Uncritical vs. Unbiased Reporting: An Email to Joel Mathis

Below is an email I sent to Joel Mathis of phillymag.com on 9/12/2013, regarding his criticism of Paul Kurtz's coverage of the ReThink911 campaign.

_________________________________________________________________________

Dear Mr. Mathis,

My name is Adam Taylor. I am a 9/11 activist and a contributing writer and researcher for several 9/11 truth websites, including Debunking the Debunkers, AE911Truth, and ScientificMethod911. Having read your recent Philly Post article, I'm very disappointed to see that you have offered an unfair and misinformed criticism of Paul Kurtz's coverage of AE911Truth's ReThink911 campaign. It's obvious that, contrary to what you claim of Mr. Kurtz, it is in fact you that has provided an uncritical assessment of the issues surrounding the events of September 11th. Allow me to enlighten you to a few of your errors that is quite unbecoming of someone who claims to be a journalist. 

For starters, your entire criticism of Mr. Kurtz's article as failing to provide "counterarguments" to AE911Truth's position is entirely unfounded. True enough, the article does only discuss the group's position on the collapse of the WTC buildings. But why is that such a bad thing? Is Mr. Kurtz required to present every viewpoint on the collapse of these buildings? While Mr. Kurtz provides no criticisms of AE911Truth's work, nothing in the article necessarily endorses their position either. It could be that Mr. Kurtz agrees 100% with them. But nowhere does he say that in his article. He does not state his own opinion, but merely reports on the event in an unbiased manner, which is exactly what a professional journalist should do. Perhaps you believe that the mere mention of the group is uncritical endorsement, and that Mr. Kurtz should not have done so. If this were the standard practice of all journalists, they would likely have very little to comment on. 

But ironically, your article provides us with a perfect example of what uncritical journalism actually looks like. You provide two examples of supposed "debunking" of the truth movement's claims. Your first example is Popular Mechanics, and it seems that along with Rachel Maddow you've placed a disturbing blind faith in their analysis of the movement's arguments. Popular Mechanics has long been responded to by many people within the 9/11 truth movement, including Jim Hoffman, David Ray Griffin, and AE911Truth founder Richard Gage. I myself have written an extensive multi-part response to Popular Mechanics' latest version of their book Debunking 9/11 Myths. By your own standards, shouldn't you have mentioned these "counterarguments" in order for your article to be considered an "honest report"? And just how honest is this source of yours to begin with?

It's unlikely that Popular Mechanics has much to say about the group Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, given that they've largely ignored them. In their previously mentioned Debunking 9/11 Myths book, there is not one mention of AE911Truth or its founder Richard Gage. Now it's one thing to give no mention of this group, but it's another thing to deny its existence completely. And that is essentially what Popular Mechanics has done. In their book they actually claim that "not one of the leading conspiracy theorists has a background in engineering, construction, or related fields." Keep in mind that this book was published in 2011, and by this time AE911Truth was comprised of around 1600 professional architects and engineers. Does Popular Mechanics sound like it's presenting an honest assessment of the truth movement? I provide a summary of other omissions and distortions in their book here. 

Your second example, Rational Wiki, fairs no better. While no critique of their entire 9/11 conspiracy page exists to my knowledge, much of what they discuss has already been addressed by the movement as well. Simply type in any subject they bring up into the search engine at Debunking the Debunkers and you'll find answers to their arguments. But the specific section of their page you link to shows just how uncritical the writers of that site are. They fail to note that NIST's WTC7 report has been exposed as extremely erroneous, and contains a multitude of deceptions and misrepresentations. Did you bother to critically analyze either of these sources? And if not, then what justifies your criticism of Mr. Kurtz  supposedly doing the same thing?

As I said at the beginning, it's very disappointing to see the position you've taken on this issue. You criticize Paul Kurtz for giving the movement an "unchallenged platform" (which, by the way, it's really not; that's what the comments section is for), whilst all that he has done is provide an unbiased coverage of the group's efforts to get a new investigation into the collapse of the three WTC buildings. Rather than show that Mr. Kurtz was wrong for giving them uncritical coverage, your article gives off the impression that he was wrong for giving them any coverage at all. You conclude your article by saying that:

It’s one thing to raise questions: That’s the job of journalists. When there are people who offer different, credible answers on those questions, it’s also the job of journalists to present those.

