That claim is not an essential part of my argument here, but there is evidence for it (that is a wiki page with open, anonymous editing—so if you see any errors or omissions, please feel free to comment).
If that page is a bit much to digest, you might start with this little gem.
When it comes to “WTC7 was brought down by a controlled demolition”, I invoke my majoritarian heuristic. I am not an expert on demolition. If the majority of experts say it wasn’t a controlled demolition, I’m going to assume the problem is with your data, and not with the experts, regardless of what you say. As a layman, I am simply not qualified to evaluate the evidence; if you want to convince me, take it up with people who know what they are doing.
And yes, I am aware that this is, indeed, a Fully General Counterargument—but that doesn’t mean I’m not wrong!
It’s not Fully General unless you invoke it without checking the expert opinion first. It’s indirectly correlated with the truth, but provided that the actual empirical data supports it, the correlation is still strong.
Although yours is a reasonable position for getting along in society, and therefore rational to some degree, I think I would have to call it “weakly” rational rather than “strongly” rational: you are willing to accept the meme which has gained the most mindshare rather than attempting to assess the relative merits of each meme.
There is certainly a high degree of reliability in this technique, but it has two drawbacks:
one: It forces you to reject your own rational conclusions when the evidence seems, as you understand it, to contradict the “expert consensus”
two: It forces you to reject, possibly without cause, the rationality of experts who dissent from this consensus
three (three drawbacks): It overlooks the possibility that the “expert consensus” has been manipulated for reasons other than maximum fidelity to the truth
four (amongst the drawbacks are such diverse elements as...): It overlooks the possibility that the majority of the experts forming this consensus may have their own reasons for stating or reaching a false conclusion.
I submit the following principle: An expert should always be willing to at least try to explain her/his position on any subject on which there is disagreement.
It seems to me an integral part of the rational worldview that analysis of expert opinions can be subject to lay evaluation. You take the explanations offered by the various experts, with all their experience and understanding of the field, and keep track of each point raised by each side, and whether it has been satisfactorily answered (and whether the answer has been rebutted, etc.).
If, for example, Expert B consistently offers rational refutations of points raised by Expert A, while Expert A consistently offers points which have already been refuted by Expert B, you might begin to suspect that Expert A is being less than honest and does not really have a case.
It forces you to reject, possibly without cause, the rationality of experts who dissent from this consensus
If experts disagree, then there simply isn’t a strong consensus.
Personally, I am not a professional demolitionist, but I have yet to see any argument that WTC7 was brought down in a controlled demolition which reflected a technical understanding of the subject greater than, or even equal to, my own. If I did find such an argument, it would change my opinion on the subject considerably… although that would only be the first of many hurdles to overcome before I would be willing to believe that the full “inside job” hypothesis had been proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
That claim is not an essential part of my argument here, but there is evidence for it (that is a wiki page with open, anonymous editing—so if you see any errors or omissions, please feel free to comment).
If that page is a bit much to digest, you might start with this little gem.
When it comes to “WTC7 was brought down by a controlled demolition”, I invoke my majoritarian heuristic. I am not an expert on demolition. If the majority of experts say it wasn’t a controlled demolition, I’m going to assume the problem is with your data, and not with the experts, regardless of what you say. As a layman, I am simply not qualified to evaluate the evidence; if you want to convince me, take it up with people who know what they are doing.
And yes, I am aware that this is, indeed, a Fully General Counterargument—but that doesn’t mean I’m not wrong!
It’s not Fully General unless you invoke it without checking the expert opinion first. It’s indirectly correlated with the truth, but provided that the actual empirical data supports it, the correlation is still strong.
Although yours is a reasonable position for getting along in society, and therefore rational to some degree, I think I would have to call it “weakly” rational rather than “strongly” rational: you are willing to accept the meme which has gained the most mindshare rather than attempting to assess the relative merits of each meme.
There is certainly a high degree of reliability in this technique, but it has two drawbacks:
one: It forces you to reject your own rational conclusions when the evidence seems, as you understand it, to contradict the “expert consensus”
two: It forces you to reject, possibly without cause, the rationality of experts who dissent from this consensus
three (three drawbacks): It overlooks the possibility that the “expert consensus” has been manipulated for reasons other than maximum fidelity to the truth
four (amongst the drawbacks are such diverse elements as...): It overlooks the possibility that the majority of the experts forming this consensus may have their own reasons for stating or reaching a false conclusion.
I submit the following principle: An expert should always be willing to at least try to explain her/his position on any subject on which there is disagreement.
It seems to me an integral part of the rational worldview that analysis of expert opinions can be subject to lay evaluation. You take the explanations offered by the various experts, with all their experience and understanding of the field, and keep track of each point raised by each side, and whether it has been satisfactorily answered (and whether the answer has been rebutted, etc.).
If, for example, Expert B consistently offers rational refutations of points raised by Expert A, while Expert A consistently offers points which have already been refuted by Expert B, you might begin to suspect that Expert A is being less than honest and does not really have a case.
As far as I can see, this has been the situation with Intelligent Design, global warming denial—and the official story of 9/11.
If experts disagree, then there simply isn’t a strong consensus.
Personally, I am not a professional demolitionist, but I have yet to see any argument that WTC7 was brought down in a controlled demolition which reflected a technical understanding of the subject greater than, or even equal to, my own. If I did find such an argument, it would change my opinion on the subject considerably… although that would only be the first of many hurdles to overcome before I would be willing to believe that the full “inside job” hypothesis had been proven beyond any reasonable doubt.