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The Misadventures of Kevin Ryan
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The Misadventures of Kevin Ryan
Jim Fetzer
In what has to be one of the more bizarre twists of fate in relation to the 9/11 truth movement, Kevin Ryan, whom I have admired in the past, has attacked me for criticizing an article by Robert Parry in “9/11 Truth is No ‘Parlor Game’.” Ryan had already expressed his displeasure that I had responded to Parry’s trivialization of the truth movement in a thread on the bloggerbrigade and was apparently taken aback when some of those on the thread responded negatively to his assault on me. When I was invited to reply and exposed certain shortcomings in his false and defamatory attacks, he left the thread saying that he was going to “write it up”. His latest blog, "Why Robert Parry is Right about 9/11 Truth", is the outcome.
Alas, this blog illustrates the worst tendencies in the 9/11 truth movement. Kevin criticizes me for trivialities, including a couple of typos. He attacks my JFK research, which he does not know, and assails me for trespassing into terrain that is “off limits” to the members of his clique. He pretends to understand a subtle debate between two professional philosophers over the meaning of the word “information”, which drives him to absurd claims over a dispute where he hasn’t a clue. To guard against public criticism, he has “closed” the comments on his blog before any could be posted. He shows that dogmas are not restricted to religious groups but can be embraced by 9/11 societies.
My Background
As it happens, I am the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a former Marine Corps officer, a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton and a Ph.D. in the history and the philosophy of science. I have done a lot of research on the assassination of JFK as well as on 9/11, where I edited the first book from Scholars, THE 9/11 CONSPIRACY (2007), organized and moderated its first conference, “The Science and Politics of 9/11: What’s Controversial, What’s Not”, and produced its first DVD. These events have proven to be expensive, however, where I lost about $10,000 on the Madison meeting, which was blackballed by Ryan, even though I had invited both him and Steve Jones to be speakers.
I have participated in hundreds of interviews about 9/11 on radio and television, including a 3.5 hour appearance on television in Athens in December 2006, which was broadcast worldwide by satellite, speaking in New York in 2007 and in 2008, traveling to Buenos Aires for 9/11 presentations in 2008 and 2009, and organizing a London symposium on “Debunking the ‘War on Terror’” just this past summer. But, none of that matters to Kevin Ryan, who insinuates that I have an agenda to spread false information about 9/11, which is apparently based, at least in part, on his misunderstanding of a philosophical disagreement. This means that, when he attacks me, the truth simply doesn’t count.
Ryan’s Attack
Since Parry was condemning the 9/11 truth movement, while I was defending it, that Ryan should attack me for doing so is most peculiar. Acknowledging that mine is the only response to Parry that has been published he says I “did not contribute to any of the research he claims as ‘our research’, and apparently cannot even spell Parry’s name or the name of the company that I worked for in his continued efforts to spread false information. The article also makes wild assertions that are not supported by evidence, such as–“…every claim the government has made about 9/11 is false.” I took a look to figure out what he was talking about and found that they were either trivial or false.
The name “Parry” appears nine or ten times in the article, and in one instance, I had it as “Perry”. I had also referred to Kevin Ryan’s former place of employment, as “Underwriters Laboratory”, where, strictly speaking, it is “Underwriters Laboratories, Inc.” I was curious about his allegation that I had made a “wild assertion” in saying that, “… every claim the government as has made about 9/11 is false”. When I took a closer look, I discovered that he replaced the word “virtually” with “…”, which is not the act of an honest critic. Indeed, since my rebuttal is devoted to elaborating major falsehoods advanced by the government, based upon research by the members of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and previous research, as I observe in “Why doubt 9/11?”, what’s wrong with calling it “our research”?
My JFK Research
Kevin was not satisfied to trash me for trivialities but also claims that, when I founded Scholars in 2005, I was “known for some dubious contributions to the JFK assassination research community”. What he has in mind is beyond me. To the best of my knowledge, Kevin Ryan knows nothing about the death of JFK, where I organized a research group consisting of the best-qualified individuals to ever study the case in late 1992. We have discovered that the autopsy X-rays were altered, that another brain was substituted for JFK’s and that a home movie known as “the Zapruder film” was extensively edited. I have published these findings in three edited books, which Vincent Bugliosi, who defends the lone gunman theory, has described as “the only three exclusively scientific books” on the JFK assassination. Our work has been encompassing and of exceptional scientific significance.
As an indication that others do not share Kevin Ryan’s dismal assessment of our work, MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA (2000), which has chapters from nine contributors, was reviewed by George Costello for THE FEDERAL LAWYER, a professional journal for attorneys who work for the federal government, who practice before federal agencies, or who appear in federal courts. His take, which you can read for yourself, is decidedly at odds with Kevin’s dismissal as “dubious contributions”. He concludes,
It is time for people of integrity who were involved in the official investigations -- especially the professionals -- to take a good-faith look at the new evidence and confront the likelihood that their conclusions were based on falsified data. Murder in Dealey Plaza may not be the last word on the medical evidence, but it should be the starting point for a fresh look -- not only at the medical evidence, but also at the assassination and its implications.
Costello would later write to me that he had even received an award of recognition for his review. But what I do not understand is why Kevin Ryan would hazard opinions about research on a topic that, if anything, may be even more complex and convoluted than research on 9/11. That does not strike me as a responsible approach for someone who wants to be taken seriously, especially when I have been pioneering the application of scientific reasoning to controversial political events like these.
My 9/11 Research
Some of my most recent JFK articles are “US Government Official: JFK Cover-Up, Film Fabrication”, “Forrest Gump on the grassy knoll”, and “Who’s telling the truth: Clint Hill or the Zapruder film?” As in the case of my JFK research, which has focused on its most challenging aspects, especially with respect to separating authentic from inauthentic evidence, my research on 9/11 has focused on the most challenging aspects of that case, too. Thus, I have studied what happened at the Pentagon, the causal mechanisms by which the Twin Towers were destroyed, and the possible use of video fakery in New York. My research has included “What Didn’t Happen at the Pentagon”, “An Analysis of the WTC on 9/11”, and “New Proof of Video Fakery on 9/11”. It is common knowledge Kevin Ryan’s society, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, shuns those who, like me, study the Pentagon and video fakery.
Even though Pilots for 9/11 Truth has concluded that the FDR data it obtained from the NTSB shows that a plane flew toward the Pentagon on a different trajectory and too high to have hit any of the lampposts and, rather than crashing into the building, swerved over it—for which there is a great deal of evidence—Kevin Ryan and his friends are intolerant of anyone who suggests that no plane hit the Pentagon. Indeed, there is also no evidence that a plane crashed in a field in Shanksville. Even though Elias Davidsson has shown the government has never proven the hijackers were aboard any of those planes and David Ray Griffin has established that all of the alleged phone calls were faked, Kevin’s society refuses to even consider questions they raise for the prospect of “phantom flights”.
The Scholars Breakup
Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice not only proscribes the study of video fakery (or “no planes”) but it also insists that thermite in one or another of its forms is the crucial ingredient for explaining the demolition of the Twin Towers. I am sure that Kevin took a dim view of my agreement with Parry on the point that thermite does not seem promising as an explanation of the demolition of the Twin Towers for the reason that it is an incendiary, not an explosive. For thermite to be explosive, it has to be combined with explosives, where the same could be said of toothpaste. That has long been my opinion, which is no secret within the 9/11 research community. I have given critiques of his theory during 9/11 conferences as well as elsewhere, such as “The Manipulation of the 9/11 Community”.
It was my growing conviction that thermite was most unlikely to be able to provide an explanation for the destruction of the Twin Towers that was behind the separation of Scholars at the end of 2006 and the creation of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, which entailed corrupt activities by those trying to wrest the control of Scholars from me, including the misrepresentation of my views, which continues to this day, but also by conducting a phony poll of the members while feigning to be the “membership administrator” and freezing our original web site at st911.org, even though I had been responsible for posting every item that ever appeared there, which forced me to create a new web site at 911scholars.org, where the history of these events has been archived on Scholars home page.
Kevin’s Distortions
Kevin claims, for example, that, less than one year after founding the society, “just before the 5th anniversary of the attacks” when media attention was at its peak, “Fetzer began speaking publicly about space beams destroying the WTC and other such nonsense”. He also faults me for a radio interview with Judy Wood, Ph.D., which occurred on 11 November 2006 when I was about to speak in Tucson. With her degrees in structural engineering, applied physics, and materials engineering science, I regard Judy as among the best qualified students of 9/11 in the world today. A former professor of mechanical engineering, she introduced her theory that directed energy weapons may have been employed on 9/11 during during our conversation on the radio. I found her conjecture fascinating because it opens an unconventional approach toward understanding the events of 9/11.
Since 11 November is two months after 11 September, I have no idea where Kevin comes up with this stuff, but factual accuracy does not appear to be an important desideratum for him. I do not know to this day whether Wood is right, but her web site (at drjudywood.com...) sets a high standard in accumulating evidence about the data that an adequate theory would have to explain, including the conversion of the Twin Towers into millions of cubic yards of very fine dust, the peculiar kinds of damage that were sustained by WTC-3, WTC-4, WTC-5, and WTC-6, and the oddity of the “toasted cars”. While I have advocated the study of DEWs—along with nukes, lasers, masers, and plasmoids—I have not endorsed them because we still do not know how it was done. And I should add that Kevin and his colleagues are certainly not in the position to know that Judy Wood is wrong.