The media has for many years presented the government's scientific assertions about the collapse of the WTC. Now it's AE911Truth's turn. The group presents exactly the kind of "different, credible answers [to] questions" that you talk about. And it's no one else's fault except yours if you fail to see that. I recommend that you issue a formal apology to Mr. Kurtz for your unfounded criticism of his reporting and journalism methods. I hope you will take my comments into consideration, and do exactly what AE911Truth's campaign is encouraging people to do: re-think 9/11.

Sincerely,

-Adam Taylor

Paper Accepted and Published at Scientific Method 9/11

I’m happy to announce that I’ve successfully had a paper accepted and published at the website Scientific Method 9/11. It’s an updated version of my paper Other Collapses in Perspective. In it, I present scientific explanations for why other steel structure fire-induced collapses are not comparable to the WTC buildings. It’s obvious that fire could not have brought down the Towers on 9/11. But don’t just take my word for it; read for yourself here and decide if I’m right.

http://www.scientificmethod911.org/docs/Other_Collapses_Apr27_2013.pdf

Special thanks to the moderators at Scientific Method 9/11 for their review and helpful comments.

See also my SM9/11 profile page for other writings of mine.

Pat Curley Has Made Up His Mind

And apparently that’s never going to change. Mr. Curley has commented on my recent article posted at ae911truth.org, and seems to think there’s a contradiction. He writes:

Box Boy Gage publishes another article supposedly debunking the latest version of the Popular Mechanics book. Get this part:

PM refers to Barry Jennings as the sole witness to explosions in connection with the destruction of Building 7, when in fact that is completely untrue. There are several other individuals who claimed to have heard explosions right before and during the time Building 7 collapsed, including first responders Kevin McPadden and Craig Bartmer.

So now we’re back to explosions?  Remember two years ago, Gage debated Chris Mohr at the University of Colorado (Boulder) where there was this exchange:

Further along in the debate, after Gage showed the WTC 7 collapse video adjacent to a known controlled demolition Chris Mohr, ignored the visual similarity and noted that “they sound completely different”.

Gage: Well, of course they do. One is using high-energy explosives, and the other thermate, an incendiary. This is, after all, a deceptive, controlled demolition.

The first blatant problem I have to call Pat out on is the fact that he cites a supposed problem with Richard Gage’s argumentation, when it’s my arguments that are the focus of the article. Notice that the top of the article reads “Written by Adam Taylor.” That’s because I wrote it and make my own arguments. While ae911truth has generously posted my articles at their site, the content of those articles is mine. Since Pat apparently can’t tell the difference between something I wrote and something Richard Gage said, it’s difficult to see this as anything but a straw-man argument.

Second, there’s no contradiction to begin with. I explained this two years ago to Pat’s buddy James, who also has problems understanding arguments presented by the other side. Pat’s characterization of my article as “supposedly” debunking Popular Mechanics is also interesting, since he doesn’t actually point out anything I got wrong. I’m not particularly surprised by this, but it doesn’t make it any less irritating.

More amusing than Pat’s hand-waving, however, is a comment left by one of ScrewLooseChange’s frequent visitors “Richard Gage's Testicles.” He says of me:

Oh good, Gage got more unpaid out of Adam Taylor. Taylor’s an obnoxious little pseudoskeptical anarchist wannabe, judging from his videos.

And as usual he misses the point. The absence of physical evidence of explosions outweighs reports of "explosions" in any number.

As far as I’m aware, RGT is the first to refer to me as an anarchist, so now I can check that off the list of names I’ve been called online. And pseudoskeptical am I? How so? What characteristics of a pseudoskeptic have I exhibited? Have I made judgments without full inquiry, such as Pat has done here? Or do I frequently use ad hominems, like RGT does here and elsewhere? Or have I used double standards in the application of my criticisms, like both Pat and RGT are doing here by not criticizing Popular Mechanics for the massive amount of flaws they’ve made? And contrary to what RGT asserts, I haven’t “missed the point” at all regarding the physical evidence of explosives. We’ve covered that issue extensively at the 911Debunkers blog, and we’ve addressed attempts to invalidate that evidence as well. Me thinks the man should reconsider who’s the real pseudoskeptic here.

I’m not the first to point these things out, and it shouldn’t be necessary for me to have to keep pointing them out, but as I said at the beginning, Pat’s apparently made up his mind, and that’s evidently never going to change no matter how many times it has to be pointed out to him. 

