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My (rather long) thoughts in response to a friend's questions about how the World Trade Center was taken down by airplanes.

After 9/11 there had emerged a number of conspiracy theories contending that the collapse of the World Trade Center was not solely caused by the airliner crash that occurred as part of the September 11 attacks, along with the resulting fire damage. Instead, the argument was that the final demolition was due to explosives installed in the buildings in advance.

Because it involved conspiracy, I started with the history of an earlier theory based on conspiracy.

For years after JFK's assassination, many of us found it hard to believe that one man could have brought it off all by himself. This despite multiple government & non-government studies, the preponderance of which could find no solid evidentiary support for any other theory. Thirty years later, in 1993, the acclaimed lawyer and investigative reporter Gerald Posner published Case Closed which carefully and exhaustively reviewed the evidence for the official, single assassination theory as well as the “evidence” for the many alternate theories. Since reading that book in 1993, I have had no doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. However, I am in the minority – Gallup polls have also found that only 20-30% of the population believe that Oswald had acted alone.

This is due, I suspect, to the popularity of Oliver Stone's film JFK. I suspect that film may have convinced the prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi to update Posner's effort in his award-winning 2007 book, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia about the movie JFK :

Harry Connick, Sr., the New Orleans district attorney who defeated Garrison in 1973, criticized Stone's view of the assassination: “Stone was either unaware of the details and particulars of the Clay Shaw investigation and trial or, if he was aware, that didn't get in his way of what he perceived to be the way the case should have been.” In his book Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a history of the assassination published 16 years after the film's release, Vincent Bugliosi devoted an entire chapter to Garrison's prosecution of Shaw and Stone's subsequent film. Bugliosi lists thirty-two separate “lies and fabrications” in Stone's film and describes the film as “one continuous lie in which Stone couldn't find any level of deception and invention beyond which he was unwilling to go.” David Wrone stated that “80 percent of the film is in factual error” and rejected the premise of a conspiracy involving the CIA and the so-called military-industrial complex as “irrational.” Warren Commission investigator David Belin called the film “a big lie that would make Adolf Hitler proud”.

Nevertheless, most Americans subscribe to an astounding number of alternate – and debunked — theories. Check out Wikipedia's summary of JFK conspiracy theories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination_conspiracy_theories

I suspect we went through something similar with respect to the events of 9/11. Apparently a lot of people have trouble understanding or accepting that the towers could have been brought down by planes, or that their collapse could be so apparently orderly. However, the demolition theory – in my opinion – fails the 'Exposure' questions in the Conspiracy Theory Checklist (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory#Conspiracy_theory_checklist). Our government has engaged in conspiracies (the CIA torture camps, NSA bulk phone monitoring) — but whenever hundreds or thousands of folks are involved, it is very unlikely to keep it secret for very long. Probably the most successful US government conspiracy was the Manhattan Project – but that happened in special circumstances where almost everyone was highly motivated to keep the secret ... and the secret did not have to be kept all that long.

First, when there are competing interpretations of evidence, we must adhere to Ockham's razor (https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor) – the simplest explanation is the most likely. I suffested that if my friend didn't like the simplest explanation, he needed to seek evidence it does not explain. For everything he had asserted, I found it fairly easy to find credible, well-source alternate explanations, all of which appeared to be much simpler than the theory that the towers were subjected to thermite/thermate demolition.

Second, one should not be asked to prove a negative. If one asserts, for example, that the sound of explosions has been suppressed from videos, one must offer evidence to support that assertion. One may believe that is the truth in one's own heart of hearts, but one cannot in good faith ask others to prove that this suppression did not happen. When I google 'unedited footage of 9/11' I get 21,000+ results, of which 6000+ are videos. Given the number of cameras turned to the towers by professionals and amateurs — and given the open nature of the internet, it is really hard to believe the US government could edit & suppress all footage —– unless one believes the US controls our internet the same way the Chinese government does. But one would still have to prove that rather than asking others to prove it's not true, right?

I am not saying conspiracies don't happen. Of course they do. Conspiracy explanations are also, I think, psychologically easier for many folks than accepting almost random realities like the thought that a single, lone gunman actually managed to shoot JFK in a moving car from 265 feet with a bolt-action mail-order carbine in three shots discharged in 6 seconds. It's easier to think that many others had to be involved! If not, what does that say about how much other types of damage a single individual might be able to do? That's scary! Easier to believe a massive effort was required!

However, conspiracy theories have to adhere to Ockham's razor – what this means is laid out in great detail in the conspiracy theory probability checklist one will find at http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory. In my understanding, WTC demolition theory encounters major problems when evaluated by this checklist.

Some of what my friend was looking at was material promoted by “Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth” which claims to represent 1600 architects & engineers who could not believe a plane could bring down a WTC tower. WIthout disputing the number 1600 (though many do dispute it), I would simply note that the AIA has a US membership of 83,000 architects (http://www.aia.org/press/AIAS077761) . The NSPE estimates there are over 2 million engineers (http://www.nspe.org/resources/media/resources/frequently-asked-questions-about-engineering ). If one is familiar with Wikipedia's editorial process, one will already know it has a strong reputation for providing objective reporting on contentious topics. This is why I found the entry on “Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architects_%26_Engineers_for_9/11_Truth) very revealing.

So, as impressive as 1600 sounds, it pales in comparison to the total number of qualified professionals. It's easier for me to believe that 1600 professionals are misguided than it is to believe several million are ignoring or even actively suppressing the truth. This is, in my mind, similar to the number of climate change scientists who deny climate change as compared to the total number of climate scientists who are convinced the only unresolved questions are the pace & severity of change & what can be done about it.

OK, I'll stop.
For now. :–)

#100daystooffload Day 16.