what about the structural engineers who say that the collapse had to be due to a controlled demolition? You seem to totally discount that. So what really seems to be going on in your mind and in those of others is that the probability “structural engineers who are on my side are right” is far greater than the probability “structural engineers who are on the other side are right”. Certainly each of us can find authorities to support our view, I was trying to argue from the basic evidence.
what about the structural engineers who say that the collapse had to be due to a controlled demolition? You seem to totally discount that.
For this whole time, I’ve been commenting on whether or not your original comment deserved being downvoted or not, not whether I believe in 9/11 theories in general. I didn’t mention the engineers that support your view, because I was responding to a comment where you implied that seeing the video should by itself convince anyone that something is up and that any report claiming otherwise is unscientific. By itself, meaning “even without the knowledge that there are engineers saying otherwise”. Yes, structural engineers saying that the collapse had to be due to a controlled demolition is pretty strong evidence, far stronger than any intuitive interpretation about a single video—which is why you should have brought them up in the beginning.
(So what is my stance on 9/11 theories in general? Undecided. The issue doesn’t really interest me enough that I’d spend time and energy researching it in the detail required to form a proper opinion. Sorry. :) )
So what is my stance on 9/11 theories in general? Undecided. The issue doesn’t really interest me enough that I’d spend time and energy researching it in the detail required to form a proper opinion.
If all you have is weak evidence, you can only end up “uncertain” if your prior says “uncertain”, that is you expect the building to have been detonated or not about equally, before taking into account the way it collapsed. Which doesn’t sound right. It seems that while evidence is weak, you should remain pretty confident that the building wasn’t detonated.
I have several (well, two) relatively intelligent, mostly rational friends who have studied 9/11 theories in detail and come to the conclusion that there might actually be a conspiracy, so I’m setting my confidence intervals somewhat wide in this matter.
It’s either strong evidence, or privileging the hypothesis. Uncertainty is half-way from disbelief to conviction, it’s not a trivial milestone. If you allow for a likelihood ratio of 10 to go either way from “uncertain”, you are already changing level of belief between 1% and 99%. This is the opposite side of this situation: if you’ve just dropped or introduced a strong piece of evidence (like recalling that you haven’t asked the details of what exactly is being claimed by the presumably reliable source), you can’t be uncertain both before and after that.
I think we might have slightly different definitions for “undecided”. I might consider a subjective belief of .95 for something not having happened as “undecided”, if the associated weight of evidence isn’t large.
Still, upon consideration, you’re right. I’ve revised my estimate from “undecided” to “don’t think there was a (malicious) conspiracy”.
For this whole time, I’ve been commenting on whether or not your original comment deserved being downvoted or not, not whether I believe in 9/11 theories in general.
Well, your comment that started all this exchange was:
The fourth is making a bold claim that contradicts scientific research, without really backing up that claim in any way.
You operate under the assumption that there is a scientific explanation(I assume by that you mean that it is a correct explanation) of the collapse based on structural damage. Further down you write:
So what is my stance on 9/11 theories in general? Undecided. The issue doesn’t really interest me enough that I’d spend time and energy researching it in the detail required to form a proper opinion.
I see a contradiction. You cannot claim to be undecided and at the same time write “The official story is supported by science.”
You operate under the assumption that there is a scientific explanation
Sigh.
I got the assumption that there is a scientific explanation from you saying that there is a study which explains (or at least claims to explain) the collapse. From the context, one could deduce that it was written by people with a science background—presumably, if it was completely unscientific and obviously written by people with no background in engineering, you wouldn’t have bothered mentioning it at all. Therefore it was presumably a scientific study.
When I say “scientific study”, I don’t mean that it would have to be correct. Obviously there is, and has always been, lots of scientific research that is outright wrong. Being scientific doesn’t mean you’re always correct, it means you employ the tools of science and therefore hopefully minimize your chances of being wrong. But if a layman says there is a study and the context implies that the study was made by people trained in the field, then that study has a higher prior probability of being correct than that same layman when he says the same study is wrong (because the layman cannot employ the scientific tools of the field that the experts are trained in). Especially if the layman in question supports his own case only by a video of an implosion and nothing else.
I see a contradiction. You cannot claim to be undecided and at the same time write “The official story is supported by science.”
The official story seems to be supported by a scientific study, but I do not have the expertise to determine whether the science in that study is actually correct.
What are you sorry about?
The fact that you seem to have spent some effort digging up material in an effort to convince me of the conspiracy point of view, but I probably won’t give most of it the attention it might deserve.
I think this makes it fairly obvious that I don’t believe it to be correct. Of course you can say “well it was presumably a study by experts so it has a high probability of being correct.” But wouldn’t that be begging the question again, since the official story is precisely what is under dispute?
presumably, if it was completely unscientific and obviously written by people with no background in engineering, you wouldn’t have bothered mentioning it at all. Therefore it was presumably a scientific study.
Well, maybe you should question your assumptions here.
You then wrote:
The fourth is making a bold claim that contradicts scientific research,
And this is where I took objection.
The fact that you seem to have spent some effort digging up material in an effort to convince me of the conspiracy point of view, but I probably won’t give most of it the attention it might deserve.
