Solid Debunking of WTC7 Theories

First of all, I have to say I don't appreciate your way of discussing your side of the argument. Instead of stating your knowledge or quoting relevant parts of the article, you simply throw a 136 page report at us and declare; 'Duh! Here's my side of the argument'. That is like a lawyer discussing the law and simply throwing a book on the table and stating 'My point is in that document somewhere, find it"

But anyway I am just going to analyze the first words in the document you suggested. I didn't get into the full document of course and I would not take the time to go through the whole document line by line.

The document starts with:

Did firefighters abandon their fallen brothers
to help real estate developer Larry
Silverstein demolish a skyscraper?

The idea that the firefighters were involved in demolishing the WTC7 is ridiculous, I don't know anybody who would put forward such a ridiculous theory. But by making the reader thing this is what the truth movement is all about, the writer can more easily build up a straw man and make us look bad.

Conspiracist Alex Jones and other 9/11 “Truth
Movement” leaders

First of all, we are not "conspiracists", that would imply we are involved in the crime (if "conspiracists" were in fact a word)
But anyway, the only difference between you and I is that I believe our own government along with powerful private interests conspired to commit 9/11 while you believe 19 extremist terrorists conspired to commit 9/11. If you want to pertain I am a "conspiracy theorist", you have to accept the very same label

gather at Ground Zero and
accuse Silverstein of murder

Yup! That much is true.

and FDNY heroes
of heinous crimes, lies and cover-ups.

Now, you see, he does it again, he claims that we are trying to turn "heroes" into bad people when nothing could be further from the truth. I don't know ANYONE within the truth movement who blames the firefighters. In fact, some firefighters have denounced the criminal practices and the obvious foul play going on around the events of 9/11. But again, the writer is building a very poorly constructed straw man. It's very easy to win an argument when you misrepresent your opponent, isn't it?

I have to say I quickly skimmed over the document and I am absolutely flabbergasted at how much mud slinging this guy does, just about every one from the truth movement he mentioned was rather badly misrepresented and dragged in slander and mud. I didn't go further than page 12 and half of those pages were aimed at ridiculing those the writer decided are "the heads of the CTs"

Anyway Doctor Fungi, I know you have been feeling like nobody on this list likes you, but that isn't my position. I really would like to chat with you one on one and I don't have the private messenger thing so I really would appreciate if you contacted me off list at [email protected]

Cheers and don't eat yellow snow (trust me on that and do't ask how I know this)
PepeLapiu

[edit on 21-11-2006 by Pepe Lapiu]

I also never graduated from school,nor do I have any engineering degrees.But I have done some labor work on metal buildings and understand how they are erected.All of that don't matter,all you need is common sense to know building 7 did not fall from fire or anything BUT demolition.Its just common sense ,nothing but.As for the supporters of the official 9/11 story,call me a nut,ct'er crackpot or whatever you like,I'll never believe those buildings came down at freefall speed due to fire.

That you didn't go to school too long might actually be a blessing. My dad was a Civil Engineering teacher for 25 years at a college in my hometown and when I showed him the videos of WTC7 collapse, he shrugged his shoulders and claimed fire could very well destroy a building in this manner. Sometimes knowledge can transform into indoctrination and brainwashing.

You see, for my Civil Engineer dad to accept that WTC7 was a controlled demolition would have required him to throw away all his preconceptions and his comfortable (and dare I say blissful) ignorance so he rejected the truth because it is simply too difficult for him to acknowledge it.

I think some people may actually be afraid of the truth.I know it would be hard to swallow if the US government were behind 9/11,but I would want to know the TRUTH no matter what.It makes me wonder,whats next?A nuke?

I want the opportunity to show that WTC7 could have fell by fire and structural damage. I want to prove to myself that there were no explosives. Funny thing is, I can't. Without structural documents, these types of arguements are useless. DoctorFungi, unless there is a structural analysis in this document, all it is is name calling.

Please, if anyone knows of someone who has done an analysis, let me know. I'd like to take a look at it. I'm going to do some structural calcs myself, but at the moment I don't have a minute to spare. I have to re-learn everything I learned in college in the next 5 months. I'm taking the PE exam in April. After that, I want to do some calcs. I might do some calcs as part of my studying, but don't hold your breath for that. Anyway, has anyone come accross someone who actually HAS done some structural calculations?

Originally posted by Pepe Lapiu
That you didn't go to school too long might actually be a blessing. My dad was a Civil Engineering teacher for 25 years at a college in my hometown and when I showed him the videos of WTC7 collapse, he shrugged his shoulders and claimed fire could very well destroy a building in this manner. Sometimes knowledge can transform into indoctrination and brainwashing.

Pepe...your dad was an Engineering teacher for 25 years. He saw the videos you showed him. His professional opinion (just by looking at the video's) was that it could very well happen that way.

