# "Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 6, 2016, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917 "2016-08-06T07:26:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/41 "2016-08-06T15:08:43Z")
At this point, the OP will have to display his commitment to reason before we commit to explaining. That’s only fair - him giving some indication this won’t be an utter waste of our time. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/42 "2016-08-06T15:10:44Z")
1,700 architects and engineers think there’s some kind of conspiracy. That means every other architect and engineer in the world think they’re wrong. Before you argue with me, consider the kind of logic that tiny minority of engineers and architects are using. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/43 "2016-08-06T15:11:47Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > BTW the statement “This topic has been done to death on the SDMB” implies that there has been a lot of interest in the topic including people who are supporting the conspiracy theories. On the other hand the David Icke reptilian theory probably hasn’t been “done to death” which provides more evidence about the “overwhelming consensus is that it’s conspiracy theory nonsense”. No, it implies there are some people who will believe anything. Real engineers looked at the evidence and determined that the floor joists exposed to heat sagged and pulled the vertical support beams inward. When the weight of the building above exceeded the lateral strength of the bent beams they collapsed domino style. The failure occurred at the point of impact and the point of impact was impossible to predict ahead of time which means there was no way conspire such a collapse ahead of time. building 7 was in the footprint of the twin towers collapse and suffered the same scenario of uncontrolled fires as well as damage from the impact of the towers. All this was due to the method used to insulate the steel superstructure which was a spray on insulation that didn’t remain intact and therefor failed to protect the steel. If you go back and look at the Empire State Building it used something like cement to insulate the superstructure and there was a lot more steel involved. This is why it survived the hit of a much smaller plane. The entire building was filled with steel supports unlike the WTC design which was more of a tube within a tube design to save money on steel. It’s really pointless to try to invent a reason for the buildings collapsing when there are videos of them being struck by wide body jets full of fuel followed by videos of them collapsing at the point of impact. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/44 "2016-08-06T15:50:54Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > 1,700 architects and engineers think there’s some kind of conspiracy. That means every other architect and engineer in the world think they’re wrong. Before you argue with me, consider the kind of logic that tiny minority of engineers and architects are using. A quick google shows there were 1,530,110 employed engineers in 2014, per The Congressional Research Service. There may have been a bit fewer in 2001, but it’s in the ballpark. So the OP is saying that 0.11% of them, maybe, signed something online. If you add in retired, unemployed, and student engineers, and architects, the percentage probably matches the number of “experts” that were hypothetically struck by lightning that year. I say hypothetically because I’m hoping that architects and engineers would be more likely than average to stay out of situations where they could be struck by lightning. Basically, 1,700 random architects and engineers means bupkis. > [@JohnClay](#): > > Previous **threads**? If “the overwhelming consensus is that it’s conspiracy theory nonsense on par with the Illuminati” why would there be multiple threads on this? . . . Because people who play with CTs don’t listen and they keep coming. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/45 "2016-08-06T15:53:31Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > I haven’t read much about it but it seems unlikely . . . I for one would wish you would drop the whole “I’m just a innocent in the forest trying to finding my way” meme and just state that you support the9/11 truthers and argue accordingly. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/46 "2016-08-06T15:59:40Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > I’ve been looking at the link to a “Debunking 911” page: > [http://www.debunking911.com/pull.htm](http://www.debunking911.com/pull.htm) > > It isn’t very professional - the site in the OP is far more professional and has a lot more people involved. > > So there’s that link and the Popular Mechanics book for a start… No, you are not even wrong on that. As in not even being aware of all the other sources mentioned in previous threads. [http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-09-07/#feature](http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-09-07/#feature) And as others point out, how professional a site looks is not very good evidence of how truthful a group is. Just compare misleading and fraudulent guys from [Answersingenesys.com](http://Answersingenesys.com) with the science and evidence based evolution in [Talkorigins.com](http://www.talkorigins.org/) What you see in [debunking911.com](http://debunking911.com) is what one sees in talkorigins, many times the old site (and you are looking at sites made several years ago) remains and continues to be cited for the simple reason that truthers and creationists just do not evolve 🙂 There is no need to reinvent the wheel when the issues remain the same for the conspiracy minded. Of course that is generally speaking, even if the vast majority of issues were explained properly years ago there are more advanced sites and dedicated groups that continue taking on the forces of ignorance. The talkorgins people point at [http://www.pandasthumb.org/](http://www.pandasthumb.org/) as the site where they are more involved now and continue updating. For the 9/11 issue, as others noted, there is no discussion and the real overwhelming consensus is not coming from the ones you cited in the OP. Respected skeptical groups are more than happy to update their sites and preserve many explanations that do guide the current consensus of what took place in 2001. [http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-09-07/#feature](http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-09-07/#feature) That group also makes the Skeptics Dictionary and they also have a more up to date reply to the truthers. [http://skepdic.com/911conspiracy.html](http://skepdic.com/911conspiracy.html) Even Noam Chomsky ripped a new one to the truthers years ago by showing how the organization in the OP is actually doing it wrong and pointing to deception on their part and not evidence or science to make their points. > **[Noam Chomsky Schools 9/11 Truther; Explains the Science of Making Credible...](https://www.openculture.com/2013/10/noam-chomsky-derides-911-truthers.html)** > > We don't often write up videos posted by 9-11 Truthers, but you can watch an interesting exchange when this particular Truther confronts well-known linguist and political observer Noam Chomsky during the question session after the latter's talk at... > [@](#): > > Thus asked to comment on whether the media has covered up the manner in which this particular building collapsed, Chomsky replies with a defense of standard scientific procedures. > > “In fact, you’re right that there’s a consensus\*\* among a miniscule number of architects and engineers\*\*. **They are not doing what scientists and engineers do when they think they’ve discovered something. What you do is write articles in scientific journals, give talks at the professional societies, go to the civil engineering department at MIT or Florida or wherever you are, and present your results, then proceed to try to convince the national academies, the professional society of physicists and civil engineers, the departments of the major universities, that you’ve discovered something.** There happen to be a lot of people around who spend an hour on the internet and think they know a lot physics, but it doesn’t work like that. There’s a reason there are graduate schools in these departments.” But hasn’t the government intimidated those who know the real story from speaking out against the official line? “Anybody who has any familiarity with political activism knows that this is one of the safest things you can do. It’s almost riskless. People take risks far beyond this constantly — including scientists and engineers.” ---
**Author:** ![Chihuahua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dec6dc/32.png) [@Chihuahua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chihuahua)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/47 "2016-08-06T17:17:53Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > I’m also debating people who immediately dismiss my concerns. That’s because your concerns are stupid. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/48 "2016-08-06T17:50:26Z")
**JohnClay** , do you know how they prepare a building for demolition? They completely gut the building on the inside. Pretty hard to hide that from at least 50,000 people a day. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/49 "2016-08-06T17:58:50Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > **JohnClay** , do you know how they prepare a building for demolition? They completely gut the building on the inside. Pretty hard to hide that from at least 50,000 people a day. Not to mention the hundreds to thousands of holes drilled in the support structures, the miles of det cord and electrical line to fire the charges. The blast blankets to help contain and direct the blast and the weeks of work to put it all in place. And the fact that an airliner plowing through all this (and the resulting fire) would render all that work unusable. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/50 "2016-08-06T18:16:21Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > I for one would wish you would drop the whole “I’m just a innocent in the forest trying to finding my way” meme and just state that you support the9/11 truthers and argue accordingly. This X 1000 ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/51 "2016-08-06T18:26:44Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > This X 1000 well I was going to say times 1700. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/52 "2016-08-06T18:51:38Z")
**JohnClay** –are you selling/planning to sell/writing/planning to write a book on this topic? Just asking. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/53 "2016-08-06T19:22:14Z")
I really really wish people would say that the collapse “looked like a controlled demolition”. That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve heard. Have you ever seen a high rise demolition? What causes the building to fall? The answer is gravity. All you do in a controlled demolition is blow up the supports at the base of the building, and without that support gravity pulls the building down. What what is key, when you look at video footage of this, it looks like the building is mostly intact as if it’s falling into a hole in the ground. They don’t put a lot of effort into demolishing the upper parts of the building because that will get destroyed by the fall. They destroy the base of the building, and the building collapses from the bottom up. But that’s not what happened with the WTC towers. They didn’t collapse starting at the base, like a controlled demolition. They collapsed from the top down. That’s exactly opposite of how a controlled demolition occurs. The collapses start from the plane impact sites. How’s that supposed to work if you’ve filled the building with explosives? It’s fucking ludicrous. Hey, if you want to believe conspiracy theories about how Cheney and Bush knew the attack was coming, and let it happen on purpose, at least that doesn’t violate the laws of physics. Because if I were an Illuminatus who wanted to destroy the WTC towers and make it look like it happened because some crazy Muslims flew passenger jets into the towers, you know what I’d do? I’d recruit some crazy Muslim guys and get them to fly passenger jets into the towers. That’s a conspiracy that makes some sort of twisted sense. What I wouldn’t do is wire up the buildings with explosives–being careful to fill building 7 at the same time–and then wait while my Muslim crazy guys fly passenger jets into the buildings. Because what’s the point of that? Wouldn’t it be simpler to go with Plan A, which would have the advantage of being consistent with the official story by virtue of actually happening according to the official story? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/54 "2016-08-06T19:52:39Z")
Actually Plan A was to have crazy Muslim guys drive a truck underneath one of the buildings and blow it up. Plan B was the use of aircraft. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/55 "2016-08-06T20:48:07Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > **JohnClay** , do you know how they prepare a building for demolition? They completely gut the building on the inside. Pretty hard to hide that from at least 50,000 people a day. > [@running\_coach](#): > > Not to mention the hundreds to thousands of holes drilled in the support structures, the miles of det cord and electrical line to fire the charges. . . . And the pattern of big firecracker bangs, with prominently visible flashes, as the explosions tear apart the structural support. No one saw nor heard anything of the sort, and the video recordings don’t show it at all. YouTube has lots of real building demolitions. Watching a few is wonderfully instructive (and kinda fun.) ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/56 "2016-08-06T21:38:56Z")
Do 9/11 truthers think the warships at Pearl Harbor blew up because of secretly planted U.S. government explosive charges that sank them after Japanese dive-bombing? ---
**Author:** ![rsat3acr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@rsat3acr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsat3acr)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/57 "2016-08-06T21:54:32Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Do 9/11 truthers think the warships at Pearl Harbor blew up because of secretly planted U.S. government explosive charges that sank them after Japanese dive-bombing? No they think a second gunman did it.😃 ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/58 "2016-08-06T22:15:08Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > No, you are not even wrong on that. > > As in not even being aware of all the other sources mentioned in previous threads. > > [http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-09-07/#feature](http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-09-07/#feature)… Thanks that is another good link. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/59 "2016-08-06T22:18:25Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > I for one would wish you would drop the whole “I’m just a innocent in the forest trying to finding my way” meme and just state that you support the9/11 truthers and argue accordingly. By “argue accordingly” are you saying that I should never acknowledge that some of the arguments people are presenting sound good? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2016, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917/60 "2016-08-06T22:21:06Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > By “argue accordingly” are you saying that I should never acknowledge that some of the arguments people are presenting sound good? How about…say what you really think, and say why you really think it. You’re now in the mode of answering questions with questions. That didn’t work out too well for Socrates, and it doesn’t work particularly well here, either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/architects-engineers-for-9-11-truth/761917.md?page=4)