The Exchange
What set him off in composing this blog appears evident from what occurred on a discussion thread between January 26th and 28th 2011. Kevin began by expressing dismay over my article criticizing Robert Parry by remarking, “Oh God, not Fetzer again.” He was immediately countered by Ben Collet, who replied, “Kevin Ryan’s reputation as a scientifically-minded 9/11 activist has, unfortunately, taken a big hit with this snide comment about one of the most important voices in the 9/11 truth movement.” Not to be outdone, Kevin responded with a partial transcript of my interview from 11 November 2006 in which I expressed fascination with Judy’s theory. He was again countered by Ben:
Ryan's citation of this four year old interview demonstrates only that Dr. Fetzer starts with the appropriate attitude of the truth-seeker who is employing the scientific method. That is he exhibits curiosity and openness to a new idea. Nowhere does he say Judy Wood is correct, he simply evinces an honest curiosity to hear her views. This is the true scientific approach. Unfortunately others who do not have Dr. Fetzer's familiarity with the scientific method think it is enough to denounce unpopular views as heretical without even listening to them. Dr Fetzer has a PhD in the philosophy of the scientific method.
Kevin’s Defense
Kevin responded by offering an exaggerated version of my position, which makes it easier to attack, and ridiculed him for supporting me: "Ben"s support for Fetzer's claim that space beams destroying the WTC is "the most fascinating development in the history of the study of 9/11" is interesting.
"Oh Really?? Oh ho ho ho ho! Oh Ben. Oh my oh my oh my oh my. This is huge ... this is huge Ben."
He added, “See attached for an article on the value of false information, written by Fetzer and presented in a conference one month before 9/11/01. Fetzer doesn't have any peer-review scientific articles on the attacks of 9/11. But he does know the value of false information.”
Ben replied, Kevin Ryan misrepresents Dr. Fetzer's position. Fetzer never has said he supports "space beams", only that he supports the study of space beams and other theories of how it was done. This is the appropriate attitude to take until we figure out the actual method used. . . . In writing, "9/11 Truth is No Parlor Game", Dr. Fetzer is defending the 9/11 movement against an attack from a widely admired investigative journalist, Robert Parry. It is unfortunate that Ryan feels compelled to belittle and misrepresent the person who has so ably defended the truth against Parry's lies.
Another Response
While I am sure he was not pleased with Ben’s comments, I imagine that another response from mlkjeldsen was even less warmly received, since it cut to the core of his attack upon my article:
Kevin,
I do not mean to attack you, because I consider your actions to be heroic and your tenacity
inspiring. But I have two questions.
Number one, after going back and reading Jim’s piece a second time, I found nothing to be
untrue or disinformative. I found it to be a quality refutation of a piece of garbage written
by a scoundrel. Did you find any flaws?
Number two, our phony president, while addressing the phony congress and the rest of the
phony government actually made a joke about the sexual assault that the TSA carries out
against us everyday. There are blimps surveilling us. The country is divided into ten FEMA
regions. The economy is being collapsed on purpose. The noose is being tightened around
our collective neck. How does, let’s be honest, attacking Jim Fetzer help us to reach the
critical mass of informed citizens that we need to hold off this tyranny? This is a war of
government against freedom, plain and simple. He, like you and I, is reaching people with
this message—is he not?
Kevin’s response was almost guttural:
He has been reaching people with space beams and holograms and false information for many years. Please don't promote it. It is the problem.
To which he would subsequently add:
The most influential article relating to this topic that he wrote is the paper on the value of false information, which Fetzer presented at a conference in August 2001. Why would an expert on false information, who has made no serious contributions to the truth movement, be seen as worthy of our attention let alone be welcomed as a champion of truth?
Thank you, Ben and Mike, for reminding me of the power that false information still has in the 9/11 truth movement. I will turn my attention to this problem again, and write it up.
Kevin’s Misconceptions
As I have already explained, I have not been endorsing “space beams” or “holograms” but promoting their study. The hologram hypothesis to explain the video fakery in the footage of Flight 175 hitting the South Tower—where the plane is traveling at an impossible speed, entering the building in clear violation of Newton’s laws, and passes through its own length into the building in the same number of frames it takes to pass through its own length in air—is one of at least three possibilities, where the other two are the use of computer-generated images or the use of video compositing. Unless you have studied the issues involved here, it may sound a bit far-out.
But how are we going to understand “the pivotal event of the 21st century” if we are not allowed to study the evidence and explore alternative explanations? Kevin’s attitude is not only unscientific but is virtually illiterate. The hardest part of scientific inquiry—which involves stages of PUZZLEMENT, SPECULATION, ADAPTATION (of hypotheses to evidence) and EXPLANATION—is figuring out all of the possible alternative explanations. Premature closure at this stage (by excluding hypotheses that seem too unusual, unconventional, or politically incorrect) can consign an investigation to failure by excluding the true hypothesis for consideration on inappropriate grounds. That, in my opinion, has been the case with Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice with regard to the possible use of directed energy weapons or the possible use of sophisticated technology to create images of a plane that isn’t really there—as the absence of strobe lights above and below the fuselage and on its wingtips implies. But the most bewildering aspect of Kevin’s assault concerns his attacks upon me for (what he claims to be) the use of false information, which is a massive confusion.
False Information.
The differences between me and Professor Floridi concern whether or not truth is a condition for something (reports, photos, evidence) to qualify as “information”. In other words, we are engaged in a classic philosophical debate over how a word should best be understood in order to clarify and illuminate its use within various contexts in which it might occur. He maintains that, for something to qualify as “information”, it has to be true, which I deny. I argue that, for every assertion, there is a denial, where we can be presented with those assertions from alternative sources. As I see it, we are being presented with information and have to figure out which is true and which is not. According to Floridi, however, we would not even know if one other the other of these assertions were “information” unless we knew that it was true.
As it happens, I have published two papers, one on this question and another on the nature of misinformation and of disinformation. I argue that misinformation is information that is false, where disinformation occurs from the deliberate dissemination of false information with the intention to deceive or mislead an audience. Think how awkward it is to even talk about “false information” if you have presupposed that, to qualify as information, it has to be true. This is another reason for rejecting Floridi’s approach. It creates very awkward—even incoherent—uses of language in talking about false information, if that means talking about the falsity of what we have already implied is true merely by calling it “information”. So I think Floridi’s approach has no merit and have offered my reasons for holding that position in these articles:
"Information: Does it Have to be True?", Minds and Machines 14/2 (May 2004), pp. 223-229.
"Disinformation: The Use of False Information", Minds and Machines 14/2 (May 2004), pp. 231-240.
Kevin’s Confusion
Imagine my astonishment when I read in Kevin’s blog that, “In this paper, Fetzer argues that false information (including disinformation) is just as meaningful as true information, implying that false information has just as much value as true information.” He further maintains that, according to Fetzer and his colleagues, “spreading and using false information (more precisely, misinformation, if the source is unaware of its falsity, or disinformation, if the source is aware and uses/spreads it on purpose, precisely because it is false) is perfectly fine and acceptable”! I must say that in my entire adult life I have never read such drivel, which has no basis in my work other than drawing a distinction between information, misinformation and disinformation. We are dealing with a man who has a diminished capacity for drawing conceptual distinctions.
To say that information, misinformation and disinformation are “equally meaningful” does not mean “that false information has just as much value as true information”! No one in their right mind would make such a claim. The point about meaning is that I define “information” as meaningful data, where the meaningfulness of data is not a function of its truth. If we are told my one source, “It is going to rain”, and by another, “It is not going to rain”, they cannot both be true but they are both meaningful! The problem that we confront in every area of inquiry is to sort out the claims that are both meaningful and true from those that are instead meaningful but false. Truth itself can even be defined as beliefs that provide us appropriate guidance for actions in the world, where, when our beliefs are true, actions based upon them are more likely to be successful than if they are false. Their value is enormously different!
What’s the Deal?
In this blog, Kevin Ryan asserts that, “This paper challenged the work of a professor at Oxford University by the name of [Luciano] Floridi, who like most honest people, contends that, since information is data that changes what we do, only true information that helps us respond to our world accurately and effectively has value.” He then contends that, “When contacted by 9/11 researchers who suspected Fetzer of being a propenent and purveyor of false information, Floridi confirmed that Fetzer was effectively arguing for the use of false information. Floridi responded that the arguments of Fetzer and his colleagues suggest that – “spreading and using false information (more precisely, misinformation, if the source is unaware of its falsity, or disinformation, if the source is aware and uses/spreads it on purpose, precisely because it is false) is perfectly fine and acceptable”. But there is no reason Floridi woud make such claims.
That Kevin Ryan did not know his first name, Luciano, suggested to me that this was a false report. In spite of our philosophical disagreement, Luciano and I are friends, so I wrote him to ask if he had made such a claim to 9/11 researchers. He replied that, “I'm afraid I had not recollection of being contacted by any 9/11 researcher, but before writing to you I wanted to check my computer. It also does not have any recollection. So I might be wrong (it happens more often than I like to think), and my computer might be wrong (but it is a beautiful new iMac after all), but it seems more plausible to think that there was no contact at all. I do answer tens of emails a day, so who knows, but I would remember, I think, and there should be a trace in my mail, at least of my reply. But nothing, no biological or artificial memory of any of this.” So it may be that one of us—deliberately or not—really is trading in false information.
Bringing It Home
On the basis of a gross misunderstanding of my position, Kevin contends, “Facts and evidence indicate that the use of false information to derail the 9/11 truth movement is a reality despite the inability of leading 9/11 researchers to admit such a possibility. With unsubstantiated claims of space beams, video fakery and holograms, Fetzer and his colleagues have taken advantage of the fact that many Americans are scientifically illiterate. These evil parlor games give influential professionals like Robert Parry, who are already psychologically challenged and fearful of the topic, additional reasons to ignore all t he evidence and spout off about the issues with little or no understanding.” Which is especially ironic, since, in this very blog, Kevin Ryan is spouting off about me and my positions, even philosophical ones, with little or no understanding. And nothing would give me greater pleasure than to discuss these things in a public forum. I therefore extend an invitation—a challenge, if you like—to debate these issues over the radio.
