🚀 go-pugleaf

John_seeyou@yahoo.com wrote:

> Friday, February 17, 2006
> Sept. 11 theorizing professor speaks out
> ANNA CHANG-YEN - Daily Herald
> 
> A BYU physics professor said a group he co-founded will ask for a
> Watergate-style special federal prosecutor to look into unanswered
> questions surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
> 
> Steven E. Jones gave a presentation at Brigham Young University on
> Thursday about his theory that World Trade Center Building 7 was
> destroyed by controlled demolition rather than a terrorist attack.
> Scholars for 9/11 Truth, which Jones co-founded, is putting together a
> list of questions and will ask for a special prosecutor like the one
> used to probe the Watergate scandal, he said.
> 
> "Remember, I'm not alone anymore. I've got over 100 plus," he said,
> referring to the jump in membership in the Scholars group from about 40
> to more than 140 since he spoke at Utah Valley State College on Feb. 1.

140? wow... almost .00005% of the population. Surely such momentum can't 
be stopped.
There are more white tigers in captivity than there are in his little 
movement.

> The presentation, made at the Marion K. Smith Science Fiction
> Symposium, relied more on faith than his speech at UVSC. He quoted
> biblical and Mormon scriptures that he said warn against pre-emptive
> wars, and at one point read from the Book of Mormon.

What a surprise. I wonder if he also talked about his theory that Jesus 
visited America.

> Among Jones's tenets -- fueled by research from engineers, scientists
> and government reports -- is that the Osama bin Laden "smoking gun"
> confession tape is a fake and that slag from the WTC7 building will
> prove it was felled by thermite, an explosive combination of aluminum
> powder and a metal oxide. He also contends that the wars in Iraq and
> Afghanistan were contrived to gain access to oil there. Jones said he
> will soon receive a sample of the slag, and he believes analysis of the
> sample using an electron microscope will prove his thermite theory.

uh huh.

> As part of his presentation, Jones briefly displayed a slide with a
> statement from BYU's Fulton College of Engineering, saying the
> department does not back his hypotheses.

Did he rebut it?

> When Jones presented information about the maximum temperature at which
> jet fuel can burn -- 1,000 degrees centigrade, he said -- an audience
> member shouted out, "It's 3,500. You're lying!" That data is crucial to
> government contentions that intense fires fed by jet fuel caused the
> buildings to fall.

Did he rebut it?

> During a question-and-answer period, one audience member asked why
> Jones gave "such a one-sided presentation" and did not expose his
> political leanings. Jones replied, "These are the facts," and said he
> does not identify himself as a Democrat or Republican but does support
> the Constitution.

Those aren't the facts, they are Jones' gross misinterpretation based on 
what his untrained eye sees, not what science has determined.

> Another audience member wanted to know what additional evidence is
> needed to prove Jones's theories. The slag analysis is key, Jones said.
> "With aluminum oxide entrained with iron, then that is the true smoking
> gun for thermite. That would prove the demolition hypothesis."

Actually, it wouldn't, but that won't stop Jones.

> Dan Peterson, a senior economics major at BYU, said he would like to
> know what church leaders think. He brought along copies of speeches by
> LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley to compare with Jones's talk. "He's a
> man of faith, but he's also a man of science. Some of the statements
> President Hinckley's made are about how we need to ferret out terrorist
> organizations. Well, what does he mean? What does Dr. Jones as a man of
> science looking at scientific data, and also a religious person, what
> does he think about that?"

Who cares what his church thinks? That their opinion is even being 
considered hurts the credibility of the "movement".
Science doesn't care about religion.

> Dave Doering, a symposium organizer and Jones supporter, explained the
> presentation's fit at the event. "I laughed because I said, 'Someone is
> telling a science fiction story. It's either that man right there or
> it's some people in Washington.' " He sides with Jones but wants others
> to decide for themselves. "I leave it up to the audience to make this
> judgment."
> 
> Anna Chang-Yen
> 
> This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D1.
> http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/166195/4/
>