From a previous comment of yours:
that would at least be the sort of admissible evidence I’ve been asking for the last several comments.
Ok here I was assuming that you really wanted to take a closer look at the evidence.
And well, I didn’t just do it for you, but also for others reading this thread, and from the amount of downvotes there seem to be a few.
Kaj,
what about the structural engineers who say that the collapse had to be due to a controlled demolition? You seem to totally discount that. So what really seems to be going on in your mind and in those of others is that the probability “structural engineers who are on my side are right” is far greater than the probability “structural engineers who are on the other side are right”. Certainly each of us can find authorities to support our view, I was trying to argue from the basic evidence.
The key is that we are just operating under different basic assumptions: http://lesswrong.com/lw/1kj/the_911_metatruther_conspiracy_theory/1d3k
For this whole time, I’ve been commenting on whether or not your original comment deserved being downvoted or not, not whether I believe in 9/11 theories in general. I didn’t mention the engineers that support your view, because I was responding to a comment where you implied that seeing the video should by itself convince anyone that something is up and that any report claiming otherwise is unscientific. By itself, meaning “even without the knowledge that there are engineers saying otherwise”. Yes, structural engineers saying that the collapse had to be due to a controlled demolition is pretty strong evidence, far stronger than any intuitive interpretation about a single video—which is why you should have brought them up in the beginning.
(So what is my stance on 9/11 theories in general? Undecided. The issue doesn’t really interest me enough that I’d spend time and energy researching it in the detail required to form a proper opinion. Sorry. :) )
If all you have is weak evidence, you can only end up “uncertain” if your prior says “uncertain”, that is you expect the building to have been detonated or not about equally, before taking into account the way it collapsed. Which doesn’t sound right. It seems that while evidence is weak, you should remain pretty confident that the building wasn’t detonated.
I have several (well, two) relatively intelligent, mostly rational friends who have studied 9/11 theories in detail and come to the conclusion that there might actually be a conspiracy, so I’m setting my confidence intervals somewhat wide in this matter.
blinks
Of the “explosive in building” sort, or the “deliberately ignored intelligence” sort?
Anyone here willing to give a prior for the deliberately ignored intelligence sort of conspiracy?
I think “explosive in the building” sort, though I haven’t asked for the exact details.
It’s either strong evidence, or privileging the hypothesis. Uncertainty is half-way from disbelief to conviction, it’s not a trivial milestone. If you allow for a likelihood ratio of 10 to go either way from “uncertain”, you are already changing level of belief between 1% and 99%. This is the opposite side of this situation: if you’ve just dropped or introduced a strong piece of evidence (like recalling that you haven’t asked the details of what exactly is being claimed by the presumably reliable source), you can’t be uncertain both before and after that.
I think we might have slightly different definitions for “undecided”. I might consider a subjective belief of .95 for something not having happened as “undecided”, if the associated weight of evidence isn’t large.
Still, upon consideration, you’re right. I’ve revised my estimate from “undecided” to “don’t think there was a (malicious) conspiracy”.
Right. So if you expect further investigation to change your belief (you can’t know which way), you say it’s undecided.
That’s a pretty good way of describing it, yes.
Well, your comment that started all this exchange was:
You operate under the assumption that there is a scientific explanation(I assume by that you mean that it is a correct explanation) of the collapse based on structural damage. Further down you write:
I see a contradiction. You cannot claim to be undecided and at the same time write “The official story is supported by science.”
What are you sorry about?
Sigh.
I got the assumption that there is a scientific explanation from you saying that there is a study which explains (or at least claims to explain) the collapse. From the context, one could deduce that it was written by people with a science background—presumably, if it was completely unscientific and obviously written by people with no background in engineering, you wouldn’t have bothered mentioning it at all. Therefore it was presumably a scientific study.
When I say “scientific study”, I don’t mean that it would have to be correct. Obviously there is, and has always been, lots of scientific research that is outright wrong. Being scientific doesn’t mean you’re always correct, it means you employ the tools of science and therefore hopefully minimize your chances of being wrong. But if a layman says there is a study and the context implies that the study was made by people trained in the field, then that study has a higher prior probability of being correct than that same layman when he says the same study is wrong (because the layman cannot employ the scientific tools of the field that the experts are trained in). Especially if the layman in question supports his own case only by a video of an implosion and nothing else.
The official story seems to be supported by a scientific study, but I do not have the expertise to determine whether the science in that study is actually correct.
The fact that you seem to have spent some effort digging up material in an effort to convince me of the conspiracy point of view, but I probably won’t give most of it the attention it might deserve.
Sigh. I’ll start by quoting myself again:
I think this makes it fairly obvious that I don’t believe it to be correct. Of course you can say “well it was presumably a study by experts so it has a high probability of being correct.” But wouldn’t that be begging the question again, since the official story is precisely what is under dispute?
Well, maybe you should question your assumptions here.
You then wrote:
And this is where I took objection.
From a previous comment of yours:
Ok here I was assuming that you really wanted to take a closer look at the evidence.
And well, I didn’t just do it for you, but also for others reading this thread, and from the amount of downvotes there seem to be a few.
I have a feeling this discussion isn’t going anywhere. Probably easier to let it be.
I think we have finally come to an agreement. LOL
:)