Once again, we see that Kevin wholly ignores the difference between STUDYING A POSITION and ADVOCATING A POSITION. I do not know how the Twin Towers were destroyed, but I do know that Judy Wood has advanced an interesting hypothesis. I don’t know if holograms were used to perpetrate video fakery, but I do know that the weight of the evidence supports it. And I have no doubt at all that no Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon, for which there is abundant and compelling evidence. But don’t ask Kevin Ryan, because he won’t even consider them. How, I have to ask, could I be dedicating my life to sorting out the differences between authentic and inauthentic evidence regarding JFK and 9/11 were I not profoundly committed to discovering the truth? And why would I even care, if I held the absurd views that Kevin attributes to me? As a philosopher, I care about truth. As a former Marine Corps officer, I care about my country. And, as a philosopher of science, I know that scientific investigations are our most reliable means for for discovering truth. One of us has lost his way and is betraying the movement, but it isn’t me.
1 February 2011
Jim Fetzer
In what has to be one of the more bizarre twists of fate in relation to the 9/11 truth movement, Kevin Ryan, whom I have admired in the past, has attacked me for criticizing an article by Robert Parry in “9/11 Truth is No ‘Parlor Game’.” Ryan had already expressed his displeasure that I had responded to Parry’s trivialization of the truth movement in a thread on the bloggerbrigade and was apparently taken aback when some of those on the thread responded negatively to his assault on me. When I was invited to reply and exposed certain shortcomings in his false and defamatory attacks, he left the thread saying that he was going to “write it up”. His latest blog, "Why Robert Parry is Right about 9/11 Truth", is the outcome.
Alas, this blog illustrates the worst tendencies in the 9/11 truth movement. Kevin criticizes me for trivialities, including a couple of typos. He attacks my JFK research, which he does not know, and assails me for trespassing into terrain that is “off limits” to the members of his clique. He pretends to understand a subtle debate between two professional philosophers over the meaning of the word “information”, which drives him to absurd claims over a dispute where he hasn’t a clue. To guard against public criticism, he has “closed” the comments on his blog before any could be posted. He shows that dogmas are not restricted to religious groups but can be embraced by 9/11 societies.
My Background
As it happens, I am the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a former Marine Corps officer, a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton and a Ph.D. in the history and the philosophy of science. I have done a lot of research on the assassination of JFK as well as on 9/11, where I edited the first book from Scholars, THE 9/11 CONSPIRACY (2007), organized and moderated its first conference, “The Science and Politics of 9/11: What’s Controversial, What’s Not”, and produced its first DVD. These events have proven to be expensive, however, where I lost about $10,000 on the Madison meeting, which was blackballed by Ryan, even though I had invited both him and Steve Jones to be speakers.
I have participated in hundreds of interviews about 9/11 on radio and television, including a 3.5 hour appearance on television in Athens in December 2006, which was broadcast worldwide by satellite, speaking in New York in 2007 and in 2008, traveling to Buenos Aires for 9/11 presentations in 2008 and 2009, and organizing a London symposium on “Debunking the ‘War on Terror’” just this past summer. But, none of that matters to Kevin Ryan, who insinuates that I have an agenda to spread false information about 9/11, which is apparently based, at least in part, on his misunderstanding of a philosophical disagreement. This means that, when he attacks me, the truth simply doesn’t count.
Ryan’s Attack
Since Parry was condemning the 9/11 truth movement, while I was defending it, that Ryan should attack me for doing so is most peculiar. Acknowledging that mine is the only response to Parry that has been published he says I “did not contribute to any of the research he claims as ‘our research’, and apparently cannot even spell Parry’s name or the name of the company that I worked for in his continued efforts to spread false information. The article also makes wild assertions that are not supported by evidence, such as–“…every claim the government has made about 9/11 is false.” I took a look to figure out what he was talking about and found that they were either trivial or false.
The name “Parry” appears nine or ten times in the article, and in one instance, I had it as “Perry”. I had also referred to Kevin Ryan’s former place of employment, as “Underwriters Laboratory”, where, strictly speaking, it is “Underwriters Laboratories, Inc.” I was curious about his allegation that I had made a “wild assertion” in saying that, “… every claim the government as has made about 9/11 is false”. When I took a closer look, I discovered that he replaced the word “virtually” with “…”, which is not the act of an honest critic. Indeed, since my rebuttal is devoted to elaborating major falsehoods advanced by the government, based upon research by the members of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and previous research, as I observe in “Why doubt 9/11?”, what’s wrong with calling it “our research”?
My JFK Research
Kevin was not satisfied to trash me for trivialities but also claims that, when I founded Scholars in 2005, I was “known for some dubious contributions to the JFK assassination research community”. What he has in mind is beyond me. To the best of my knowledge, Kevin Ryan knows nothing about the death of JFK, where I organized a research group consisting of the best-qualified individuals to ever study the case in late 1992. We have discovered that the autopsy X-rays were altered, that another brain was substituted for JFK’s and that a home movie known as “the Zapruder film” was extensively edited. I have published these findings in three edited books, which Vincent Bugliosi, who defends the lone gunman theory, has described as “the only three exclusively scientific books” on the JFK assassination. Our work has been encompassing and of exceptional scientific significance.
As an indication that others do not share Kevin Ryan’s dismal assessment of our work, MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA (2000), which has chapters from nine contributors, was reviewed by George Costello for THE FEDERAL LAWYER, a professional journal for attorneys who work for the federal government, who practice before federal agencies, or who appear in federal courts. His take, which you can read for yourself, is decidedly at odds with Kevin’s dismissal as “dubious contributions”. He concludes,
It is time for people of integrity who were involved in the official investigations -- especially the professionals -- to take a good-faith look at the new evidence and confront the likelihood that their conclusions were based on falsified data. Murder in Dealey Plaza may not be the last word on the medical evidence, but it should be the starting point for a fresh look -- not only at the medical evidence, but also at the assassination and its implications.
Costello would later write to me that he had even received an award of recognition for his review. But what I do not understand is why Kevin Ryan would hazard opinions about research on a topic that, if anything, may be even more complex and convoluted than research on 9/11. That does not strike me as a responsible approach for someone who wants to be taken seriously, especially when I have been pioneering the application of scientific reasoning to controversial political events like these.
My 9/11 Research
Some of my most recent JFK articles are “US Government Official: JFK Cover-Up, Film Fabrication”, “Forrest Gump on the grassy knoll”, and “Who’s telling the truth: Clint Hill or the Zapruder film?” As in the case of my JFK research, which has focused on its most challenging aspects, especially with respect to separating authentic from inauthentic evidence, my research on 9/11 has focused on the most challenging aspects of that case, too. Thus, I have studied what happened at the Pentagon, the causal mechanisms by which the Twin Towers were destroyed, and the possible use of video fakery in New York. My research has included “What Didn’t Happen at the Pentagon”, “An Analysis of the WTC on 9/11”, and “New Proof of Video Fakery on 9/11”. It is common knowledge Kevin Ryan’s society, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, shuns those who, like me, study the Pentagon and video fakery.
Even though Pilots for 9/11 Truth has concluded that the FDR data it obtained from the NTSB shows that a plane flew toward the Pentagon on a different trajectory and too high to have hit any of the lampposts and, rather than crashing into the building, swerved over it—for which there is a great deal of evidence—Kevin Ryan and his friends are intolerant of anyone who suggests that no plane hit the Pentagon. Indeed, there is also no evidence that a plane crashed in a field in Shanksville. Even though Elias Davidsson has shown the government has never proven the hijackers were aboard any of those planes and David Ray Griffin has established that all of the alleged phone calls were faked, Kevin’s society refuses to even consider questions they raise for the prospect of “phantom flights”.
The Scholars Breakup
Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice not only proscribes the study of video fakery (or “no planes”) but it also insists that thermite in one or another of its forms is the crucial ingredient for explaining the demolition of the Twin Towers. I am sure that Kevin took a dim view of my agreement with Parry on the point that thermite does not seem promising as an explanation of the demolition of the Twin Towers for the reason that it is an incendiary, not an explosive. For thermite to be explosive, it has to be combined with explosives, where the same could be said of toothpaste. That has long been my opinion, which is no secret within the 9/11 research community. I have given critiques of his theory during 9/11 conferences as well as elsewhere, such as “The Manipulation of the 9/11 Community”.
It was my growing conviction that thermite was most unlikely to be able to provide an explanation for the destruction of the Twin Towers that was behind the separation of Scholars at the end of 2006 and the creation of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, which entailed corrupt activities by those trying to wrest the control of Scholars from me, including the misrepresentation of my views, which continues to this day, but also by conducting a phony poll of the members while feigning to be the “membership administrator” and freezing our original web site at st911.org, even though I had been responsible for posting every item that ever appeared there, which forced me to create a new web site at 911scholars.org, where the history of these events has been archived on Scholars home page.
Kevin’s Distortions
Kevin claims, for example, that, less than one year after founding the society, “just before the 5th anniversary of the attacks” when media attention was at its peak, “Fetzer began speaking publicly about space beams destroying the WTC and other such nonsense”. He also faults me for a radio interview with Judy Wood, Ph.D., which occurred on 11 November 2006 when I was about to speak in Tucson. With her degrees in structural engineering, applied physics, and materials engineering science, I regard Judy as among the best qualified students of 9/11 in the world today. A former professor of mechanical engineering, she introduced her theory that directed energy weapons may have been employed on 9/11 during during our conversation on the radio. I found her conjecture fascinating because it opens an unconventional approach toward understanding the events of 9/11.
