actually, for those of you too lazy, ill paste a snippet here, regarding mr jones (who is one of the very few “experts” the 9/11 conspiracy movement has.)
Steven E. Jones is a professor at Brigham Young University. He has created the paper which has created the ground swell around the 911 conspiracy theories. His paper was peer reviewed but not by a civil engineering journal. One would think a serious professor would get his paper peer reviewed by a scientific journal which specializes in the field they are writing the paper on.
But is Professor Jones qualified to create a paper which says the towers must have fell due to explosives? He is a physics professor but what experience does Jones have in building collapse forensics? He has none. His other peer reviewed papers consist of cold fusion technology. He conducts research in nuclear fusion and solar energy. Nothing in his background would suggest he is qualified to write a civil engineering paper on the infinitely complex building collapse of the towers.
Brigham Young University doesn’t want anything to do with the paper.
A few department chairmen at Jones’s university have issued critical statements, though none of these has yet addressed any of the points which Jones made in his paper and at his presentation at BYU. Chairman of the BYU department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Dr. Miller, is on record stating in an e-mail, “I think without exception, the structural engineering professors in our department are not in agreement with the claims made by Jones in his paper, and they don’t think there is accuracy and validity to these claims”.
The BYU physics department has also issued a statement: “The university is aware that Professor Steven Jones’s hypotheses and interpretations of evidence regarding the collapse of World Trade Center buildings are being questioned by a number of scholars and practitioners, including many of BYU’s own faculty members. Professor Jones’s department and college administrators are not convinced that his analyses and hypotheses have been submitted to relevant scientific venues that would ensure rigorous technical peer review.” The College of Engineering and Technology department has also added, “The structural engineering faculty in the Fulton College of Engineering and Technology do not support the hypotheses of Professor Jones.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Jones
Jones says his paper will pass peer review again. But will it pass peer review in a respected civil engineering journal? Nothing less would be taken seriously.
One of Jones BYU colleagues had this to say after reading his paper…
Letter to the Editor
Refuting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory
April 09, 2006
Dear Editor,
After reading in the Daily Herald the presentations made by Professor Steven E. Jones (BYU Physics) to students at UVSC and BYU, I feel obligated to reply to his “Conspiracy Theory” relating to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (9/11/01).
I have studied the summary of the report by FEMA, The American Society of Civil Engineers and several other professional engineering organizations. These experts have given in detail the effects on the Towers by the impact of the commercial aircraft. I have also read Professor Jones’ (referred to) 42 page unpublished report. In my understanding of structural design and the properties of structural steel I find Professor Jones’ thesis that planted explosives (rather than fire from the planes) caused the collapse of the Towers, very unreliable.
The structural design of the towers was unique in that the supporting steel structure consisted of closely spaced columns in the walls of all four sides. The resulting structure was similar to a tube. When the aircraft impacted the towers at speeds of about 500 plus mph, many steel columns were immediately severed and others rendered weak by the following fires. The fires critically damaged the floors systems. Structural steel will begin to lose strength when heated to temperatures above 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Steel bridge girders are bent to conform to the curved roadway by spot heating flanges between 800 and 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. It is easy to comprehend the loss of carrying capacity of all the structural steel due to the raging fires fed by the jet’s fuel as well as aircraft and building contents.
Before one (especially students) supports such a conspiracy theory, they should investigate all details of the theory. To me a practicing structural engineer of 57 continuous years (1941-1998), Professor Jones’ presentations are very disturbing.
D. Allan Firmage
Professor Emeritus, Civil Engineering, BYU
http://www.netxnews.net/vnews/display.v/AR…9/443801bdadd6e
More critiques of his paper can be seen here.
His other paper is called “Behold My Hands: Evidence for Christ’s Visit in Ancient America”. In it he points to circles in what seems to be the palms of south American deities suggesting they are the hands of the crucified Jesus.. As with the WTC paper, he ignores evidence like the other circles all over the artwork to make his case.
Below is a piece from James B. from the Screw Loose Change Blog.
Who Are the Scholars for 9/11 Truth?
