It’s come to my attention that a Facebook
poster by the name of “Hung K Lui” has commented on my recent debate with Myles
Power. He disputes one reference in my lengthy rebuttal to Mr. Power, and
believes it does not back up what I say. I’ll respond to these objections and
see if they hold any merit. Below is his entire criticism, with my comments
added in red.
Sorry, late in the game
and with a little insomnia, so I thought I’d eleborate [sic] on one of the
points in these comments. I also like to apologize in advance for this long
comment, but bear with me. Specifically, I wanted to examine Adam Taylor’s
claim that he knows how to reference. I tried to read Mr. Taylor’s blogpost but
had to stop after checking just one reference he used. It was just too time
consuming. His first real reference (number 2 as number 1 was Myles’ video)
seeked to support the claim that Leslie Robertson was not the ‘chief engineer’
for the WTC, but it was in fact John Skilling. Mr. Taylor’s reference for this
claim was a truther’s website (www.journalof911.studies.com) which may be dubious. First note that he uses an ad hominem against my source,
suspecting it to be “dubious” only because it’s a “truther site.” This is
nothing but a character statement meant to cast doubt on the validity of my
source. However, I’ll give it
leeway as it was actually just a link to a pdf transcript of a radio debate
between Mr Robertson and Steven Jones. However, I can’t ascertain the validity
of this transcript as it didn’t specifically say that it was created by the
radio station. The introduction to the transcript appeared to be written by the
truther website and not by the radio station. In addition, a cursory review of
the references in the transcript (why do transcripts need references? Oh, it’s
for the annotated remarks.) didn’t provide a link to listen to an audio
recording of the debate if there was one available. Actually it does, however the link appears to be broken. But
the full debate can be listened to on YouTube. Mr. Lui is welcome to “ascertain
the validity of [the] transcript” based on this. But this was a moot point anyway since the host of the
debate introduced Mr. Robertson as the “chief engineer of the World Trade
Center Project.” Bad reference, I suppose. I guess Mr. Taylor was actually
referring to the annotated remarks included in the transcript written by Gregg
Roberts, an associate editor the [sic] truther website that had the transcript,
as his proof. Yes, that’s why when I referenced Gregg Roberts’
paper I cited a specific page number. Please ask again if I know how to
reference. Okay, sort of odd to use
the remarks and not the actual document as a reference since I don’t know how that
falls into primary or secondary sources. It would
technically fall in the category of a secondary source. I provided Gregg
Roberts’ paper referencing the sources, since they were already there
conveniently in one place.
But let’s examine that as I want to get to the truth. In Mr. Roberts [sic] (not
to be confused with Robertson) remarks, he cites three references (Really? I
have to check even more references for this one little claim.): a Seattle Times
article written in 1993, a 1964 Engineer News-Record article, and the book City
in the Sky by James Glanz and Eric Lipton. He actually
cites four references, including the book Men
of Steel: The Story of the Family That Built the World Trade Center. I was able to locate the Seatle [sic]
article online and the book was available on Google as a preview. The Seattle
Times article about the 1993 WTC bombing did have the words ‘head structural
engineer’ and John Skilling, just not in the same sentence as World Trace [sic]
Center. It did say that Skilling was responsible for the World Trade Center
which was a far cry from chief engineer of WTC. Please
read the passage from the article yourself and decide what you think it
implies:
Engineers had to consider every peril they could imagine when they designed the World Trade Center three decades ago because, at the time, the twin towers were of unprecedented size for structures made of steel and glass.
“We looked at every possible thing we could think of that could happen to the buildings, even to the extent of an airplane hitting the side,” said John Skilling, head structural engineer. “However, back in those days people didn’t think about terrorists very much.”
