Standards of Proof and Errors in 9/11 Skeptic Thinking

[HamdenRice]

The debate between the advocates of the 9/11 truth movement and the skeptics of that movement often degenerates into sterile, circular and repetitive circles. I think that one reason this occurs is that each side has fundamentally different notions of standards of proof: not what we know, but how we know what we know, epistemological standards. While both sides can retreat into unproductive, defensive positions, I suspect that it is the skeptics who make the more profound eptistemelogical errors.

The main error of the skeptics is their insistence that there is only one way to know what happened with respect to any particular aspect of the 9/11 events, and that wy, for lack of a better term, I would call "deductive scientific." The deductive scientific way of knowing something is indeed very powerful, and is the accepted and indeed only, way of knowing or verifying theories in certain areas of scientific inquiry, such as (as the skeptics always remind us)"peer reviewed" articles -- but I might add, only in certain subjects like math and engineering and certain parts of the medical/biological field. But deductive scientific knowing is not the only way of knowing something, even within science. The oceanic error of the skeptics is that they refuse to acknowledge other, scientifically valid ways of knowing. Again, for lack of better terms, I will call these other ways of knowing "inductive scientific," "legal," "social science/political."

The reason these other ways of knowing are so important is that the basic claim of the 9/11 truth movement -- as well as of the official theory -- is that 9/11 is a crime. Crimes are proven using criminal or legal methods of inquiry, not scientific deductive methods. As I will show below, if scientific deductive methods of proof were required in all fields of inquiry that require reliable methods knowledge, we would not only be unable to prosecute most criminal cases, we would not have many forms of medical treatment.

Briefly, the scientific deductive method of knowledge depends on, among other things, being able to verify each step of causation in an event. For example, the scientific deductive method is used in part of the the official story of 9/11 that blames the collapse of the towers on fires and structural damage. It says that fires heated structural steel until the steel weakened enough to cause a progressive collapse of the structure. Under the scientific deductive method, each step has to be verified to be in accordance with known proven scientific theorems or observations. For example, for the official story to be correct, we need to know the temperature at which steel weakens and the temperature of an airplane fuel/office furniture fire, and to know that the former is lower than or equal to the latter.

But a claim like controlled demolition cannot be proven using scientific deductive reasoning. This is in part because the evidedence has been destroyed. One would need to show that there were residues of explosives, for example.

A second method of knowledge is scientific inductive. One example of scientific inductive method is the operation of the pharmaceutical drug industry. Many drugs are simply organic chemicals generated in laboratories that are tested for their effects on diseases or other conditions. Most laymen would find it surprising that pharmaceutical scientists often do not know why a particular drug has the effect that it does. They may have theories but the molecular function of the drug escapes them. They do not know exactly why the drug works; they do not know every step in the causation of the beneficial action of the drug. Instead, using a control group taking a placebo and an experimental group that takes the drug, they simply test its effectiveness by looking at the statistical effect the drug has on a subject group.

If the scientific deductive methods were required for us to rely on to make drugs, we probably would not have aspirin, Rogaine, prozac, AZT or many, many other drugs. Each is simply a substance that has a statistically proven beneficial effect, even if the reason each works is elusive. But the method of testing and approving the drugs is certainly scientific. It simply isn't deductive, it is inductive.

Another example would be the operation of the profession of pathologists. If a patient obviously dies of a heart attack, nevertheless, a pathologist will perform an autopsy that examines all the internal organs. All of this data is recorded, and later researchers sifting throught this data using probability can discern the patterns of disease in the population. The connection between conditions like arterio sclerosis and heart disease, or even between smoking and lung cancer, were discovered through inductive, not deductive research. If the only medical claims that were allowed were deductive scientific, we still would not be able to say smoking causes cancer.

We can know the truth of a claim through inductive, statistical knowledge even if we cannot verify the truth of the claim through deductive knowledge.

One error that 9/11 skeptics make is to say that any claim based only on scientific inductive knowledge is false because it cannot be proven by scientific deductive knowledge. The most common dispute in this area is over the collapse of the two towers and WTC 7. When the 9/11 truth adherents say that no steel frame buildings have collapsed from fire alone, they are making a scientific inductive argument. When skeptics say that there is no data on how the collapse occurred, the skeptics are making a non-sequitur response. The basic claim is that we have lots of data about collapses of steel frame buildings -- namely, that in the history of steel buildings there has never been a collapse due to fire, or if you include the Empire State Building, an airplane crash and fire. Yet, all three buildings that have ever collapsed, collapsed on the same day.

That is a simple statistical anomaly. It doesn't matter that the exact deductive method of the collapse has not been proven, any more than pharmaceutical companies still don't know exactly why aspirin works. Arguments about fire temperatures and steel weakening are non-responsive to the statistical argument. If we lived in the skeptics' world, we would not only not be able to entertain suspicions about 9/11, we would not have aspirin, know the importance of diet to heart disease or have ben discovered that milkmaids who had cowpox didn't get small pox, leading of course to the discovery of immunization. We would not have industrial safety, would never have discovered genetics (ie before discovering DNA) or have many other "scientific" advances.