FAQ #8: What Is Nanothermite? Could It Have Been Used To Demolish The WTC Skyscrapers?

"Thank you, Adam Taylor for this well-written article." -Dr. Steven Jones

Written by Adam Taylor

In order to understand what nanothermite is, we first must understand what ordinary commercial thermite is. Thermite is a mixture of a metal and the oxide of another metal, usually aluminum (Al) and iron oxide (Fe₂O₃), in a granular or powder form. When ignited, the energetic Al-Fe thermite reaction produces molten iron and aluminum oxide, with the molten iron reaching temperatures well in excess of 4000° F. These temperatures are certainly high enough to allow cuts through structural steel, which generally has a melting point of around 2750° F.

There is also a variant of thermite known as thermate, which is a combination of thermite and sulfur, and is more efficient at cutting through steel. This form of thermite is believed to have been used in the demolition of World Trade Center Building 7. Although conventional thermite has the capability to cut through structural steel, it is technically an incendiary and not an explosive.

Nanothermite (also known as superthermite), simply put, is an ultra-fine-grained (UFG) variant of thermite that can be formulated to be explosive by adding gas-releasing substances. A general rule in chemistry is that the smaller the particles of the reactants, the faster the reaction. Nanothermite, as the name suggests, is thermite in which the particles are so small that they are measured in nanometers (one billionth of a meter). The authors of the peer-reviewed Active Thermitic Materials paper, which documents the discovery of these materials in the WTC dust, explain:

Available papers [by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and others] describe this material as an intimate mixture of UFG aluminum and iron oxide in nano-thermite composites to form pyrotechnics or explosives. The thermite reaction involves aluminum and a metal oxide, as in this typical reaction with iron oxide:

2Al + Fe₂O₃ ? Al₂O₃ + 2Fe (molten iron), ?H = -853.5 kJ/mole.

The public announcements of the development of nanothermite composite materials as explosives date back several years before 9/11. As Dr. Frank Legge points out , “ researchers were describing methods of preparing nano-sized particles, using them in superthermite, and calling such material ‘explosive’ in 1997. It would therefore not be correct to assert that by 2001, four years later, they would be unable to utilize the material in demolition.”




In additon, 911research.wtc7.net notes the following:

One of the critiques of theories that thermite was used to destroy the World Trade Center skyscrapers asserts that thermite preparations don’t have sufficient explosive power to account for the observed features of the buildings’ destruction. This criticism seems to be uninformed by knowledge of some of the aluminothermic preparations known to exist – particularly those being researched for military applications.

Indeed, as 9/11 researcher Kevin Ryan has shown, there is substantial documentation detailing how nanothermite has been formulated to be explosive. For example, a summary report released at the 2008 AIChE conference by chemists at the University of Houston describes how nano-thermite composites can be engineered to create explosives:

Nanoenergetic thermite materials release energy much faster than conventional energetic materials and have various potential military applications, such as rocket propellants, aircraft fuel and explosives. They are likely to become the next-generation explosive materials, as they enable flexibility in energy density and power release through control of particle size distribution, stoichiometry and choice of fuel and oxidizer.

Some critics have also claimed that neither thermite nor nanothermite has ever been used to demolish steel structures. Even if this assertion were true, it would not be proof in and of itself that these materials could not be used in demolition. As Dr. Legge notes:

It could be true, and probably is true, that the three buildings which came down on 9/11 were the first in which some variation of the thermite reaction was used in demolition. It is however not logical to say something cannot have happened merely because it had not happened before: there has to be a first time for everything. It is certainly true that thermite had been used many times in arson attacks prior to 9/11.

However, we find that thermite has in fact been used to demolish steel structures in the past. For example, Popular Mechanics itself documents that thermite was used in the demolition of structures such as the Skyride Tower in Chicago and the dome of the German Reichstag. Furthermore, experiments conducted by civil engineer Jonathan Cole have shown that ordinary thermate can be used to effectively cut through steel columns. And as described earlier, the effectiveness of nanothermite is much higher than that of ordinary thermate.

To read more about the thermitic materials that were involved in the destruction of the three World Trade Center towers, see the AE911Truth Evidence webpage and our original article about the discovery of these composites in the WTC dust.

(Original article: http://www.ae911truth.org/en/news-section/41-articles/646-faq-8-what-is-nanothermite-could-it-have-been-used-to-demolish-the-wtc-skyscrapers.html)

(Also posted at Debunking the Debunkers)