As Pat and I get further into this subject, we will inevitably get into people not directly involved in the movie, but those that feed the frenzy of conspiratorial theory. One such organization is the “Scholars for 9/11 Truth”, who pop up with increasing frequency as some type of “expert” authority for the 9/11 “truth” movement. Sort of a Jedi Council for conspiracy nutbars. So I decided to look into them further, and see just how authoritative they are.
A look at their website reveals they are certainly full of themselves. Boldfaced headlines scream out the word, “experts” at every turn:
EXPERTS CLAIM OFFICIAL 9/11 STORY IS A HOAX
Scholars for 9/11 Truth call for verification and publication by an international consortium.
Duluth, MN (PRWEB)
January 30, 2006 – A group of distinguished experts and scholars, including Robert M. Bowman, James H. Fetzer, Wayne Madsen, John McMurtry, Morgan Reynolds, and Andreas von Buelow, have concluded that senior government officials have covered up crucial facts about what really happened on 9/11.
Their most famous member, and co-founder, is Steven Jones, a physicist at Brigham Young University. He has become famous for publishing a paper on the WTC collapse. Thus far this paper though, has only been reviewed, not in a journal on physics, or structural engineering, but in a Marxist journal of political economy. BYU itself has rejected his work. Dr. Jones primary research has been, not in structural engineering or the reaction of metals to heat, but in cold fusion, which even in the physics community is regarded as bordering on alchemy. Even more bizarrely, his other famous published work was one right out of the World Weekly News, claiming that Jesus visited Central America based on ancient Indian artwork.
So maybe the “scholars” have other “experts” from whom Dr. Jones (Indiana?) is relying on, so I decided to look over their list of “full members” described here as:
Currently, S9/11T has four categories of members: full members (FM), who have or have had academic appointments or the equivalent;
I compiled the list of members and categorized them by specialty, position and institution, which actually was rather difficult. Oddly enough many of the members don’t list their qualifications or university, which is quite strange, since every professor I have ever met is more than happy to go on for hours about their academic credentials.
I came up with a list of 76 members, expecting it to be full of Ivy League engineers and distinguished Middle Eastern scholars, experts bent on proving that the US government, and not Osama bin Laden attacked the World Trade Centers. I was wrong.
Out of the 76 “experts” the most common academic discipline was philosophy, with 9 members, including a co-founder. Since 7 members did not even list an academic discipline, this was 1/7 of their credentialed membership. English/literature and psychology came in next with 5 members each. Even theology and “humanities” came in with 4 and 3 members respectively. Among actual scientific fields, physics was way in front, with 5 members, including the aforementioned Dr. Jones. I am not sure as to their academic credentials though, at least one of the “physicists”, Jeffrey Farrer, isn’t even a professor, he is a lab manager at BYU. One has to wonder whether Steven Jones’ janitor is also listed as an associate member?
So how many engineers do they have? Out of the 76, a grand total of 2. Jean-Pierre Petit, a French aeronautical engineer, who despite the obvious handicap of being French actually seems to have a relevant qualification. Curiously enough though, he doesn’t seem to have written a single word on 9/11. He has written though, on a mysterious plot by the US military to bomb Jupiter with anti-matter weapons!
The second engineer is Judy Wood, who has been mentioned in the comments here for her bizarre billiard ball from the top of the World Trade Center theory. OK, Ms. Wood is an actual Mechanical Engineer at Clemson, but thus far her work has been primarily focused on the stresses of dentistry. A fascinating field no doubt, but hardly relevant to planes crashing into buildings.
So how many structural engineers are listed? Absolutely zero. How many experts in Middle Eastern studies, or the Arabic language? Also zero. But they do have a professor of social work!
So I thought, maybe I am being too narrow minded? Maybe these are just America’s best and brightest minds, even if they are working out of their fields of specialty. Noam Chomsky at least, regardless of what you think of his kooky politics, is a respected professor of linguistics at MIT. So I looked up this list of the top 20 universities in the world (17 located in the US) from the Economist, expecting to find the schools of our distinguished scholars to be well represented on it.
Wrong. A total of one professor, Kevin Barrett, a Professor of Folk Lore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was represented.
Total number of “scholars” from the Ivy League, zero. Total number of “scholars” from Tunxcis Community College, one.