Since 11 November is two months after 11 September, I have no idea where Kevin comes up with this stuff, but factual accuracy does not appear to be an important desideratum for him. I do not know to this day whether Wood is right, but her web site (at drjudywood.com...) sets a high standard in accumulating evidence about the data that an adequate theory would have to explain, including the conversion of the Twin Towers into millions of cubic yards of very fine dust, the peculiar kinds of damage that were sustained by WTC-3, WTC-4, WTC-5, and WTC-6, and the oddity of the “toasted cars”. While I have advocated the study of DEWs—along with nukes, lasers, masers, and plasmoids—I have not endorsed them because we still do not know how it was done. And I should add that Kevin and his colleagues are certainly not in the position to know that Judy Wood is wrong.
The Exchange
What set him off in composing this blog appears evident from what occurred on a discussion thread between January 26th and 28th 2011. Kevin began by expressing dismay over my article criticizing Robert Parry by remarking, “Oh God, not Fetzer again.” He was immediately countered by Ben Collet, who replied, “Kevin Ryan’s reputation as a scientifically-minded 9/11 activist has, unfortunately, taken a big hit with this snide comment about one of the most important voices in the 9/11 truth movement.” Not to be outdone, Kevin responded with a partial transcript of my interview from 11 November 2006 in which I expressed fascination with Judy’s theory. He was again countered by Ben:
Ryan's citation of this four year old interview demonstrates only that Dr. Fetzer starts with the appropriate attitude of the truth-seeker who is employing the scientific method. That is he exhibits curiosity and openness to a new idea. Nowhere does he say Judy Wood is correct, he simply evinces an honest curiosity to hear her views. This is the true scientific approach. Unfortunately others who do not have Dr. Fetzer's familiarity with the scientific method think it is enough to denounce unpopular views as heretical without even listening to them. Dr Fetzer has a PhD in the philosophy of the scientific method.
Kevin’s Defense
Kevin responded by offering an exaggerated version of my position, which makes it easier to attack, and ridiculed him for supporting me: "Ben"s support for Fetzer's claim that space beams destroying the WTC is "the most fascinating development in the history of the study of 9/11" is interesting.
"Oh Really?? Oh ho ho ho ho! Oh Ben. Oh my oh my oh my oh my. This is huge ... this is huge Ben."
He added, “See attached for an article on the value of false information, written by Fetzer and presented in a conference one month before 9/11/01. Fetzer doesn't have any peer-review scientific articles on the attacks of 9/11. But he does know the value of false information.”
Ben replied, Kevin Ryan misrepresents Dr. Fetzer's position. Fetzer never has said he supports "space beams", only that he supports the study of space beams and other theories of how it was done. This is the appropriate attitude to take until we figure out the actual method used. . . . In writing, "9/11 Truth is No Parlor Game", Dr. Fetzer is defending the 9/11 movement against an attack from a widely admired investigative journalist, Robert Parry. It is unfortunate that Ryan feels compelled to belittle and misrepresent the person who has so ably defended the truth against Parry's lies.
Another Response
While I am sure he was not pleased with Ben’s comments, I imagine that another response from mlkjeldsen was even less warmly received, since it cut to the core of his attack upon my article:
Kevin,
I do not mean to attack you, because I consider your actions to be heroic and your tenacity
inspiring. But I have two questions.
Number one, after going back and reading Jim’s piece a second time, I found nothing to be
untrue or disinformative. I found it to be a quality refutation of a piece of garbage written
by a scoundrel. Did you find any flaws?
Number two, our phony president, while addressing the phony congress and the rest of the
phony government actually made a joke about the sexual assault that the TSA carries out
against us everyday. There are blimps surveilling us. The country is divided into ten FEMA
regions. The economy is being collapsed on purpose. The noose is being tightened around
our collective neck. How does, let’s be honest, attacking Jim Fetzer help us to reach the
critical mass of informed citizens that we need to hold off this tyranny? This is a war of
government against freedom, plain and simple. He, like you and I, is reaching people with
this message—is he not?
Kevin’s response was almost guttural:
He has been reaching people with space beams and holograms and false information for many years. Please don't promote it. It is the problem.
To which he would subsequently add:
The most influential article relating to this topic that he wrote is the paper on the value of false information, which Fetzer presented at a conference in August 2001. Why would an expert on false information, who has made no serious contributions to the truth movement, be seen as worthy of our attention let alone be welcomed as a champion of truth?
Thank you, Ben and Mike, for reminding me of the power that false information still has in the 9/11 truth movement. I will turn my attention to this problem again, and write it up.
Kevin’s Misconceptions
As I have already explained, I have not been endorsing “space beams” or “holograms” but promoting their study. The hologram hypothesis to explain the video fakery in the footage of Flight 175 hitting the South Tower—where the plane is traveling at an impossible speed, entering the building in clear violation of Newton’s laws, and passes through its own length into the building in the same number of frames it takes to pass through its own length in air—is one of at least three possibilities, where the other two are the use of computer-generated images or the use of video compositing. Unless you have studied the issues involved here, it may sound a bit far-out.
But how are we going to understand “the pivotal event of the 21st century” if we are not allowed to study the evidence and explore alternative explanations? Kevin’s attitude is not only unscientific but is virtually illiterate. The hardest part of scientific inquiry—which involves stages of PUZZLEMENT, SPECULATION, ADAPTATION (of hypotheses to evidence) and EXPLANATION—is figuring out all of the possible alternative explanations. Premature closure at this stage (by excluding hypotheses that seem too unusual, unconventional, or politically incorrect) can consign an investigation to failure by excluding the true hypothesis for consideration on inappropriate grounds. That, in my opinion, has been the case with Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice with regard to the possible use of directed energy weapons or the possible use of sophisticated technology to create images of a plane that isn’t really there—as the absence of strobe lights above and below the fuselage and on its wingtips implies. But the most bewildering aspect of Kevin’s assault concerns his attacks upon me for (what he claims to be) the use of false information, which is a massive confusion.
False Information.
The differences between me and Professor Floridi concern whether or not truth is a condition for something (reports, photos, evidence) to qualify as “information”. In other words, we are engaged in a classic philosophical debate over how a word should best be understood in order to clarify and illuminate its use within various contexts in which it might occur. He maintains that, for something to qualify as “information”, it has to be true, which I deny. I argue that, for every assertion, there is a denial, where we can be presented with those assertions from alternative sources. As I see it, we are being presented with information and have to figure out which is true and which is not. According to Floridi, however, we would not even know if one other the other of these assertions were “information” unless we knew that it was true.
As it happens, I have published two papers, one on this question and another on the nature of misinformation and of disinformation. I argue that misinformation is information that is false, where disinformation occurs from the deliberate dissemination of false information with the intention to deceive or mislead an audience. Think how awkward it is to even talk about “false information” if you have presupposed that, to qualify as information, it has to be true. This is another reason for rejecting Floridi’s approach. It creates very awkward—even incoherent—uses of language in talking about false information, if that means talking about the falsity of what we have already implied is true merely by calling it “information”. So I think Floridi’s approach has no merit and have offered my reasons for holding that position in these articles:
"Information: Does it Have to be True?", Minds and Machines 14/2 (May 2004), pp. 223-229.
"Disinformation: The Use of False Information", Minds and Machines 14/2 (May 2004), pp. 231-240.
Kevin’s Confusion
Imagine my astonishment when I read in Kevin’s blog that, “In this paper, Fetzer argues that false information (including disinformation) is just as meaningful as true information, implying that false information has just as much value as true information.” He further maintains that, according to Fetzer and his colleagues, “spreading and using false information (more precisely, misinformation, if the source is unaware of its falsity, or disinformation, if the source is aware and uses/spreads it on purpose, precisely because it is false) is perfectly fine and acceptable”! I must say that in my entire adult life I have never read such drivel, which has no basis in my work other than drawing a distinction between information, misinformation and disinformation. We are dealing with a man who has a diminished capacity for drawing conceptual distinctions.
To say that information, misinformation and disinformation are “equally meaningful” does not mean “that false information has just as much value as true information”! No one in their right mind would make such a claim. The point about meaning is that I define “information” as meaningful data, where the meaningfulness of data is not a function of its truth. If we are told my one source, “It is going to rain”, and by another, “It is not going to rain”, they cannot both be true but they are both meaningful! The problem that we confront in every area of inquiry is to sort out the claims that are both meaningful and true from those that are instead meaningful but false. Truth itself can even be defined as beliefs that provide us appropriate guidance for actions in the world, where, when our beliefs are true, actions based upon them are more likely to be successful than if they are false. Their value is enormously different!
What’s the Deal?
In this blog, Kevin Ryan asserts that, “This paper challenged the work of a professor at Oxford University by the name of [Luciano] Floridi, who like most honest people, contends that, since information is data that changes what we do, only true information that helps us respond to our world accurately and effectively has value.” He then contends that, “When contacted by 9/11 researchers who suspected Fetzer of being a propenent and purveyor of false information, Floridi confirmed that Fetzer was effectively arguing for the use of false information. Floridi responded that the arguments of Fetzer and his colleagues suggest that – “spreading and using false information (more precisely, misinformation, if the source is unaware of its falsity, or disinformation, if the source is aware and uses/spreads it on purpose, precisely because it is false) is perfectly fine and acceptable”. But there is no reason Floridi woud make such claims.
