Daniel Stone justice_freedom at earthlink.net
JM: This is a question I want to ask of you. Have you ever considered all the buildings that have collapsed that we don't know why they have collapsed? The reason I bring this up is because many years ago I became interested in how and why buildings fail. Mainly I was interested in ancient building collapses. But it led me to a study of the collapse of medieval cathedrals and modern buildings.
The fact is that in most building collapses, some of them in circumstances of less stress than WTC 7, we cannot say why precisely the buildings fell. But somehow the 9/11 conspiracy storytellers _KNOW_ that this building fell because of controlled demolition.
Have you ever read Levy and Salvadori's "Why Buildings Fall Down"? If you read this you will realize that the study of building failure is not an exact science and what we can conclude from any particular event is only enough to recommend possible improvements.
Now let me say that I don't know for sure why WTC 7 fell down. But I also know that the videos that you present do not show a thing. They don't show that this is a controlled demolition. You have to ignore what we do know about how and why buildings fall down in general, if you think that watching a video can lead any _informed_ person to conclude that this building fell down because of controlled demolition.
So this is what I am asking you. What exactly do you know about buildings falling down and how and why they fall down? I am not talking about this building but about building collapses in general? Why do you conclude that because you have seen this building fall down on video that you somehow have evidence about why this building fell down? Is it because you have seen other video's of controlled demolitions? Do you have any basis of comparison except for those other buildings that you have seen fall down on television in controlled demolitions? Have you seen videos of buildings that have collapsed because of structural failure and have you made comparisons?
Have you compared this building failure to other building failures? If you have all of this information can you please discuss why you conclude that this video evidence is evidence of what you believe?
Even though I don't know for sure why WTC 7 collapsed I do know that absolutely nobody else, including you, knows why it collapsed. I do know that WTC 7 was burning uncontrollably from at least the time of the collapse of WTC 1, that pictures of the southwest corner of the building show considerable structural damage and a great amount of black smoke from the interior of the building, that there were electrical generators with massive oil tanks located in the center of the building around the 8th floor and we don't know whether these oil tanks contributed to the collapse or not, that the building was constructed in such a way that the structural girders on floors 5 through 7 transferred the wieght of all the upper floors to the foundation, and that structural failure at this level, could have caused complete collapse. Given what I do know I see know reason to conclude from the video "evidence" that the building must have collapsed through controlled demolition.
People who believe that the videos lead to a conclusion of controlled demolition need to go back and study what constitutes evidence.
I must say that I need to control my impulse to say that what such people really need to do is something simple, but unrrelated, like read all of Stephen Jay Gould's essays, or study a good history of the development of physics. Something that has nothing to do with WTC 7 or 9/11, but can help one to understand why it is so hard to draw good conclusions from phenomenal evidence.
Jerry Monaco