I've just recently finished David Ray Griffin's nearly impeccable book "The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7," which I received as a gift for my birthday last month and was looking at the reviews at Amazon.com. As of this writing, there are 23 five star reviews and just a single lonely 1 star review, but that isn't going to stop me from joining this lopsided praise party by debunking that review!
Our old buddy James B. from the Screw Loose Change blog pops up in the comment section following the review, but most of his comments are not viewable because as Amazon states, customers don't think his posts add to the discussion. This is because James offered absolutely no refutations of anything in the book, but rather tried to discredit Griffin by using the fallacy of guilt by association, pointing out that Griffin has cited individuals in other books that hold anti-Semitic views. Griffin has never expressed such beliefs himself and any poor choice of citations in other books or bad research proves nothing regarding a book focused on one specific 9/11 issue.
"Sword man" starts off his review by stating, "Another work of fantasy from DRG. If you buy into the work of a theologian to understand science, you're part of the problem. Good old explosive demolition, except of course the explosives are silent. Magical super thermite. Ignoring the full collapse to represent the collapse of the out facade as the entirety of the collapse."
As to Griffin's supposed inability to understand science because he is a theologian, commenter and stated librarian E. Woodworth points out that Griffin "wrote several books dealing with the philosophy of science, one of which was given the Science and Medical Network's book prize for 2000." Woodworth also notes that "the book is endorsed by an architect, three engineers, and two physicists, one of whom, David Griscom, is one of America's leading physicists, being a fellow of both the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science."
Recently it was revealed that Griscom was a one of the peer-reviewers of the the "Active Thermitic Material..." paper, in which an international group of scientists report to have found remnants of the non-magical, but admittedly super-duper, incendiary/explosive nano-thermite in dust from the WTC. Here is how the situation was surmised by "Sitting-Bull" on 911blogger.com at the time:
It took Prof. Griscom 4 long years to become convinced of 9/11 truth. Science did it. And: Some "Debunkers" already claim he was chosen because he was a "truther". That's totally bogus. He did not play a vocal or any role in the 9/11 truth movement prior 2007/2008, Bentham surely did not find his rare blog entries on the issue for selecting him, but did search their database for valuable scientific referees in the field of research with good experience- no wonder they found Prof. Griscom.Griscom is indeed more than qualified to review such a paper as he has "refereed at least 600, and possibly as many as 1000, manuscripts" and was himself published twelve times in the American Institute of Physics’ Journal of Chemical Physics.
And contrary to Pat Curley's speculation on the Screw Loose Change blog, I have been told by Gregg Roberts, who was one of the paper's authors, that, "The other reviewer was not a truther. And that reviewer provided a much less rigorous review then did Griscom - while also recommending publication if the review points were dealt with adequately."
The architect who endorsed the book is Richard Gage, the founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, which is just about 1,500 members strong now. Griffin's book is sold at the AE911Truth store and cites much of the same evidence as does Gage. So it is much more credible to say that all of these building professionals endorse the book than it is for David Scott of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, who "Sword man" quotes, to imply that all 100,000 employees of the organizations the Council represents endorse the National Institute of Standards and Technology report. Equally ridiculous is his implied claim that all 120,000 members of the American Society of Civil Engineers support the report. Most incredible is the mention that the NIST "employs about 2,900 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support and administrative personnel." I will break these arguments down collectively and piece by piece.
As Woodworth states, "The review quotes the opinions of people who belong to large organizations as if everyone in those large organizations was of the same opinion about controlled demolition - thus conveying a sense of monolithic authority, where none is actually demonstrated to exist." And as I have written before, a failure to condemn the official story should not be viewed as an endorsement of it. One should also not assume that all individuals have been exposed to the relevant information. As Griffin points out in his article "Building What? How SCADs Can Be Hidden in Plain Sight," there is "widespread ignorance about WTC 7," he writes:
A Zogby poll in May 2006 found that 43 percent of the American people were unaware that WTC 7 had collapsed, and that same year... Danny Jowenko of the Netherlands still did not know about it, even though controlled demolition was his field.This incident sparked a public awareness campaign in late 2010, which caught the attention of Geraldo Rivera, who felt he was aware enough of the relevant issues two years prior to mock 9/11 truth protesters.
A dramatic example of the fact that this building's collapse has not been prominent in the public consciousness was provided in a New York City courtroom in September 2009. Judge Edward Lehner was hearing arguments about a petition sponsored by NYC CAN to allow residents to vote on whether New York City should have its own investigation of the World Trade Center attacks. After Judge Lehner had observed that the 9/11 Commission had carried out an investigation and issued a report, Dennis McMahon, a lawyer for NYC CAN, said that this report left many unanswered questions. "One of the biggest questions," he added, "is why did Building 7 come down" -- at which point Judge Lehner asked: "Building what?" McMahon replied: "World Trade Center Seven. There were three buildings that came down."...
