Saturday, July 31, 2010

Debunking Joseph Nobles: Three Big Issues Indeed

Joseph Nobles of ae911truth.info has finally completed his critique of what he considers three of ae911truth's biggest mistakes, which he calls "The Big Three." According to him, these are three issues ae911truth claims that debunkers never address. Here are my thoughts on it.

The Big Three, Part One: Free Fall

I have already responded to this particular part of Mr. Nobles' site, so I will not repeat the arguments here.

The Big Three, Part Two: Collapse Symmetry

This sections deals with the symmetry of the buildings' collapses. Mr. Nobles makes the astounding claim that "there is no actual symmetry observable in the collapses of the three WTC buildings." As we will see, this is simply not true.

He first points out the slight lean that Building 7 exhibited in its collapse.



Although this has already been addressed, it is worth noting that slight leans often happen in controlled demolitions.



There is clearly a difference between this:



And something like this:



He claims there was no "east to west" symmetry to Building 7's collapse either, pointing out that the kink is not in the exact center of the building.



Kinks also often occur in controlled demolitions, and are not always in the center.



The key thing is that the center of Building 7 began to fall before its perimeter, which is a classic characteristic of demolitions. The issue of the east penthouse is problematic enough itself.

He next moves onto the Twin Towers. He claims that since both of the upper sections of the Towers initially tilted, their collapses were not symmetrical. This is absurd. Debunkers have often made special points about the tilts of both WTC 1 and WTC 2. While the tops did initially tilt, it is important to note what happens to the bottom sections of the buildings. As soon as the collapses begin, all four sides of the lower sections of the Towers are wiped out symmetrically in a top down fashion. The tilts therefore create a problem for the official story. The collapses started out asymmetric, but what followed was a top down symmetrical collapse of the lower structures.




It is clear that the collapses became more symmetrical as they progressed. Any natural collapse would have become less symmetric as it progressed. To claim that no symmetry was observable in the collapses of these three buildings is simply nonsensical.

The Big Three, Part Three: Total Destruction

In his third part, he claims that the destruction of the three WTC buildings was not total. He starts out by trying to say that Zdeněk Bažant's papers have not been refuted, and that Bazant himself has refuted the peer reviewed refutations of his work. Anders Björkman has in fact responded to Bažant's response.
In any case, the three points Mr. Nobles makes in regard to the destruction of the buildings are:

■Large sections of the Twin Tower’s core structures left behind after the main portion of the collapse (before they themselves collapsed)
■The sections of perimeter column still standing above the rubble for several floors
■The majority of WTC 7′s still-assembled northern facade draped over the rest of its debris pile

While parts of the cores of both Towers remained standing, this footage shows the remaining core of the South Tower included neither north nor west columns.



And the North Tower's core was almost totally destroyed before it collapsed anyway.



For some reason he feels that the small sections of the perimeter columns standing are worth using as proof the collapses were not total. Of course, these sections would have made up something like maybe 5% of each of the Towers.

The fact that part of Building 7's facade was still assembled to an extent is a small detail in light of the fact that all of the building's structural supports were totally destroyed in the collapse.

Mr. Nobles claims that the buildings "were not totally totally destroyed."
I would agree with this somewhat. The buildings and their structural supports were almost totally destroyed, which is an occurrence that rarely occurs outside of controlled demolition.

Ultimately, the points Mr. Nobles has raised do not disprove the notion that the buildings were demolished. Everything he has cited can occur in other demolitions, so it is misleading to suggest that the observed characteristics of the collapses are not consistent with demolition.