Attack of the Truthers!

The Intersection
By Chris Mooney
May 28, 2011 11:30 PMNov 20, 2019 5:40 AM

Newsletter

Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science news
 

Over on the Point of Inquiry forum thread for discussion of the show with Jonathan Kay, 9-11 Truther madness has descended. I also got a ticked off email from a Truther just now. Having never really dealt with them before, they are not making a good first impression. If you want to see an example of the capacity of human reasoning to go off the rails check this out:

Actually I think WTC7 is so obviously a demolition that it is boring. The obvious give away is how the roof line came down so simultaneously and remained so straight all of the way across the building. How could damage from the “collapse” of WTC1 create such ideal behavior? How could fire do it? It’s ridiculous to think such random phenomenon could cause such a precise result. At least airliners smashing into skyscrapers is interesting. OH yeah jet fuel. Sometimes known as kerosene. There were 34 tons of it. FEMA says about 50% of it was used up in the initial explosion. But how much mass are we talking about in the vicinity of the impact? They never tell us how much a complete floor assembly weighed. But it is easy to compute the weight of a concrete floor slab on the basis of dimensions and density. One concrete slab outside the core weighed 600 tons. How much all of the trusses and corrugated pans weighed I have never seen. I am guessing around 200 tons. There were 236 perimeter columns and 47 core columns. But we are completely missing data on the horizontal beams in the core. Now with each level 12 feet tall that means there were 564 feet of vertical steel in the core on each level. But the cores were 86 feet by 136 feet. Now the columns were not in an evenly spaced 6 by 8 grid with one missing. I have never seen the layout of the horizontal beams specified. But the length of horizontal steel should be about 8 * 86 + 6 * 136 or 1504 feet of steel. Much more than double the length of vertical steel. So how are we supposed to analyze whatever happened when we don’t even know the tons of steel on each level inside the core?

Give us more data! So that we can twist it and come up with new questions! Oh, and then there's this:

So which part of the CIA do you work for young Chris?

Yes, these people really do exist, and there is some woodwork somewhere that they come out of. And the worst part of it is, according to surveys they are more likely than not to share my own political persuasion! Blogging about conspiracies is not exactly an uplifting experience, folks. Not that I'm really surprised or anything...

1 free article left
Want More? Get unlimited access for as low as $1.99/month

Already a subscriber?

Register or Log In

1 free articleSubscribe
Discover Magazine Logo
Want more?

Keep reading for as low as $1.99!

Subscribe

Already a subscriber?

Register or Log In

More From Discover
Recommendations From Our Store
Stay Curious
Join
Our List

Sign up for our weekly science updates.

 
Subscribe
To The Magazine

Save up to 40% off the cover price when you subscribe to Discover magazine.

Copyright © 2024 Kalmbach Media Co.