Are you saying that all the students your father taught in his 25 years were all brainwashed? Your Dad you claim brainwashed all his students? Can you please explain?

Originally posted by Pepe Lapiu
You see, for my Civil Engineer dad to accept that WTC7 was a controlled demolition would have required him to throw away all his preconceptions and his comfortable (and dare I say blissful) ignorance so he rejected the truth because it is simply too difficult for him to acknowledge it.

Did your father actually think about it or was he just like "yeah, yeah...conspiracy theory"? The way he went about it is important. Most engineers (including me) have respect for agencies like the NIST and ASCE. It's hard for us to even think about questioning them. Most engineers haven't thought beyond what has been told to them. I went along with the official theory for a while, until I really started to research it. Anyway, could you ask your father how a building falls in about 8 seconds with zero resistance due to fire and structural damage. Please let him know that all the damage was on the south face also. Why wouldn't it fall to the south instead of falling in on itself? Thanks and I await your father's answers.

Originally posted by Griff

Did your father actually think about it or was he just like "yeah, yeah...conspiracy theory"? The way he went about it is important. Most engineers (including me) have respect for agencies like the NIST and ASCE. It's hard for us to even think about questioning them. Most engineers haven't thought beyond what has been told to them. I went along with the official theory for a while, until I really started to research it. Anyway, could you ask your father how a building falls in about 8 seconds with zero resistance due to fire and structural damage. Please let him know that all the damage was on the south face also. Why wouldn't it fall to the south instead of falling in on itself? Thanks and I await your father's answers.

I don't think by any means that my dad was a bad teacher or a bad engineer for that matter either. Now I tried having the talks you pointed out with him but the simple truth is that he has, like most people, the capacity to understand the cover up of 9/11. But like most people, his whole sense of self, his values and his conception of the world are so ancored into the sheeple mentality that any conversation, even a very logical one, that leands him to the truth is only going to piss him off.
It's not easy for a 60 year old man to realize the way he saw the world for the last 60 years is a complete lie. Understanding that 9/11 was an inside job requires for us to understand that the whole system, including every single news paper, TV channels and radio stations are covering it up. That is a rather big pill to swallow for my dad and others like him so he just decides to completely ingnore me when we get too close to a conclusion.

Now, don't ask me to get some calcs out of him, he'll just bend the laws of physics to explain away how it all was real as CNN told him.

Originally posted by Pepe Lapiu
Now, don't ask me to get some calcs out of him, he'll just bend the laws of physics to explain away how it all was real as CNN told him.

I totally understand. This is what many of the engineers who agree with the NIST are like. They agree with it without even looking into it. How can he justify thinking the official story is true without doing a single calculation? No offense to your father, I'm sure he's a wonderful man. Also, I didn't mean to suggest he was a bad teacher. If I did, I appologize.

Originally posted by Pepe Lapiu

You see, for my Civil Engineer dad to accept that WTC7 was a controlled demolition would have required him to throw away all his preconceptions and his comfortable (and dare I say blissful) ignorance so he rejected the truth because it is simply too difficult for him to acknowledge it.

Are you sure that's the reason he doesn't accept that WTC 7 was a CD?

Are you sure it wasn't that his 25+ years of studying and teaching engineering gave him enough experience to tell that it is entirely possible for badly damaged buildings to collapse?

Originally posted by LeftBehind
Are you sure it wasn't that his 25+ years of studying and teaching engineering gave him enough experience to tell that it is entirely possible for badly damaged buildings to collapse?

Engineer or not, how could he come to that conclusion when there is no precedence for a steel frame building to collapse vertically into it's own footprint, from anything but controlled demolition ever in the history of buildings?

Did he do some research and find new evidence, if so where is it?

Obviously what Pepe Lepui said is closer to the truth.

Originally posted by ANOK
how could he come to that conclusion when there is no precedence for a steel frame building to collapse vertically into it's own footprint, from anything but controlled demolition ever in the history of buildings?

There is no precedence for any 100+ story building being deliberately hit by a large commercial airliner, this is not law. To deny something like this, simply because it hasn't happened before, is akin to claiming that flight is impossible before the wright brothers.

The whole statement is really a logical fallacy or "non-sequiter" as some call it.

"A building falls down. A bombed building falls down. All buildings that fall down require bombs."

It does not follow.

Originally posted by LeftBehind

Are you sure it wasn't that his 25+ years of studying and teaching engineering gave him enough experience to tell that it is entirely possible for badly damaged buildings to collapse?

My god Left Behind.. what a remarkable comment!

I mean I never knew buildings that were badly damaged could even collapse

Originally posted by LeftBehind

"A building falls down. A bombed building falls down. All buildings that fall down require bombs."

It does not follow.

