Architects and Engineers Eh?
I recently made a series of seven videos on YouTube critical of the 9/11 truth movement. The videos included footage of truthers (a person affiliated with the truth movement) I talked to outside ground zero on September 11th 2012. I have over three hours of footage and most of it was left on the cutting room floor. One of claims repeatedly made by the truthers that never made the final cut was that they had over 1,500 architects and engineers who have signed a petition because they were critical of the official explanation. The petition can be found on the website architects & engineers for 9/11 truth. The people who signed this petition are demanding a new investigation to uncover the full truth surrounding the events of 9/11 - specifically the collapse of the world trade centre and building 7, as they believe there is sufficient doubt about the official story to justify reopening the 9/11 investigation. For not addressing this claim I invited a lot of negative angry comments stating that I must be wrong because so many trained professionals have put their names to this petition.
Although 1,500+ people may sound like a lot you have to remember that this petition has been open for 11 years in both America and Canada who have population of over 311 and 34 million respectively. But at least they have 1,500+ qualified architects and engineers, or do they? It turns out that they are allowing students to sign their petition who by definition are not qualified. The deception does not stop there as they allow a good number of Chemical Engineers, Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineers, Electronics & Communication engineers and Computer Engineering to come onboard and sign. But at least they have engineering in the title. However, when you find out that they also allow Physicists, Chemists and Mathematicians to sign then you realise how small a number 1500 actually is. When you read that they allow people with bachelor of Fine Arts to sign then you realise how much of a joke this website and the people who use it in an argument are.
Myles Power 
…Inane chatter. Miles, you cannot escape the fact that the list is overwhelmingly made up of building professionals, only 12 of whom are registered as ‘students’. Of the various unrelated engineering trades you listed, there are in fact just 35 chemical, 5 biomedical, 12 electronic, 5 communication, and 25 computer engineers, which collectively make up just 4.5% of its 1750+ person membership!
I hope you also realise that those who ONLY have expertise in the fields of physics, chemistry, mathematics, etc are required to register on a SEPERATE list? Or that the petition has only been available since mid 2006, when AE911Truth was founded? Or that the process of authenticity (verifying an individuals credentials) is so strenuos that some applicants are deterred from applying in the first place? I suppose you weren’t betting on your audience going and doing their research! Sorry, but that is a weakness that truthers have long since evolved past.
And yes, while the number of architects and engineers who have signed on to the petition is small (at least in comparison with the number of building professionals across the US), judgements of AE911Truths scientific merits based on their membership is ultimately missing the point: There is a significant minority of architects and engineers who have grave doubts about the reports that were officially sanctioned by the US government, and that fact should receive the FULL attention of so called skeptics.
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New studies: ‘Conspiracy theorists’ sane; government dupes crazy, hostile
July 12, 2013
http://www.blacklistednews.com/New_studies%3A_‘Conspiracy_theorists’_sane%3B_government_dupes_crazy%2C_hostile/27293/0/38/38/Y/M.html
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I take it you didn’t read the actual study yourself, and you took that misleading pages word for it only. Convenient that they didn’t link it, isn’t it?
I’ve re-read the actual study again. And I’ll copy/paste what’s undeniably relevant.
“With the advent of the Internet, they [conspiracy theories] have become more visible than ever. Although the psychological literature on conspiracy belief has a relatively short history, with most of the relevant research having been conducted only within the past twenty years, it has revealed a great deal regarding individual differences between those who generally believe conspiracy theories (whom we call “conspiracists”) and those who prefer conventional explanations (whom we call “conventionalists”). Conspiracy beliefs have been shown to be positively correlated with mistrust of other people (Goertzel, 1994) and authorities (Swami et al., 2010); feelings of powerlessness and low self-esteem (Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999); superstition, beliefs in the paranormal, and schizotypy (Darwin et al., 2011); a perceived lack of control (Hamsher et al., 1968; Whitson and Galinsky, 2008; a Machiavellian approach to social interaction (Douglas and Sutton, 2011)”
Okay. None of that is anything new, and none of it a surprise.
And to summerise…
“In sum, our results are in agreement with predictions derived from prior research. Consistent with much of the existing literature on individual differences associated with conspiracy belief, comments that supported 9/11 conspiracy theories were more likely to express mistrust and to refer to other conspiracy theories favorably. Conspiracists were less overtly hostile than their conventionalist counterparts, and did not appreciate being called conspiracy theorists. Perhaps most importantly, however, the finding that conspiracists spend more time arguing against official explanations than for alternative explanations supports the idea that the conspiracy worldview is based more on disbelief than on positive belief.”
The following part in particular, which as stated above, agrees with prior research, above that….
“The coherence of the conspiracist belief system is driven by higher-order considerations such as a disbelief in official narratives, rather than positive beliefs in particular alternative narratives. This result also agrees with previous informal observations by conventionalist commentators, who devote a great deal of time to examining and debunking conspiracy theories. One tactic which conventionalists often accuse conspiracists of using is “anomaly hunting”:
They [conspiracists] imagine that if they can find (broadly defined) anomalies in that data that would point to another phenomenon at work. They then commit a pair of logical fallacies. First, they confuse unexplained with unexplainable. This leads them to prematurely declare something a true anomaly, without first exhaustively trying to explain it with conventional means. Second they use the argument from ignorance, saying that because we cannot explain an anomaly that means their specific pet theory must be true. I don’t know what that fuzzy object in the sky is—therefore it is an alien spacecraft (Novella, 2009).”
Need I say more? The page you linked is highly misleading.
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Anyone who has watched the documentaries produced by A&E for 9/11 Truth come away with sickening feeling deep in their gut because you don’t need to be an engineer to see right through many of the government’s lies. I support A&E for 9/11 Truth and I will continue to support them until Hell freezes over or the people who are really responsible for 9/11 are brought to justice. For those who walk away from Richard Gage’s documentaries feeling a bit uneasy yet angry, I promptly introduce them to the collective works of investigative journalist Christopher Bollyn whose 10-year research project culminated in the publishing of his book, “Solving 9/11: The Deception that Changed the World”.
Clearly the Israeli government needs to be held accountable along with their minions who reside in the United States. Remember the USS Liberty? How can we forget? How can we allow them to get away with cold-blooded murder and still call them an ally?
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Is it possible that all three buildings collapsed directly into their own footprints? Building 7 did not have raging fires within it, and the fires were limited to one end of the building. Yet, it collapsed from the penthouse down.
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