That Kevin Ryan did not know his first name, Luciano, suggested to me that this was a false report. In spite of our philosophical disagreement, Luciano and I are friends, so I wrote him to ask if he had made such a claim to 9/11 researchers. He replied that, “I'm afraid I had not recollection of being contacted by any 9/11 researcher, but before writing to you I wanted to check my computer. It also does not have any recollection. So I might be wrong (it happens more often than I like to think), and my computer might be wrong (but it is a beautiful new iMac after all), but it seems more plausible to think that there was no contact at all. I do answer tens of emails a day, so who knows, but I would remember, I think, and there should be a trace in my mail, at least of my reply. But nothing, no biological or artificial memory of any of this.” So it may be that one of us—deliberately or not—really is trading in false information.
Bringing It Home
On the basis of a gross misunderstanding of my position, Kevin contends, “Facts and evidence indicate that the use of false information to derail the 9/11 truth movement is a reality despite the inability of leading 9/11 researchers to admit such a possibility. With unsubstantiated claims of space beams, video fakery and holograms, Fetzer and his colleagues have taken advantage of the fact that many Americans are scientifically illiterate. These evil parlor games give influential professionals like Robert Parry, who are already psychologically challenged and fearful of the topic, additional reasons to ignore all t he evidence and spout off about the issues with little or no understanding.” Which is especially ironic, since, in this very blog, Kevin Ryan is spouting off about me and my positions, even philosophical ones, with little or no understanding. And nothing would give me greater pleasure than to discuss these things in a public forum. I therefore extend an invitation—a challenge, if you like—to debate these issues over the radio.
Once again, we see that Kevin wholly ignores the difference between STUDYING A POSITION and ADVOCATING A POSITION. I do not know how the Twin Towers were destroyed, but I do know that Judy Wood has advanced an interesting hypothesis. I don’t know if holograms were used to perpetrate video fakery, but I do know that the weight of the evidence supports it. And I have no doubt at all that no Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon, for which there is abundant and compelling evidence. But don’t ask Kevin Ryan, because he won’t even consider them. How, I have to ask, could I be dedicating my life to sorting out the differences between authentic and inauthentic evidence regarding JFK and 9/11 were I not profoundly committed to discovering the truth? And why would I even care, if I held the absurd views that Kevin attributes to me? As a philosopher, I care about truth. As a former Marine Corps officer, I care about my country. And, as a philosopher of science, I know that scientific investigations are our most reliable means for for discovering truth. One of us has lost his way and is betraying the movement, but it isn’t me.
1 February 2011
edit on 1-2-2011 by JimFetzer because: (no reason given)
Well there's no reason that people should be throwing out the baby with the bath water. Whether he did it or not doesn't really matter, the message
that he very much helped spread is far more important.
9/11 Truth Is No “Parlor Game”
Jim Fetzer
A disturbing article on ConsortiumNews.com, “The 9/11 Truth Parlor Game” (15 January, updated 16 January 2011), by Robert Parry, advances the indefensible theory that the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was affected by the shooters interest in 9/11 truth. While there are good reasons to suspect that the political climate nurtured by the right wing may have influenced him (by targeting a series of representatives using the cross-hairs of a telescopic site, for example), there is no reason to believe than anyone associated with the 9/11 truth movement has targeted any members of Congress—other than attempting to expose them to the evidence that research has unearthed, which has shown that virtually every claim the government has made about 9/11 is provably false.
As the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a society of experts and scholars from many different disciplines, including pilots, physicists, structural, mechanical and aeronautical engineers, we have established more than twenty refutations of the government’s official account, including what NIST has had to say about these events, which does not satisfy even minimal standards of scientific acceptability. In this article, for example, Perry maintains that the collapse of the Twin Towers was assured “effect once the beams were weakened by the impact of the planes and the heat from the fires.” But NIST studied 236 samples of steel it selected from the debris and discovered that 233 had not been exposed to temperatures above 500*F and the other three not above 1,200*F, temperatures far below what would have been required for the steel to weaken, much less melt.
One of the most remarkable features of the destruction of the Twin Towers is that the top 30 floors of the South Tower began to pivot before the building was blown to pieces, floor by floor. This refutes the claim that they were “collapsing”, insofar as those top 30 floors were not in the position to exert any downward force that might have brought about a collapse. The South Tower was hit second but was the first to be demolished after only an hour of exposure to fires at 500*F, which is the temperature of ordinary office fires.. If that were enough to cause steel and concrete buildings to “collapse”, there would be no need for resorting to controlled demolitions. In fact, no steel structure high-rise ever collapsed due to fire before 9/11 or after 9/11. And if our research is well-founded, that did not happen on 9/11 either. It is part of the mythology of 9/11 brought to us by Philip Zelikow, whose area of academic specialization is the creation and maintenance of public myths.
Since Underwriters Laboratory had certified the steel used in the buildings to 2,000*F for three or four hours without incurring any adverse effects by either weakening or melting, the fires could have burned forever and not have caused the towers to collapse. Jet fuel is made of kerosene, which burns at a lower temperature than propane; yet, as Jesse Ventura has observed, his camping stove, which burns propane, does not melt when he uses it. Since the fires were asymmetrically distributed, moreover, if they had burned hot enough or long enough to have caused the steel to weaken, the result would have been some asymmetrical sagging and tilting, not the complete, abrupt and total demolition that occurred. Which means that Parry is trading in 9/11 fiction, not 9/11 fact.
He also denies that WTC-7, a 47-story skyscraper that came down at 5:20 PM, seven hours after the Twin Towers were destroyed. It fell in approximately 6.5 seconds, which is about the speed of free fall, a classic indication of a collapse that was brought about by a controlled demolition. Many experts have found the pattern of collapse supports that conclusion. A very nice video that demonstrates this to be the case, “This is an Orange”, refutes his allegation that it was because the building had a large atrium that it collapsed as fast as free fall. That ignores the fact that the entire building was extremely robust in construction, having been erected over two massive electrical generators providing back-up electricity for lower Manhattan. This building obviously came down as the result of a controlled demolition, which is why so many in the 9/11 truth community emphasize WTC-7.
He also talks about a vast number of witnesses seeing a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon and talks about phone calls that were made from the planes. David Ray Griffin, however, has discovered that all of the alleged phone calls from all four of the planes were faked. None of them were real. And Pilots for 9/11 Truth had studied the black box data provided to them by the NTSB and discovered that a plane corresponding to the data would have approached on an easterly trajectory, been 300 feet in the air approaching the building (too high to have taken out any lampposts) and was still 100 feet higher than the Pentagon at one second from impact, which suggests that it flew over the building and did not hit it. Indeed, the absence of massive debris from the plane, including the absence of the wings, the tail, bodies, seats and luggage—not to mention that the massive engines, which are virtually indestructible, were never recovered—indicates that, once again, it is Parry who is propagating myths about 9/11, not 9/11 experts.
While the thrust of Parry’s piece is clearly intended to discredit 9/11 research, he makes at least one important point, which is that we have not yet succeeded in sorting out exactly how all of this was done. The Twin Towers appear to have been taken out by some novel form of demolition from the top down, where, in contrast to WTC-7, each floor remained stationary waiting its turn to be blown to Kingdom come. They, too, came down at approximately free fall speed, which is simply astounding since, in the case of the South Tower, everything below the 80th floor was stone cold steel, as was the case for the North below the 94th floor. There was no reason for them to collapse at all, where their destruction involved the astounding conversion of two massive, 500,000-ton buildings into millions of cubic yards of very fine dust. While the use of thermite has been advanced to explain it, Parry appears to be correct that thermite does not have the explosive
properties that would be required to effect this dramatic physical tranformation.
Persons like Parry and others, such as Michael Shermer, would have the public believe that conspiracy theories are almost always false, as though the United States were an exception to the experience of other nations. What would William Shakespeare have had to write about were it not for plots against the kings and queens of England? What 9/11 apologists like Shermer and Parry do not point out is that conspiracies only require two or more persons acting together to bring about an illegal end. If the official account of 19 Islamic fundamentalists seizing control of these four aircraft, outfoxing the most sophisticated air defense system in the world, and perpetrating these atrocities under the control of a guy in a cave in Afghanistan were true, it would be a conspiracy theory, too. Indeed, it appears to be the one that is the most easily falsified of them all. So if we are going to discuss “the pivotal event” of the 21st Century, we are going to have to study conspiracy theories to determine which of them is true and which are false.
Parry claims that the Tucson gunman was affected by 9/11 truth and became enraged at images of Bush and Cheney, who, as we all know, lied to us about the reasons for attacking Iraq and later Afghanistan. There were no weapons of mass destruction; Saddam was not seeking yellowcake from Niger; and Iraq was not in cahoots with al Qaeda. Indeed, Bush himself would eventually admit that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, just as our own FBI had acknowledged that it has “no hard evidence” connecting Osama to the 9/11 attacks. For those who want to learn more about the truth of 9/11, I arranged for a symposium in London this past summer, which was held at Friends House on 14 July 2010. You can view our presentations, including “Are Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan justified by 9/11?”, here. Everyone who knows the truth should be angry with the Bush and Cheney administration, which has lied to us about it. But there is no reason to think that any of this had had anything to do with the Tucson event, where the difference between someone's interest in 9/11 and their reasons for acting as they do requires more careful discrimination.
Jim Fetzer, a former Marine Corps officer who earned his Ph.D. in the history and the philosophy of science, is McKnight Professor Emeritus on the Duluth campus of the University of Minnesota. He co-edits assassinationresearch.com with John P. Costella and is, most recently, the editor of The Place of Probability in Scienceˆ, his 29th book.