Another form of knowledge is legal knowledge, which in method is a lot like scientific inductive knowledge, but is more democratic. The basic method of legal knowledge is for two opposing parties to present all relevent information and have a neutral finder of fact sift the information and come up with a decision that is more likely than not to be true. No forum for legal decision making requires certainty. In civil cases, the standard is usually "a preponderance of the evidence," or in some cases "clear and convincing evidence," while in criminal cases the standard is "beyond a reasonable doubt."

9/11 was many things, but I think we can all agree that the debate about it is largely about its status as a vast crime. It is absurd to believe that the criminal involvement of some element of the government needs to be proven -- if it is true -- by the scientific deductive method. Whether in an impeachment forum or a war crimes trial, government complicity will be proven by legal standards, because above all 9/11 was a crime, not a deductive scientific experiment. To ask that the elements of the crime be proven by scientific deductive reasoning is utterly absurd.

Consider the typical mafia conspiracy case. The evidence consists of a mafia don speaking in coded language to intermediaries about a disfavored rival. The intermediaries then are seen and perhaps recorded talking to "foot soldiers." Someone gets whacked by a foot soldier and the question is whether the don was involved in a criminal conspiracy to commit murder.

No federal prosecutor could ever prove the conspiracy through scientific deductive methods. That would require exacting knowledge of all the communications and the unambiguous meaning of all the words used. There would have to be residue of gun powder on the don's hand, even though he did not pull the trigger.

Furthermore, the skeptics favorite label is to call all 9/11 truth advocates "conspiracy theorists." This of course is utterly absurd, suggesting that in the world of scientific deductive reasoning there are no conspiracies whatsoever. The official story of 9/11 is of course a conspiracy theory. The only question posed by the 9/11 truth advocates is, who is a member of the admittedly existing conspiracy? Simply saying that all conspiracy theories are wrong, or wrong because they cannot be proven through scientific deductive reasoning, is a falacy. Perhaps this occurs because under the limitations of the scientific deductive mind, conspiracies actually cannot, almost by definition, be proven, because the chain of causation remains unproven.

An important element of legal decision making is that there are usually more than one finder of fact, ie a jury. The idea is that while one person may make a mistake, or two people be misled, the more people who look at the same evidence using common methods of inquiry, the more likely it is that the majority of them will come to a correct conclusion. Of all the creepy ideas that the administration floated after 9/11, I thought the one that made the most sense was terrorism futures trading. The idea was that many people looking at the news and perhaps some having inside knowledge, would collectively come to accurate collective decisions about the likelihood of terrorist events. A similar kind of democratic decision making about the evidence regarding 9/11 is occurring now mainly on the internet, and the truth advocates are in a decided majority. The vast majority of DUers (over 80%) believe in either LIHOP or MIHOP, and a non-scientific poll by CNN showed similar percentages believe in a coverup. If the method of knowledge of juries and terrorism futures is correct -- that majorities are usually right about things of material importance when they have agreed upon methods of proof -- then the 9/11 truth advocates are far more likey to have a correct view of what happened, and the skeptics are likely to be incorrect.

The only response of the skeptics is that the majority is pitiably dumb. That is not a very scientific response to a well tested means of acquiring knowledge.

The last means of knowing is social science/political. People make decisions about current and historical political issues on the basis of amassing information, in context. One makes the big decision -- which party to vote for -- without clearly, and unambiguously making all the little decisions -- did Kerry really deserve his medals; or did Bush actually go awol? Decisions are rarely all or nothing, but nuanced judgments. Because there is a residue of uncertainty people coming to different conclusions treat the "other side" with respect and "agree to disagree."

Let me provide an example from so far afield from 9/11 that it should be uncontroversial. There has been a fair amount of controversy about whether president Woodrow Wilson was a racist. On the one side, Wilson resergregated parts of official Washington that had not been; he was quoted as having not just approved of, but praised the movie, Birth of a Nation; his writings as an historian approved of slavery and condemned the abolitionists; he carried out many actions suggesting that he was a racist. On the other hand some historians believe he was not a racist, citing among other things, his universalist stand on nationalism. The debate raises irresolveable questions such as, what is racism? What was racism at the turn of the century? What were the internal thought processes of Wilson?

The result is that the majority of professional historians have concluded that Wilson was a racist. But the subject is open enough to debate that if a person claims Wilson is not a racist, that person is not deemed insane or wacky or stupid, but just out of the mainstream of opinion.

Again, 9/11 is going to be judged politically: Should the Bush administration be impeached and on what grounds? Even if we never know exactly what happened on 9/11, in the context of known and partly known and unknown claims about the Bush administration -- incompetence about 9/11, faked intelligence on Iraq and WMDs, changing rationales for the war, the response to Katrina, the persistent almost reflexive lying, massive corruption and graft including the Vice President's employer -- are the suspicions about 9/11 valid as yet additional, if only partly known, facts that warrant the conclusion that the administration is criminal, lawless, corrupt and treasonous?

Even without an answer provided by scientific deduction, I would say yes. But in political decision making one remains open minded. Among the skeptics, however, with their terribly impoverished epistemology, one is either with them or against them. That sounds like another empistemologically impoverished decision maker I know who once said, you're with us or you're with the terrorists.


<cross posted to skeptics group>

[Wise Doubter]

1. The Unknown

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
- Donald Rumsfeld