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Politics : Bush-The Mastermind behind 9/11? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Don Earl who wrote (10036)2/17/2005 1:17:49 PM
From: LPS5  Respond to of 20039
 
Either that or a half wit, perhaps both.

As I said before: I'm sure he'd have to be a "government disinformation agent" to endorse a theory which doesn't quite embrace the idea that aircraft were not only flown into the towers, but were carefully guided into the floors just above where "explosives" were planted and, thereafter, detonated.

:-)

Why it is that academics tend to believe a small amount of knowledge, in a narrow field, qualifies them to speak authoritatively on subjects, far outside their fields of study[?]

A professor of Materials Engineering and Engineering Systems from one of the best engineering schools in the country isn't "qualifie[d]" to speak on the structural causes possibly accounting for the collapse of a building?

:-)

He first admits he doesn't know diddly squat about controlled demolitions...

Actually, he only says that he once raised a question: "Well, I once asked demolition experts, "How do you get it to implode and not fall outward?" They said, "Oh, it's really how you time and place the explosives."

...then proceeds to claim he knows more it about than the experts.

Actually, what he says is: "...I always accepted that answer, until the World Trade Center, when I thought about it myself. And that's not the correct answer. The correct answer is, there's no other way for them to go but down. They're too big. With anything that massive -- each of the World Trade Center towers weighed half a million tons -- there's nothing that can exert a big enough force to push it sideways."

Is this comment suggesting an assertion that he "knows more about [demolition] than the experts," or is he asserting that his original question was essentially disingenuous?

Moreover, what is to suggest that he, as expert in engineering, doesn't have an edge, in terms of knowledge and intuition, where demolition and the structural integrity of buildings are concerned?

If you want an opinion from someone who doesn't know diddly squat about controlled demolitions, why not ask a fry cook at McDonald's.

OK: Don Earl - when you have a moment - kindly put down your spatula and give me your opinion on the use of controlled demolitions in the collapse of the World Trade Center. (Thanks.)

If you want an opinion from an expert, you will have to find someone with expertise in demolitions.

I don't see why. Buildings collapsed; that's something we all know for sure. Consequently, people with expertise in immediately relevant disciplines - experts in structural, material, and (aspects of) civil engineering - are appropriate.

With no evidence that explosives were used, it is as much of a stretch to suggest that an individual with "expertise in demolitions" is required as it is to suggest that the opinion of a computer programmer, a medical doctor, or the aforementioned "fry cook" are relevant and/or required.

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