> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Nick Arnett > Sent: Monday, September 18, 2006 9:43 AM > To: Killer Bs Discussion > Subject: Re: 9/11 conspiracies (WAS RE: What should we believe when there > is no reliable information?) > > On 9/17/06, Gautam Mukunda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > But for this type of > > conspiracy to have occurred - one in which the towers > > were destroyed by explosives inside the building, and > > then the evidence of this suppressed after the attacks > > - then literally thousands of people would have to be > > involved in the coverup, because that's how many > > people were involved in the investigation and/or have > > the skills to identify flaws in the published reports > > about the investigation. > > Now I understand what your reasoning. I didn't realize that you were > positing a vast coverup as part of all the conspiracy theories. > > Assuming that a large number of people can't be wrong about something > because they are smart and well-connected is a tautology.
I think that you are still missing the point, so let me try it again. Let me start with one example: Gautam's dad. He's a structural engineer. I think it is fair to say that one of the first instincts that a technical person like him or myself when faced with something like this is trying to understand it. In particular, when one's own area of expertise is involved, using that expertise to understand is all but instinctive. He wasn't well connected, he did not have inside information. He just knew the subject matter. There are thousands of structural engineers who should have been able to see the holes in the explanations of the collapse of the towers if the holes in the explanations were as big as claimed. The WTC collapse is at least one of the most, if not the most, studied building collapses in history. And, everyone but a few brave outsiders missed the obvious? Only in the movies can clever plotters take care of all the threads in an extremely complex plot. Puzzling clues are usually left. For tech folks, anomalies are to be pursued, even if one has no real candidate for what causes them. A grad. student in structural engineering doesn't need to believe that the WTC was brought down by bombs to conclude that the speed of the collapse was inconsistent with the basic numbers. Having been a technical grad. student, I know what is usually done in this case. First one goes over one's own numbers a few times....then if one can't see a flaw, one brings it to a trusted colleague. Then, if there still is inconsistency, several grad students look at it, then take it up the chain as a: "we might all be missing something, but on the surface....the numbers just don't add up." Heck, there already was a smoking gun for a secondary cause that everyone would be inclined to accept: shoddy workmanship by contractors who cut corners on the WTC....like the common understanding of the Big Dig. If there were stand down orders throughout the air force, unusual drills that just happened that day, or other parts of the plan....then a lot of folks should have noticed something really really odd....not just a few brave souls. If, as alleged, the AA planes that hit the WTC didn't really exist...because no plane hit the WTC, then what was going on with the crew and passengers? Going back to Gautam's friends, why did McKensey miss important clues in one of their most important tasks? Shouldn't they have noticed something, since they had access to primary information? This is where the numbers get into the thousands. A conspiracy like those portrayed would have had to leave clues that thousands should have noticed. > I think > there are many examples of large numbers of smart, well-connected > people who turned a blind eye to an inconvenient truth. It's true that even the brightest people can deny the elephant in the living room. But, this is not the same as a bright scientist denying the signs that his son is a drug addict, or the denial of the existence of well attending lynchings. I could see your argument more if noticing the clues would have required accepting a horrid reality behind the clues. If, as alleged, a few high placed people in government were in the process of overthrowing the Republic, then people might deny the evidence that would require them to accept that their trust had been horridly betrayed. But, in this case, the clues would have had to be denied by folks who didn't realize what the clues meant at the time. Significant emotional baggage is not associated with simply noticing that the numbers just don't add up. There is a lot of difference between stating that we still can't understand the mechanism of what happened and stating that GWB must have planned the whole thing. I'm pretty sure that Gautam's point is that, if there was a conspiracy, then many many people should have noticed something rather odd and unexplained in an area in which they had both professional experience and training. I think it's more like the claims of Creationists that, except for a brave few, people in biology are in denial...afraid to take their blinders off and accept the young earth as obvious. >Not that I > arguing that that's the case with 9/11... but I've generally found it > more profitable to question authority than to make the kind of > assumption that you are arguing. I'm not opposed to questioning authority, but I've noticed over the years that, if my hypothesis requires that all of the folks that came before me be absolute incompetents...even though they did nice work....that I can find a problem with my own work instead of theirs. Undergraduate physics labs often provide data that indicates gravitational anomalies....but I wouldn't place much faith in such results. The folks before me can be wrong, there can be a better way, but I've found that my advances usually involve something unique that I can bring to the table more than being the only competent person. Questioning authority is fine, but one needs to calculate probabilities of various groups being wrong in certain ways. For example, if you were to ask me if future generations will find the need to reduce modern physics to a special cases of better theories, I'd say yes. If you were to ask if the 2nd law of theromodynamics were to be repealed, I'd say no. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
