Tuesday, September 01, 2009

The "Strawman" Strawman

It is quite common for truthers to use, or rather misuse, the strawman fallacy whenever anyone criticizes them, on the basis that there is no such thing as a universally held belief in the conspiracy community. Normally though, they at least manage to limit themselves to beliefs which are not at the core of their own theories.

In this light, check out Steven Jones complaining about yesterday's National Geographic show:

Robert,
Bags of commercial thermite set against a steel column -- what a pathetic "experiment." Not anywhere close to representing my views, as you must know, from our discussion about the red/gray chips and the crucial distinction between ordinary thermite and super-thermite! What a terrible and unfair straw-man joke you are evidently trying to pull.

Why can't you get a sample of super-thermite? I think you can, if you will actually try. Or are you like NIST which refuses to look?


Hello? Calling Dr. Jones! You spoke for years about thermite and/or thermate as the core of your theories. Remember all the talk about tons of molten steel pouring out of the towers, the photographs supposedly showing the glowing red hot beams, the pools of molten iron flowing like lava. All of this you claimed was caused by incendiaries, not explosives. You even wrote a 47 page paper about this, which is still available on your website. Are you now claiming that this entire paper is invalid and is a "strawman" argument? Although actually, if so, that would be one of the few things I could agree with him on....

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