Jim Fetzer
A disturbing article on ConsortiumNews.com, “The 9/11 Truth Parlor Game” (15 January, updated 16 January 2011), by Robert Parry, advances the indefensible theory that the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was affected by the shooters interest in 9/11 truth. While there are good reasons to suspect that the political climate nurtured by the right wing may have influenced him (by targeting a series of representatives using the cross-hairs of a telescopic site, for example), there is no reason to believe than anyone associated with the 9/11 truth movement has targeted any members of Congress—other than attempting to expose them to the evidence that research has unearthed, which has shown that virtually every claim the government has made about 9/11 is provably false.
As the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a society of experts and scholars from many different disciplines, including pilots, physicists, structural, mechanical and aeronautical engineers, we have established more than twenty refutations of the government’s official account, including what NIST has had to say about these events, which does not satisfy even minimal standards of scientific acceptability. In this article, for example, Perry maintains that the collapse of the Twin Towers was assured “effect once the beams were weakened by the impact of the planes and the heat from the fires.” But NIST studied 236 samples of steel it selected from the debris and discovered that 233 had not been exposed to temperatures above 500*F and the other three not above 1,200*F, temperatures far below what would have been required for the steel to weaken, much less melt.
One of the most remarkable features of the destruction of the Twin Towers is that the top 30 floors of the South Tower began to pivot before the building was blown to pieces, floor by floor. This refutes the claim that they were “collapsing”, insofar as those top 30 floors were not in the position to exert any downward force that might have brought about a collapse. The South Tower was hit second but was the first to be demolished after only an hour of exposure to fires at 500*F, which is the temperature of ordinary office fires.. If that were enough to cause steel and concrete buildings to “collapse”, there would be no need for resorting to controlled demolitions. In fact, no steel structure high-rise ever collapsed due to fire before 9/11 or after 9/11. And if our research is well-founded, that did not happen on 9/11 either. It is part of the mythology of 9/11 brought to us by Philip Zelikow, whose area of academic specialization is the creation and maintenance of public myths.
Since Underwriters Laboratory had certified the steel used in the buildings to 2,000*F for three or four hours without incurring any adverse effects by either weakening or melting, the fires could have burned forever and not have caused the towers to collapse. Jet fuel is made of kerosene, which burns at a lower temperature than propane; yet, as Jesse Ventura has observed, his camping stove, which burns propane, does not melt when he uses it. Since the fires were asymmetrically distributed, moreover, if they had burned hot enough or long enough to have caused the steel to weaken, the result would have been some asymmetrical sagging and tilting, not the complete, abrupt and total demolition that occurred. Which means that Parry is trading in 9/11 fiction, not 9/11 fact.
He also denies that WTC-7, a 47-story skyscraper that came down at 5:20 PM, seven hours after the Twin Towers were destroyed. It fell in approximately 6.5 seconds, which is about the speed of free fall, a classic indication of a collapse that was brought about by a controlled demolition. Many experts have found the pattern of collapse supports that conclusion. A very nice video that demonstrates this to be the case, “This is an Orange”, refutes his allegation that it was because the building had a large atrium that it collapsed as fast as free fall. That ignores the fact that the entire building was extremely robust in construction, having been erected over two massive electrical generators providing back-up electricity for lower Manhattan. This building obviously came down as the result of a controlled demolition, which is why so many in the 9/11 truth community emphasize WTC-7.
He also talks about a vast number of witnesses seeing a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon and talks about phone calls that were made from the planes. David Ray Griffin, however, has discovered that all of the alleged phone calls from all four of the planes were faked. None of them were real. And Pilots for 9/11 Truth had studied the black box data provided to them by the NTSB and discovered that a plane corresponding to the data would have approached on an easterly trajectory, been 300 feet in the air approaching the building (too high to have taken out any lampposts) and was still 100 feet higher than the Pentagon at one second from impact, which suggests that it flew over the building and did not hit it. Indeed, the absence of massive debris from the plane, including the absence of the wings, the tail, bodies, seats and luggage—not to mention that the massive engines, which are virtually indestructible, were never recovered—indicates that, once again, it is Parry who is propagating myths about 9/11, not 9/11 experts.
While the thrust of Parry’s piece is clearly intended to discredit 9/11 research, he makes at least one important point, which is that we have not yet succeeded in sorting out exactly how all of this was done. The Twin Towers appear to have been taken out by some novel form of demolition from the top down, where, in contrast to WTC-7, each floor remained stationary waiting its turn to be blown to Kingdom come. They, too, came down at approximately free fall speed, which is simply astounding since, in the case of the South Tower, everything below the 80th floor was stone cold steel, as was the case for the North below the 94th floor. There was no reason for them to collapse at all, where their destruction involved the astounding conversion of two massive, 500,000-ton buildings into millions of cubic yards of very fine dust. While the use of thermite has been advanced to explain it, Parry appears to be correct that thermite does not have the explosive
properties that would be required to effect this dramatic physical tranformation.
Persons like Parry and others, such as Michael Shermer, would have the public believe that conspiracy theories are almost always false, as though the United States were an exception to the experience of other nations. What would William Shakespeare have had to write about were it not for plots against the kings and queens of England? What 9/11 apologists like Shermer and Parry do not point out is that conspiracies only require two or more persons acting together to bring about an illegal end. If the official account of 19 Islamic fundamentalists seizing control of these four aircraft, outfoxing the most sophisticated air defense system in the world, and perpetrating these atrocities under the control of a guy in a cave in Afghanistan were true, it would be a conspiracy theory, too. Indeed, it appears to be the one that is the most easily falsified of them all. So if we are going to discuss “the pivotal event” of the 21st Century, we are going to have to study conspiracy theories to determine which of them is true and which are false.
Parry claims that the Tucson gunman was affected by 9/11 truth and became enraged at images of Bush and Cheney, who, as we all know, lied to us about the reasons for attacking Iraq and later Afghanistan. There were no weapons of mass destruction; Saddam was not seeking yellowcake from Niger; and Iraq was not in cahoots with al Qaeda. Indeed, Bush himself would eventually admit that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, just as our own FBI had acknowledged that it has “no hard evidence” connecting Osama to the 9/11 attacks. For those who want to learn more about the truth of 9/11, I arranged for a symposium in London this past summer, which was held at Friends House on 14 July 2010. You can view our presentations, including “Are Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan justified by 9/11?”, here. Everyone who knows the truth should be angry with the Bush and Cheney administration, which has lied to us about it. But there is no reason to think that any of this had had anything to do with the Tucson event, where the difference between someone's interest in 9/11 and their reasons for acting as they do requires more careful discrimination.
Jim Fetzer, a former Marine Corps officer who earned his Ph.D. in the history and the philosophy of science, is McKnight Professor Emeritus on the Duluth campus of the University of Minnesota. He co-edits assassinationresearch.com with John P. Costella and is, most recently, the editor of The Place of Probability in Scienceˆ, his 29th book.
Figuring out how it was done is a very difficult problem. It was not a classic
controlled demolition, because it went from the top down and there were no
pancakes when it was over, where each floor remained stationary waiting its
turn to be blown to Kingdom come. WTC-7, by contrast, was a classic CD,
where all the floors fell at the same time and there was a stack of pancakes
equal to about 12% of the height of the original building. When we figure it
out. I'll let you know. You might find drjudywood.com... interesting.
controlled demolition, because it went from the top down and there were no
pancakes when it was over, where each floor remained stationary waiting its
turn to be blown to Kingdom come. WTC-7, by contrast, was a classic CD,
where all the floors fell at the same time and there was a stack of pancakes
equal to about 12% of the height of the original building. When we figure it
out. I'll let you know. You might find drjudywood.com... interesting.
Originally posted by JimFetzer
The Misadventures of Kevin Ryan
It is a sad day when you have to use a public forum such as ATS to attack a high-profile, and well-respected member of the 9/11 truth movement. A thread such as this is more suited for your blog than a place like this.
But, suffice it to say, your attempts to attack or discredit him will fall on deaf ears. People here aren't going to care that he's attacked you or disagrees with you.
Originally posted by JimFetzer
As it happens, I am the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth
You misstated this part. I'll charge that you did it deliberately. It was you and Dr. Steven Jones that founded "Scholars" together. Then the real scientists decided to separate from "Scholars" and create "Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice". They were running from the disinformation theories that now plague the backside of the 9/11 truth movement.
And for the sake of having a source:
Scholars for 9/11 Truth
The original Scholars for 9/11 Truth, founded by James H. Fetzer and Steven Jones on December 15, 2005, was a group of individuals of varying backgrounds and expertise who rejected the mainstream media and government account of the September 11 attacks.
Initially the group invited many ideas and hypotheses to be considered, however, leading members soon came to feel that the inclusion of some theories advocated by Fetzer—such as the use of directed energy weapons or small nuclear bombs to destroy the Twin Towers—were insufficiently supported by evidence and were exposing the group to ridicule. By December 2006, Jones and several others set up a new scholars group titled Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, whose focus was in the use of the scientific method in analysis. The original members took a vote on which group to join and the majority voted to move to the new group.
And the most important part of all:
Source
By 2007, James Fetzer had been openly rejected by the 9/11 Truth Movement, banned from and criticized on popular forums and no longer invited to public 9/11 events.
Originally posted by JimFetzer
But, none of that matters to Kevin Ryan, who insinuates that I have an agenda to spread false information about 9/11
And he'd be 100% correct. Whether it be you, Woods, or any other person who spread the DEW or no-planes/CGI/video fakery disinformation, it is false information and has damaged the credibility of the 9/11 truth movement. But you already know that as you are one of those that are doing the damaging.
Originally posted by JimFetzer
It is common knowledge Kevin Ryan’s society, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, shuns those who, like me, study the Pentagon and video fakery.
