re so right!

Fancy we sceptics reserving membership only for people who believe that reality should have the final say in any argument or theory about, y’know, reality!! What could we have been thinking???

You know you want to.

I can’t argue with any of that.

No need to keep your mind so open your brains fall out.

Quite, it would take all of that to ensure success. But dont the conspiracy theorists believe something similar about the existing story?

Oh and im not arguing against evolution. But it could well turn out to be an emergent behaviour that gets superceded by a more encompassing theory in the same way newtonian physics did. In that respect we should keep an open mind.

You haven’t been around here dealing with the creationists or IDers much have you?

I thought I made it clear in my post I was talking about the scientific definition of the word ‘theory’ (explanation) and not the colloquial use (hunch). Evolution is a theory, a very good one, there is no ‘just’ about it. So is gravity, germ theory (don’t forget to wash your hands) and a round earth(or oblate spheroid, but we can’t make ball bearings as round as the earth is) theory.

Which goes with what Steve is saying. We have evidence for or against something. We don’t just buy what the media tells us. Or what anybody tells us. We read peer reviewed journals, look up the facts, look at ALL the evidence.

Every time somebody calls me a ‘sheeple’ i have this warm fuzzy feeling because I know i’ve done my homework 1000 times better than they have and a they have to resort to Ad Homs.

yet to do it with a couple of planes only took a few extremists? You serious?

A few extremists, a few fully fueled planes, and a longstanding policy of “do what the hijacker says”. That last one is why a 9/11-style air attack won’t work again — it stopped working on 9/11 itself, after all, on Flight 93.

Btw – you say thousands would have to have been involved in a plot to bring down the WTC with explosives, yet to do it with a couple of planes only took a few extremists? You serious?

Yes, I’m serious. In order for 9/11 to have been an ‘inside job’ in the way the conspiracy theorists conjecture that it happened, the entire Bush administration, the NYC fire department (who lost 300 brave men), the NYC police department, the FBI, the CIA, FEMA, United Airlines, American Airlines, and all those hundreds of highly trained demolitions experts who magically were able to plant the ginormous quantity of explosives required (and go completely undetected) … and hundreds more from many other organisations would all have to have been in on it. And not one has come forward to blow the whistle? Shyeah.

Evolution *is* a theory.

Oh, here we go. But there are tons and tons of verifiable evidence put forth in peer reviewed journals to back up evolution. Where is there even *one shred of peer reviewed evidence* to back up a 9/11 conspiracy theory? Hmm?

Evolution *is* a theory.

It just happens to be a very good one with the closest and bestest explanatory model of what we observe.

Lose that uncertainty and you’re no better than a religious believer.

“Adding the word ‘theory’ after conspiracy is meant to discredit those who question the “accepted” versions of events.”

ARGH

Shows you the menality of the people we are dealing with here, and their understanding of ‘science’. As far as I know the conspiracy theorists themselves coined the term. A scientist would never have coin that term.

We have enough problems with “Evolution is just a theory”

The most convincing theory I heard was the first scenario with a certain amount of complicity and intelligence.

Good point, but unproved does not equal wrong.

If we group all conspiracy theorists together, we inevitably include some who beliefs are provable, that’s the problem.

Btw – you say thousands would have to have been involved in a plot to bring down the WTC with explosives, yet to do it with a couple of planes only took a few extremists? You serious?