Skilling, based in Seattle, is among the world’s top structural engineers. He is responsible for much of Seattle’s downtown skyline and for several of the world’s tallest structures, including the Trade Center. (emphasis added)
Anyone coming to the conclusion that this article
implies anything else is clearly seeing something they want to see. Anyway, I still don’t understand why
this article was bought up in the first place. Perhaps
to show that John Skilling was the lead engineer on the project? You know, the claim
Gregg Roberts is specifically making in his paper? The book not [sic] available online,
but Google had a preview which conveniently enough had the very quote that Mr.
Roberts (not to be confused with Mr. Robertson) used in his remarks. However,
the limited preview goes to on to list in the very same paragraph the many ways
that Mr. Robertson (not to be confused with Mr. Roberts) was ‘behind the
scenes’, an ‘intense presence’ behind WTC design vice Skilling. It clearly
illustrated how Mr. [Robertson] was fundamental in the design while Skilling
was seen as ‘salesman’. This “salesman” remark comes from Robertson. Robertson’s
honesty regarding other aspects of 9/11 has been highly disputed as of late. It even stated Mr. Robertson wasn’t
even listed in the ‘splashy articles’ written in the 60s concerning the WTC
design. This is important to note as Mr. Roberts stated in his remarks in the
transcript that Mr. Robertson was not mentioned in the 1964 article. So, given
that, I didn’t even try to look up the 1964 article. One reference that doesn’t
support the claim, but has three other references embedded that also at the
minimum is irrelevant or outright contradicted the claim. How is this
considered a good refence? [sic] And if I have to wade through all that for
just the first one, what chance do I have as a layman with a BS in Math going
to understand and accept any future claims. [sic] I believe this is why Wesley
said Adam Taylor doesn’t know how to reference correctly.
I don’t know about you, but methinks the man
doth protest too much. All this fuss over one of my references, which DOES back
up what I say in my post. For the record, here is what Gregg Roberts wrote in
regards to this debate over who was actually the lead WTC engineer:
The last sentence might be incorrect and is certainly misleading, given the lack of any mention of John Skilling, who hired Robertson and is described in media accounts and books as the “lead,” “head,” or “chief” structural engineer on the World Trade Center project. In a 1993 Seattle Times article, Skilling was described as the head structural engineer. Robertson was not mentioned there, nor in an article in the Engineering News-Record that discussed the design in 1964. In City in the Sky, Robertson is called the “rising young engineer with Skilling's firm” (p. 159). In Men of Steel, Robertson is referred to during the design phase as “one of the up-and-coming engineers on [Skilling’s] staff,” Skilling’s “young associate,” whom Skilling “assigned… to help him prepare a proposal” to the Port Authority’s board. Skilling’s firm was named Worthington, Skilling, Helle, and Jackson. Clearly, Skilling was a senior partner at the firm and Robertson was his subordinate. The tallest building his firm had designed before then was 22 stories tall. It hardly seems likely that he sat back and smoked cigars while the 34-year-old Robertson – who at the beginning of the project had a bachelor's only in science and not in engineering – went off and designed the Towers without supervision. The project would clearly have had Skilling’s full attention. (pg. 3)
Rather than address any
of the other hard facts presented in my post, this person evidently feels that
dismissing one reference is grounds to dismiss the whole thing. And so what if
you have to “wade through” references to get to the truth? As I pointed out in
my initial response to Mr. Power, debunkers have heavily criticized people in
the Movement for supposedly not providing enough reference material. Now they
complain there is too much. There’s just no way to make these people happy, is
there? But the bottom line is that I DO know how to reference, and I make sure
my references back up what I say. I’ve taken several writing courses at my
university, and have excelled in all of them. And as a business major, I’ve had
to write several technical articles that required extensive research and source
citing. None of my professors have ever criticized my source citations in any
paper I’ve ever written. I’ve already had to point out to Mr. Power that he was
wrong in saying that I reference my claims incorrectly. One hopes that Mr. Lui
chooses not to follow Mr. Power’s example.
So yeah, I know how to
reference, but these people don’t know how to respond.