Oh it's not just Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice that "shuns" you and those that peddle the DEW or video fakery disinformation, it's the entire 9/11 truth movement. Not one single research organization in the 9/11 truth movement supports DEW or video fakery. Most have gone so far as to ban the discussion from their websites and forums altogether.
Others can check out my thread here for more info:
DEW/Energy Weapons? Holograms? TV Fakery? No Planes at the WTC? -- A 9/11 Disinfo Campaign
Originally posted by JimFetzer
Kevin Ryan and his friends are intolerant of anyone who suggests that no plane hit the Pentagon.
Maybe because all available evidence suggests that a plane did hit? All witnesses saw a plane, and many saw a plane hit. There was aircraft debris present.
Does that plane have to be a 757? No. I don't think it's possible that a 757 struck. I think a smaller plane struck, but there was still a plane that struck the Pentagon.
Originally posted by JimFetzer
Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice not only proscribes the study of video fakery (or “no planes”)
That's because there's absolutely zero verifiable, provable evidence of video fakery or that no planes struck the towers on 9/11.
Originally posted by JimFetzer
but it also insists that thermite in one or another of its forms is the crucial ingredient for explaining the demolition of the Twin Towers.
I'm fairly certain that they do not insist that therm*te was a "crucial" ingredient for explaining the demolition of the towers. All they say is that therm*te was present. Nobody knows where or in what fashion it may have been used, but it's easy to speculate where and for what purpose it was used. Conventional explosives were the "crucial" ingredient for bringing down the towers and WTC 7.
Originally posted by JimFetzer
It was my growing conviction that thermite was most unlikely to be able to provide an explanation for the destruction of the Twin Towers that was behind the separation of Scholars at the end of 2006 and the creation of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice
Is this yet another deliberately false statement by you? I already posted above that the separation of the real scientists from the disinformationists was due to the topics of "DEW" and "video fakery". Dr. Jones has even confirmed this point before. And there are many of us that were around then to remember when the separation happened and why.
You won't be taken seriously if you skew the truth. Of course, you're not taken seriously anywhere in the truth movement anyways, so it's not a big shocker.
Originally posted by JimFetzer
With her degrees in structural engineering, applied physics, and materials engineering science
Yet she can't quote her own numbers from her own papers when asked about them. She has to have the materials in front of her to read off of, or she doesn't know anything about her "own research".
Originally posted by JimFetzer
I regard Judy as among the best qualified students of 9/11 in the world today.
And you and her can start your own "movement", but neither your work nor hers will ever be part of the 9/11 truth movement where real research, and the scientific method is exercised.
Originally posted by JimFetzer
she introduced her theory that directed energy weapons may have been employed on 9/11 during during our conversation on the radio
All without one single, solitary, scientific, repeatable, provable shred of evidence. Exactly like the "video fakery" disinformation.
Originally posted by JimFetzer
And I should add that Kevin and his colleagues are certainly not in the position to know that Judy Wood is wrong.
Would you mind explaining how they are not in the position to know whether Wood is wrong? There seems to be many papers and debunkings of her "work". I posted several of them in my thread above.
Originally posted by JimFetzer
I don’t know if holograms were used to perpetrate video fakery, but I do know that the weight of the evidence supports it.
Would you mind starting a separate thread and posting this "weight of the evidence" that supports video fakery? Because to this day, not one single person that has peddled the video fakery disinformation, has provided any provable, repeatable, definitive evidence of video fakery.
There's also a moderated debate forum here at ATS. If you would like to debate the subject of video fakery/no planes at the WTC, I'd be more than happy to oblige. There has been only one such debate on that subject thus far and yours truly was the winner of that debate. Here's the link to the debate of the one and only debate on the subject no-planes and video fakery.
Originally posted by JimFetzer
One of us has lost his way and is betraying the movement, but it isn’t me.
Then it is all too bad and unfortunate that you can't see past your own denial and ignorance. It is, in fact, you that has lost your way. You used to be one of the persons I looked up to early on in the truth movement back in those days. The "space beam weapons" and "video fakery" disinformation ruined that. And it still destroys your credibility to this day.
Until you shed your association with topics like the above, you will never be taken seriously.
reply to post by JimFetzer
Your resume. Excepting, of course, youtube videos and the evening news, from where do you derive you expertise with regard to controlled demolition.?
Just as information, I managed the demolition of over 250 structures from riverport grain elevators to bridges to, well, wood shacks.
As it happens, I am the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a former Marine Corps officer, a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton and a Ph.D. in the history and the philosophy of science.
Your resume. Excepting, of course, youtube videos and the evening news, from where do you derive you expertise with regard to controlled demolition.?
Just as information, I managed the demolition of over 250 structures from riverport grain elevators to bridges to, well, wood shacks.
i really must question your motives,,,,,
you joined within a week to post this,,,,, in the hopes of persuading people to your side
this seems like a jr high popularity contest,,,, and you two trying to increase people on each side of the divide
you've never seemed to think ATS was important enuff to join before and share your important research and advance or inform others on this site which 9/11 plays a huge role
but now over a squabble for ego,,, and over semantics of opinion and ego,,, you've come to ATS wanting our support???
you've got to bring more than that,,,, many here are well informed and easily pick out agenda's over sincere motives , moving forward for the good of all involved, and truth
you joined within a week to post this,,,,, in the hopes of persuading people to your side
this seems like a jr high popularity contest,,,, and you two trying to increase people on each side of the divide
you've never seemed to think ATS was important enuff to join before and share your important research and advance or inform others on this site which 9/11 plays a huge role
but now over a squabble for ego,,, and over semantics of opinion and ego,,, you've come to ATS wanting our support???
you've got to bring more than that,,,, many here are well informed and easily pick out agenda's over sincere motives , moving forward for the good of all involved, and truth
Originally posted by JimFetzer
The Misadventures of Kevin Ryan
Jim Fetzer
In what has to be one of the more bizarre twists of fate in relation to the 9/11 truth movement, Kevin Ryan, whom I have admired in the past, has attacked me for criticizing an article by Robert Parry in “9/11 Truth is No ‘Parlor Game’.” Ryan had already expressed his displeasure that I had responded to Parry’s trivialization of the truth movement in a thread on the bloggerbrigade and was apparently taken aback when some of those on the thread responded negatively to his assault on me. When I was invited to reply and exposed certain shortcomings in his false and defamatory attacks, he left the thread saying that he was going to “write it up”. His latest blog, "Why Robert Parry is Right about 9/11 Truth", is the outcome.
This is regrettably neither bizarre nor even surprising. The main force driving the 9/11 conspiracy movement isn't sincere research or a drive to learn the facts of 9/11, because let's face it, sincere research and a drive to learn the facts WON'T lead you to think the planes were holograms, there were nukes in the basement, the attack was staged by secret cults of Satan worshipping numerlogists, or whatever. The main force driving the 9/11 conspiracy movement is simply abject paranoia and the emotional outlet the movement gives the conspiracy mongors.
I have said from day one that the vast majority of people believing there's some sinister plot afoot are those who believe the 9/11 attack is simply the latest in a long string of OTHER secret plots- the moon landing being faked, chemtrails, the South Korean destroyer being sunk by a US submarine to frame North Korea...and your own JFK assassination threads. They have such an emotional attachment for these theories to the point where they will embrace them with the same mindless zealotry of a religious fanatic and any criticism against their theories is perceived as a personal attack upon themselves, and they will respond in kind.
So, what did you expect to happen? He's so much in love with these conspiracy claims and he posted this material with the same pride that a mother has for her newborn...and they YOU come along and slam it. He WANTED his conspiracies to be true and he became miffed that you wouldn't play along. The proof is in the pudding- you people keep claiming that I'm the one who's a sheeple, and yet you can insult Bush all the live long day and I don't mind in the least. How do you explain that contradiction?
reply to post by _BoneZ_
Well, that was enlightening....
Let me see if I have the actors' roles straight, in this comedy play....
This "Jim Fetzer" conspired with THE Steven Jones ?? (of sloppy research "thermite/themate" non-exploding "explosions" ---- the "hush-a-boom" guy?) to form that silly club, originally? That Steven Jones??
Aahhhhhh....so much is becoming ever more clear. Harder and harder to keep the cast of characters in mind, and how their roles interact.
Well, that was enlightening....
Let me see if I have the actors' roles straight, in this comedy play....
This "Jim Fetzer" conspired with THE Steven Jones ?? (of sloppy research "thermite/themate" non-exploding "explosions" ---- the "hush-a-boom" guy?) to form that silly club, originally? That Steven Jones??
Aahhhhhh....so much is becoming ever more clear. Harder and harder to keep the cast of characters in mind, and how their roles interact.
edit on 2 February 2011 by weedwhacker because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by weedwhacker
reply to post by _BoneZ_
Well, that was enlightening....
Let me see if I have the actors' roles straight, in this comedy play....
This "Jim Fetzer" conspired with THE Steven Jones ?? (of sloppy research "thermite/themate" non-exploding "explosions" ---- the "hush-a-boom" guy?) to form that silly club, originally? That Steven Jones??
Yes, whenever it's proven that it isn't a comspiracy (I.E. Dr Wood's "lasers from outer space" claims) it only means it's proof that it really IS a conspiracy (I.E. Dr. Wood is a gov't disinformation agent spreading falsehoods to discredit the truthers).
It's quickly becoming a pattern that the 9/11 conspiracy people don't particularly care what the actual conspiracy is, just as long as there is one.
Some of those posting here have no idea what they are talking about:
Robert Parry ATTACKED the 9/11 Truth movement as a "parlor game":
(1) "The 9/11 Truth Parlor Game"
consortiumnews.com...
I responded to Robert Parry by DEFENDING the 9/11 Truth movement:
(2) "9/11 Truth is No 'Parlor Game'"
jamesfetzer.blogspot.com...