There are more technicalities than that and you know it. People immature to the WTC 1,2 and 7 subjects may use that logic, but not as for those that have taken a deeper look however. It's just because out of what everyone has seen, read and acknowledged.. theres just no way World Trade Center 1, 2 and 7 could of fell as they did with the provided evidence and ACCORDING (that being the key word) to the Official Story.

By the way, this is no different than what Popular Mechanics did.. just a hit and run on the basic misunderstood aspects of the collapses and avoid any of the technical debates in hopes of downplaying the whole conspiracy aspect in that "OMGZ.. KNOWLEDGE IS LACKING DURRR, ENGINEERING DEGREES CLEARLY ARE REQUIRED" pshhh give me a break.

Doctor Fungi, if you want to argue specific aspects which seem to be key points of debate on this forum, PICK them out and Quote them and add your incite.. and as quoted above.. don't just throw it out there and be like:

LOL THIS IS THE ANSWER TO LIFE. READ (lawl)

No.

Originally posted by Masisoar

There are more technicalities than that and you know it.

What does that have to do with anything?
I was addresing a specific statement that basically amounted to:



No other building has fallen that way without bombs;
Therefore since those buildings fell that way, there were bombs.



Whatever you mean by technicalities in no way affects my specific response to a specific statemnent.

And what "technicalities" are you even talking about. So far the majority of demolition theories rely on the same logical fallacy;



No other building has fallen that way without bombs;
Therefore, since those buildings fell that way, there were bombs.


If you actually have some positive evidence for explosives being used then by all means present it.

If all you have is "coincidences" or "technicalities" then it all amounts to speculation and/or belief.

Originally posted by LeftBehind


If you actually have some positive evidence for explosives being used then by all means present it.

If all you have is "coincidences" or "technicalities" then it all amounts to speculation and/or belief.

Secondary Device - it doesn't specify WHAT it was.

The technicalities about the nature of the fires within the World Trade Centers (Temperatures, Exposure Time, Heat Capacities etc), Impact damage, collapse mechanisms, collapse observations. Those are technicalities, rather than just focusing on ill-thoughtful logic you posted.

Dr. Fungi, you may have good intentions in your post, but...

I'm no structural expert or anything, but too many things would seem to have to go right to cause three collapses like that. I don't think being a structural expert is necessary is a requirement. A little observation and thinking should be sufficient. I hate that we have to go through this stuff so many times, it's hard to argue with what you see in front of your own eyes. There is one big clue in one of the buildings collapses, that makes things suspicious. The top of the building starts to fall outward, but then suddendly the rest of the building falls neatly down underneat it. With what I can figure out, there should have been more weight on the side of the building that the top was falling toward, and less weight on the opposite side. The top of the building, maybe should have been out in the street, leaving a bunch of the building intact. The destruction maybe should have been a lot more sloppy and messy. This evidence is in the films for all to see. I think it may be a very significant piece of evidence all by itself. Someone with a structural background could study this more closely and see what they come up with.

Troy

Originally posted by LeftBehind
There is no precedence for any 100+ story building being deliberately hit by a large commercial airliner, this is not law.

"A building falls down. A bombed building falls down. All buildings that fall down require bombs."

It does not follow.

Like Masisoar says you're now ignoring all the other facts involved. Plus you missed the point of my post.

No one, whatever their expertise, could watch a video of a building collapse vertically onto itself, ejecting columns 600 ft and turning concrete, office furniture, people, into a fine dust and claim without ANY kind of research and conclude yes it's obvious that the planes/fire did it, when there is no precedence for this before.

Take your analogy, if you were living in the middle ages and you saw an aircraft fly overhead would you suddenly come to the conclusion that 'Oh it's just heavier than air flight, perfectly possible'. Of course not, you would be freaked out, and wouldn't believe what you were seeing. Because up to that point you wouldn't know it was possible. It would require a lot of research wouldn't it?

"A building falls down. A bombed building falls down. All buildings that fall down require bombs." Should be...
"A building falls down. A bombed building falls down. All buildings that fall down vertically to it's foundations with no resistance from undamaged floors, ejecting columns 600 ft and turning concrete, office furniture and people into a fine dust requires bombs".

You do not follow...

[edit on 22/11/2006 by ANOK]

If the building fall like a tree, Larry's legit, unfortunalty it didnt.

I know how you feel about the 147 pages paper you mention was probly over looked because alot of ppl here on ATS dont believe in the official theory. But Anok realy point out something in the previous post, ALL of the debunking take place totaly out of context, i mean there were a chain of unhappy event that day, trying to debunk all this point by point is irrelevant. Just think if ATS would reorganize everything under only one tread called 9/11. How many pages do you think could be filled with very high quality argument saying how deliberate the event of this day was?

I've seen ppl changing their mind here and only one side have expande , but i dont like the term side :/.


[edit on 22-11-2006 by eagle eye]