James B. - Screw Loose Change Blog
Update…
The Schisms Continue
Morgan Reynolds and Judy Wood Take On Professor Jones
The 9-11 Denial Movement continues to fragment into factions. Reynolds and Jones have had some skirmishes before over the “no-planers” (Reynolds is one, Jones is not), but it’s broken out into full scale war now. Reynolds and Wood go after Jones with both barrels. We learn a little more about the “peer review process” at the Journal of 9-11 Studies:
Among other activities, Jones initially was responsible for the scholars’ discussion forum and he and Judy Wood instituted a “peer-reviewed” Journal of 9/11 Studies. Jones appointed the advisory editorial board, later Kevin Ryan as co-editor and chose the “peers” to review manuscripts. Peer-review normally boosts the prestige of academic articles because professors within the same discipline review manuscripts but in this case there is little or no such review, even when offered. That fact convinced Wood to resign.
Say it ain’t so, Judy!
James will be pleased to hear that the Keebler Elves return:
Figure 3©: If the tower is viewed as a “towering tree” and the Keebler Elves carved out a residence, no measurable weakening would occur. If their cookie oven set fire to the tree, it would be inconsequential.
Brilliant! They proceed on with a debunking of the Thermite/Thermate claims (which I’m not as confident will be substantive), and accuse Jones of propping up the Official Government Conspiracy Theory:
This statement raises two problems: first, Jones gives credence to the loony OGCT that “19 young Arabs acting at the behest of Islamist extremists headquartered in distant Afghanistan” were involved or caused 9/11. It makes no sense to embrace parts of the government’s unproven story without independent proof.
I also love this part of Reynold’s paper:
Collectively we are engaged in a struggle to expose the government’s lies about 9/11. The physical sciences and analysis are key to this project. The only investigation worthy of the name has been conducted on the internet by researchers like Thierry Meyssan, Gerard Holmgren, Jeff King, Rosalee Grable, Kee Dewdney, Nico Haupt, Killtown, and “Spooked” who proved no Boeing 757 went into the Pentagon, flight 93 did not crash in the designated hole near Shanksville, PA, and the WTC towers were demolished by explosives.
Oh, yeah, that Spooked has done some terrific research!
Pat
Scholar Scorecard
Well the “Scholars” for 9/11 “Truth” seem to be the big story of the day. Exactly 3 months ago today I did my first major post on the “Scholars”, where I counted and categorized the 76 Full Members of the organization. They have been receiving a lot of press lately, CSPAN, the AP, the NY Times, FoxNews etc., and they have been bragging about their growing momentum, since according to them, 70 million Americans support them.
So I decided to do another count of their Full Members, and found out that after 3 months of unprecedented growth and momentum their ranks had swelled from the previously mentioned 76 to… 77.
Wow, if they keep this up, at this rate they will be in triple digits by 2012.
They have actually picked up 7 new members.
Anicha Bay - Visiting Professor of English, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, South Korea
Don Bustion - Attorney, Adjunct Professor, Southern Arkansas University
Joseph Diaferia - Political Science and History, State University and City University, New York
Kenneth Kuttler - Mathematics, Brigham Young University
Joseph M. Phelps - Structural Dynamicist Charter Member, Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers
Karen Sugrue - Sociology, Limerick Institute of Technology, Ireland
Doyle Winterton - Civil Engineering Structural Engineering
Most notable in this are the two “civil engineers”. I cannot find any reference whatsoever for Doyle Winterton, despite the unusual name. I did find Joseph M. Phelps, and he does appear to be who they claim. They are leaving out the fact that he is also 82 years old, and running a 9 hole golf course in Florida. Probably a nice enough guy, but he might be a little past his prime.
To offset that they lost 6 members. Reynolds and Wood of course everyone knows. The only other notable loss was Jeffrey Farrer, who actually didn’t leave the organization, but got demoted all the way from a Full Member to a Student Member. Could this have anything to do with me pointing out previously that he was not a professor, but a lab manager for the physics department at BYU?
Update: This is not verifiable proof, but Pat and others have found a Doyle Winterton in Provo, Utah. It looks like he might have sold a stereo to Steven Jones or something. As for why his entry just says "Civil Engineering Structural Engineering " instead of an actual title or position, well according to the Utah Department of Licensing he had a license as an “engineer in training” but it expired in 1999. Who is next, Steven Jones’ pool boy?