Kevin Ryan responded by ATTACKING ME instead of Robert Parry:
(3) "Robert Parry is Right about 9/11 Truth"
visibility911.com...
11-truth/
I replied by explaining how KEVIN HAD COMPLETELY MISSED THE BOAT:
(4) "The Misadventures of Kevin Ryan"
jamesfetzer.blogspot.com...
I won't bother tol emphasize that those defending Kevin for attacking me are
completely off-base. THEY NEED TO ACTUALLY READ THE EXCHANGE.
I thought everyone at ATS had TRUTH uppermost in their minds and NOT
9/11 POLITICS. I had no control over when this happened to occur, one
more indication of the LACK OF THOUGHT of some of those posting here.
Robert Parry ATTACKED the 9/11 Truth movement as a "parlor game":
(1) "The 9/11 Truth Parlor Game"
consortiumnews.com...
I responded to Robert Parry by DEFENDING the 9/11 Truth movement:
(2) "9/11 Truth is No 'Parlor Game'"
jamesfetzer.blogspot.com...
Kevin Ryan responded by ATTACKING ME instead of Robert Parry:
(3) "Robert Parry is Right about 9/11 Truth"
visibility911.com...
11-truth/
I replied by explaining how KEVIN HAD COMPLETELY MISSED THE BOAT:
(4) "The Misadventures of Kevin Ryan"
jamesfetzer.blogspot.com...
I won't bother tol emphasize that those defending Kevin for attacking me are
completely off-base. THEY NEED TO ACTUALLY READ THE EXCHANGE.
I thought everyone at ATS had TRUTH uppermost in their minds and NOT
9/11 POLITICS. I had no control over when this happened to occur, one
more indication of the LACK OF THOUGHT of some of those posting here.
How would you know what "sincere resarch" will disclose until you actually conduct it? Much of my point is that Kevin Ryan, whom I have previously
admired, has attacked me when I AM DEFENDING THE 9/11 MOVEMENT on the basis of rumors and speculations that have no foundation. You, apparently,
think it's OK for him to attack me for spreading "false information" on the basis of his complete misunderstanding of a subtle dispute between
professional philosophers. This post appears to have been inspired by reading a single paragraph--not by weighing and balancing the evidence. If you
can't do better in a very simple case like this where all the relevant evidence is contained in four posts--links to which I have provided--then the
chance that you are going to be able to figure out what happened to JFK or to this country on 9/11 are nil. This is not rocket science. I have really
expected more intelligence here on ATS.
reply to post by weedwhacker
reply to post by weedwhacker
reply to post by JimFetzer
Ah, there's the problem. It is rocket science. Well, maybe not rocketscience, but it is science and engineering and logic. And that's why all this stuff is one big fail. Endless science fiction that would make L. Ron Hubbard proud.
This is not rocket science.
Ah, there's the problem. It is rocket science. Well, maybe not rocketscience, but it is science and engineering and logic. And that's why all this stuff is one big fail. Endless science fiction that would make L. Ron Hubbard proud.
Well, this is interesting. I published a piece that DEBUNKED Robert Parry for vitiating the 9/11 Truth movement. I was then ATTACKED by Kevin Ryan
on the basis of shoddy arguments that displayed no knowledge of me or my positions. I then REBUTTED Kevin's unjustified attack by explaining where
he went wrong. Now you ATTACK me for rebutting Ryan and commit many of the same blunders that he committed. That was not a worthy performance from
Kevin and it is unworthy of you.
I spent 35-years teaching logic, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning, including how to avoid elementary fallacies. Doesn't it strike you as THE LEAST BIT ODD that, when I DEFEND THE 9/11 MOVEMENT, Kevin Ryan ATTACKS ME? Now, if I had it coming, that would be fine. But his attack is based upon RUMORS AND SPECULATIONS, such as that I ADVOCATE "SPACE BEAMS" when I only ADVOCATE THEIR STUDY. If you can't do better than this, you are wasting your time here.
I identify evidence supporting video fakery in my rebuttal--the impossible speed, the entry into the building in violation of Newton's laws, and the plane passing through its own length into the building in the same number of frames that it passes through its own length in air, which implies that a 500,000-ton steel and concrete structure provided no more resistance to the planes trajectory than air. I cite a article where I discuss all of this, "More Proof of Video Fakery on 9/11", in case you didn't notice.
I also observed in passing that we have additional proof that the plane shown is not real from the absence of any strobe lights on the top or bottom of its fuselage and on its wing tips. Maybe you know more than I about airplanes, but I don't know of any real plane that could perform those feats and do so without strobe lights. My inference is that your imagination is too limited to realize that what we are seeing has to be faked, either by the use of computer-generated images, video compositing, or a hologram.
So why don't you take a good look at the evidence and explain what we have wrong. Our only advantage over you in a case like this is that we have been studying the evidence and you have not. That, alas, is all too common in the 9/11 truth community, where many (like you?) are merely "hangers on" or "9/11 truth groupies". I have really expected more from from on ATS. Posts like yours, however, are suggesting that perhaps I was mistaken and had excessive expectations for reason and rationality on this forum .
reply to post by _BoneZ_
I spent 35-years teaching logic, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning, including how to avoid elementary fallacies. Doesn't it strike you as THE LEAST BIT ODD that, when I DEFEND THE 9/11 MOVEMENT, Kevin Ryan ATTACKS ME? Now, if I had it coming, that would be fine. But his attack is based upon RUMORS AND SPECULATIONS, such as that I ADVOCATE "SPACE BEAMS" when I only ADVOCATE THEIR STUDY. If you can't do better than this, you are wasting your time here.
I identify evidence supporting video fakery in my rebuttal--the impossible speed, the entry into the building in violation of Newton's laws, and the plane passing through its own length into the building in the same number of frames that it passes through its own length in air, which implies that a 500,000-ton steel and concrete structure provided no more resistance to the planes trajectory than air. I cite a article where I discuss all of this, "More Proof of Video Fakery on 9/11", in case you didn't notice.
I also observed in passing that we have additional proof that the plane shown is not real from the absence of any strobe lights on the top or bottom of its fuselage and on its wing tips. Maybe you know more than I about airplanes, but I don't know of any real plane that could perform those feats and do so without strobe lights. My inference is that your imagination is too limited to realize that what we are seeing has to be faked, either by the use of computer-generated images, video compositing, or a hologram.
So why don't you take a good look at the evidence and explain what we have wrong. Our only advantage over you in a case like this is that we have been studying the evidence and you have not. That, alas, is all too common in the 9/11 truth community, where many (like you?) are merely "hangers on" or "9/11 truth groupies". I have really expected more from from on ATS. Posts like yours, however, are suggesting that perhaps I was mistaken and had excessive expectations for reason and rationality on this forum .
reply to post by _BoneZ_
What is not "rocket science" is reading four articles and figuring out who is right. But apparently even that is beyond you. Twisting meanings and
ignoring distinctions makes you a prime candidate for membership in the "Kevin Ryan School of False Information". He accuses me of trading in false
information, but almost everything he says about me IS FALSE. If I am not going to tolerate nonsense from the government about 9/11, I am not going to
tolerate it from members of the movement--or from groupies of Kevin Ryan like you here on the ATS forum!
reply to post by hooper
reply to post by hooper
reply to post by JimFetzer
Groupie of Kevin Ryan?
Please, my sides are killing me. If you don't get it by now - I think you are both more than a few sandwiches shy of a picnic. Spacebeams, holograms, TV fakery, melting steel.
Groupie of Kevin Ryan?
Please, my sides are killing me. If you don't get it by now - I think you are both more than a few sandwiches shy of a picnic. Spacebeams, holograms, TV fakery, melting steel.
Among the many false remarks you make is to deny that I founded Scholars. When I decided to found it, I invited Steve to be my co-chair, which he
agreed to do. I founded the society by means of a post founding it, in which I explained that I had invited Steve to serve as my co-chair. At one
point, I removed him from supervising the Scholars' forum.
How do you know which society is the "more scientific"? Even Steve has an inadequate conception of science as a process of forming an hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, gathering data and submitting it to a peer-reviewed journal. But that is a flawed conception, since hypotheses have to be tested against their alternatives.
I explained all of this in "The Manipulation of the 9/11 Community", which can be found archived on Scholars by going to 911scholars.org... and scrolling down to "The Science of 9/11". It is there about 3/4 of the way down the page as the transcript of a two-hour radio program during which I critiqued his views.
You do understand that I have a Ph,D, in the history and the philosophy of science and that I spent my 35-year career teaching logic, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning? That doesn't mean I have to be right, but it might suggest that there it more than a remote possibility that I actually am right.
reply to post by _BoneZ_
How do you know which society is the "more scientific"? Even Steve has an inadequate conception of science as a process of forming an hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, gathering data and submitting it to a peer-reviewed journal. But that is a flawed conception, since hypotheses have to be tested against their alternatives.
I explained all of this in "The Manipulation of the 9/11 Community", which can be found archived on Scholars by going to 911scholars.org... and scrolling down to "The Science of 9/11". It is there about 3/4 of the way down the page as the transcript of a two-hour radio program during which I critiqued his views.
You do understand that I have a Ph,D, in the history and the philosophy of science and that I spent my 35-year career teaching logic, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning? That doesn't mean I have to be right, but it might suggest that there it more than a remote possibility that I actually am right.
reply to post by _BoneZ_
Does this kind of mindless blather pass for your conception of an argument? Read my posts and respond with logic and evidence, if you can. I am
confident you are posing without any idea of what you are talking about. I don't want to insult you, but your posts are drivel.
reply to post by hooper
reply to post by hooper
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