Judge Lehner, it should be emphasized, was not simply an ordinary American citizen. Besides being a judge presiding in New York City, he had been assigned to a case involving the 9/11 attacks in this city. So his ignorance about this building was surprising. And yet it was typical...
Regarding the American Society of Civil Engineers, it must be noted that the paper "What Did and Did Not Cause Collapse of WTC Twin Towers in New York" published in the ASCE's peer reviewed Journal of Engineering Mechanics by long time 9/11 "debunker" Dr. Frank Greening and three of his colleagues has been refuted by members of the 9/11 truth movement in this very same journal several times.
As far as David Scott bringing up the number of employees at the NIST, again, even if all of these employees did look into the report, it does not mean that they have looked at criticism of it. And it should go without saying that if any of these individuals speak out they will most likely no longer be one of Scott's cited numbers. Even after ending employment at NIST fear of getting involved in controversy would still be a factor. And if "Sword man" would have actually read the book he would have seen Griffin notes that:
We also have the testimony of a former NIST employee who had held "a supervisory scientist position at the top civil service grade" until 2001, after which he worked as a part-time contractor until 2006. Although this man wishes to remain anonymous, for fear of possible retaliation, he is known to physicist Steven Jones, who has confirmed that he is indeed who he says he is... Speaking in particular about the implications of NIST's politicization for its work on 9/11-related issues, he wrote:While not supporting the controlled demolition theory, James Quintiere, the former chief of NIST's fire science division has also called for an independent review of the World Trade Center Investigation, stating, "I wish that there would be a peer review of this."
When I first heard of [9/11 truth] and how the NIST "scientists" involved in 911 seemed to act in very un-scientific ways, it was not at all surprising to me. By 2001, everyone in NIST leadership had been trained to pay close heed to political pressures. There was no chance that NIST people "investigating" the 911 situation could have been acting in the true spirit of scientific independence, nor could they have operated at all without careful consideration of political impact. Everything that came from the hired guns was by then routinely filtered through the front office, and assessed for political implications before release.
As to the statement, "Good old explosive demolition, except of course the explosives are silent," made by "Sword man," [Update] Blog contributor Adam Taylor has published a paper entitled, "Collapse or Explosion? A Discussion of the WTC 'Sounds of Explosions' Issue."
Now to the argument that Griffin ignores "the full collapse to represent the collapse of the out facade as the entirety of the collapse." For starters, on May 13, 2008 there was partial fire induced collapse of the 13 story faculty of Architecture building at Delft University in the Netherlands, it took 10 seconds. So even if 9/11 "debunkers" are correct in their argument that the collapse of WTC 7 took 13 seconds, due to the penthouse collapsing first, as opposed to the approximately 7 seconds often cited by demolition advocates who only count the collapse of the main structure, it doesn't matter. To put it simply, if 13 stories takes 10 seconds, then 47 stories should not collapse in 13 seconds, and the 110 story Twin Towers definitely should not have collapsed in 15 seconds.
Secondly, as physicist David Chandler recently pointed out, NIST did not include the fall of the penthouse in their timing calculations either. When lead NIST investigator Dr. Shyam Sunder was fielded a question by Chandler regarding the issue at a NIST press conference subsequent to the release of the draft report on WTC 7, Sunder stated that "freefall time would be an object that has no structural components below it." In essence, Sunder admitted that this is impossible absent some external force, i.e., explosives. And yet now NIST is telling us in their final report, due to Chandler's question, that buckled columns did in fact lead to freefall for 2.25 seconds. However, buckled supports is a long way from "no supports."
As former NASA engineering executive Dwain Deets put it, this is "NIST's Half-Admission of Yet Another 9/11 Smoking Gun." He also notes that NIST tried to "bury these two seconds and their clear meaning" by failing to mention their admission of freefall in their list of changes made in the final report.
And finally, the collapse of the penthouse also took place too fast.
As Adam has stated, "Please purchase and read David Ray Griffins book, as (I believe) it is one of the most important books of the decade."
"A definitive study of what happens when political concerns are permitted to override science and the scientific method. With intellectual finesse worthy of a scientist, Griffin shows that NIST's WTC 7 report has no scientific credibility. A must read for all concerned with the restoration of science to its 'rightful place' in our democracy."--John D. Wyndham, Ph.D., Physics, Cambridge University; former Research Fellow at the California Institute of Technology
"David Ray Griffin has written a powerful book that asks disturbing questions and seeks to debunk myths about September 11. It is provocative, well-researched, and beyond convincing."--Rosie O'Donnell
Related Info:
Peter B Collins interviews David Ray Griffin (September 29, 2009):
Busting Myths With Building 7
