Sept. 11: Unscientific Conspiracy Theories

With the approaching tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, conspiracy theories will bloom again. To establish credibility, proponents of these alternative theories claiming, for example, that explosives had been placed in the World Trade Center are based on a lie.

They claim that there is indeed a debate within the scientific community about the real causes of the collapses. What is it really?

Ten years after the fact, an impressive scientific document has been published on the subject; this includes not only reports from U.S. agencies in charge of the technical investigation (FEMA, NIST), but also dozens of independent publications in major scientific journals in the field.

There are nearly 15,000 pages in total, written by hundreds of specialists in building calculation or accident expertise, so-called “forensic engineering.”

Experts agree on the causes of the collapse. These detailed and independent opinions have established the most likely causes of the collapses. The crashes certainly weakened the structure of the towers, but it was the total or partial destruction of fire protection (active or passive) which accelerated and accentuated the effects of the fire on the structural elements, until the final catastrophe.

This phenomenon is explained in detail on the French website “9/11 Attacks: Myths and Legends” and in my book The Wheedling Sept. 11 Farce (La Farce Enjôleuse du 11-Septembre).

Not only has no voice in the community come forward to challenge the essential points of these conclusions, but the established results are even being used as models for newly developed calculation codes.

At the last Structural Engineers World Congress meeting ,which brought together engineers and scientists who do the calculation of structures, different sessions were devoted to high-rise buildings. Studies of the WTC towers were cited as references. No scientist at the conference rose to challenge them.

The opinions of French scientists are also unanimous.

A special issue of the journal Science and Pseudoscience published by the French Association for Scientific Information, gave the floor to the best in France in terms of scientific research in civil engineering. Leaders of large French organizations, who work specifically on the calculation of structures in the case of fires, explained the results of studies on the WTC tower collapses. There were for example, Pierre Carlotti of CSTB and Joel Kruppa and Zhao Bin of CTICM.

Leaders of French associations bringing together scientists from civil engineering (Denys Breysse of AUGC and Jean-Pierre Muzeau of APK) also gave their opinion. Their conclusion is clear and unanimous: alternative theories have no scientific basis.

Other topics are also addressed in AFIS’s records (mechanics, metallurgy, aeronautics, chemistry of explosives, etc.), but it’s still accessible to non-specialists; a particular effort has been made to focus on accessibility and pedagogy.

Valery Ras and Gérald Bronner, two sociologists, also analyze the genesis of the Sept. 11 conspiracy movement and the reasons for the spread of these rumors, despite the weakness of scientific arguments.

A challenge by virulent self-proclaimed experts.

Despite this general consensus, some stubborn individuals, who are often involved in political or esoteric movements criticize those findings. Although they are not experts in the field and they have never published in any scientific journal on civil engineering before or after Sept. 11, they take it upon themselves to criticize, accuse and judge. For them, all the world’s scientists working in the field of structural analysis are the accomplices of the great conspiracy, concealing a controlled explosives demolition of the WTC towers.

Never mind the infamous accusation. What must be pointed out is the conspicuous dishonesty of the protesters about their actual competence. Among them, Richard Gage, a leading American architect of the movement had 1,500 architects and engineers sign a petition, saying that the investigations carried out are misleading and should be started over.

Yet no architect does the structural calculation of a building of this height; it is simply not within his competence. This profession nonetheless represents about 500 signatories of the petition, and there are even some interior designers!

Of the 1,000 remaining petitioners, most have no expertise in the structural analysis of buildings; they are mechanical engineers specializing in cars, airplanes, electronics, computers, hydraulics and so on.

As for the 50 (at most) who seem to have at least once practiced the calculation of building structures, it is unclear if they have ever calculated anything other than a large barn. Compare that to the tens of thousands who work in research departments around the world.

A Misunderstanding of Roles

In addition, they cunningly play on the general public’s ignorance of the role reserved for the participants of the construction process. The main role of the engineers involved is to enforce rules that ensure the building does not collapse under “normal” use or in case of a “moderate” accident. It has never been in their duties or competencies to assess the limits of the rules or computer codes they use (which they as the scientists establish), which would thus lead to the ruin of their construction.

The petition is therefore a wonderful intellectual fraud: The signatories simply do not have the expertise to assess, let alone challenge, that which has been produced and validated by the entire scientific community.

Debates with Nothing Scientific about Them

Like a mantra, every year on the anniversary of the attacks, proponents of alternative theories call for public debate while even demanding to be filmed. But scientific debates are not had before cameras, but rather in scientific journals, publications which have been verified and acknowledged through peer review.

Moreover, one cannot debate with fantasists who have only their rhetoric, which is certainly well-oiled, to oppose scientific arguments.

Even though conferences were still being held in 2010 to bring geocentrism back into fashion, there are still no televised debates on whether it is the Earth that rotates around the Sun or vice versa.

Though they deny it, the “911 Truth Movement” is the same dialectic: challenging established scientific results through use of simple beliefs. There is nothing scientific in this approach.