Skeptic Project

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Over the past few weeks, I have had an email exchange with a true believer in the 9/11 conspiracy theories, amongst many others. Initially his concern was with some of the content or lack of on this website, but soon the conversation branched off into about a million other things including Bush bloodlines and the Rockefellers. I tried my best to address his claims about 9/11 conspiracy theories but in the end failed to convince him. The purpose of posting this exchange here and not in the hate mail section is to highlight all of the logical fallacies and the absurd reactions to conflicting evidence one encounters when debating a true believer in conspiracy theories. One may read on with a sociological lens, or like I expect many to do, read on for entertainment. The article begins with my response of a "note" Sean wrote about the CS website. It may be hard to follow at first, but the note itself really goes all over the place with that familiar "just asking questions" style. It then continues to follow the email exchanges, some of which will be in their entirety. The text in green are his words. Here is that exchange.

Dave: To start off I'd like to you to consider you the possibility that most of what you've read about 9/11 and the other conspiracy theories is false. I'm not telling you what sources to believe or how to think, but to just keep in mind that you are human just like me, are prone to many biases and are defensive about your own beliefs like anyone else. Admitting that you've been wrong and that much of what you currently believe is also wrong is one of the best things a true skeptic could admit. The trouble is not knowing which beliefs we hold are false. As for your post...
"My name is Sean. I was wondering why your conspiracy-busters site does not allow comments. Are you telling me that you "screen" your callers, so the speak (you know, the same technique that makes talk show hosts like Limbaugh and Hannity look like geniuses)??"
I'm all for allowing constructive criticism. But most of the time I just hear a series of easily answerable questions and arguments from personal incredulity. Edward's "Hatemail" section provides one with dozens examples of such responses. There is the CS facebook group and a forum to discuss corrections. If you are logged in, you can even leave comments below the articles. I'm willing to discuss any one point at a time, but typically I will be bombarded with a fallacious "proof by verbosity" argument. In young earth creationism debates, proponents will deliver a shotgun like approach to argumentation in which the skeptic will only be able to give meaningful answers to one or two of the claims, whereas the creationist makes 10. In the minds of the true believers, the claims that are not discussed or refuted are thought of as valid points. I will address many of the points you've raised, (not all of them...) and show why I find them to be invalid. None of the conspiracy theory claims I've looked into have held up to careful scrutiny. It's important to be skeptical of not just the government but of all sources. This includes internet documentaries and conspiracy websites.
"You may or may not be affiliated with a political party, but the agenda is obvious."
What is the agenda exactly? Like I mentioned before, I try to be as objective as I can but am limited in some ways because of things like confirmation bias etc. (http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney )I look into each claim to see if they are accurate or make sense. Accepting the claims of zeitgeist or loose change at face value is no different than accepting the claims of the mainstream media or Oprah at face value. You would then be just picking and choosing things that fit in to your worldview. In order to better understand what happened, it would be wise to read up on both sides of the argument. The best I can do is to make sure my scholarship is sounds and that my logic is valid. From my experience very few conspiracy theorists have read the documents they cite as evidence for their theory, or have a grasp of the criticisms provided by skeptics, scientists and "debunkers".

"In other words, finally we have the ability to hear news outside of the three major networks; finally a film dares to ask questions that nobody dare ask before. However, instead of discussing it in an open forum, he writes a piece in which his only goal was OBVIOUSLY to convince people it is false, and does so with truly paper thin arguments....... without taking questions!!!!"

We have thousands of blogs from other independent scientists and researchers, podcasts, peer reviewed literature and media from dozens of other countries. There are tons of good sources out there, and not one should be treated as gospel.
"Oh, btw...we've been pretty lucky to have dodged another attack for a decade now! Surely you would think Al QUEDA would want to capitalize on the heels of such a major blow, right? Any fighter will tell you that when your opponent is wobbled, like an animal who smells the blood of its enemy, it is time to pounce."
I suggest you read Michael Scheuer's book on Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden's goal was pretty much to draw us into Afghanistan to lead us to an eventual economic collapse. He also believed that they could defeat us in a similar fashion to the Russian and British armies. Before 9/11 there were three other attacks that aimed to draw us into Afghanistan. The two embassy bombings and the USS cole bombing.

You ask a lot of questions that have been answered, and have been available online for years. 9/11 myths.com and Mark Roberts' website (http://sites.google.com/site/wtc7lies/ ) have a lot of great links for info on the 9/11 conspiracy theories. The key is to actually read through these websites. You raised the point that you haven't seen any other plane crashes that looked like flight 93. Here is an example of one: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/07/15/iran.plane.crash/
Even without this example, you have to ask what other time has a plane crashed into soft soil around 500 mph?
"Then, please have him explain how the third WTC building fell, blocks away, half a day later, while buildings between them remained untouched. "

This isn't true. There are videos showing large chunks of debris hitting building seven. Building Six had a 4 story partial collapse, and several other buildings were so damaged they had to be taken down afterwards.
Building 7:I will agree that on first look without any context, edited videos of the collapse of building seven looks like a CD. (Though it sounds nothing like one... ) But logical problems arise when you try to think of a motive for blowing up a building hardly anyone has heard of hours after being on fire. I have an article on CS about this very point. This doesn't bother most truthers as they will often say something like "who cares why they did it, they just did it!" The quickest way to understand the collapse of building seven is to look at another building that collapsed from fire.

"Also please show me a building that has ever collapsed in history, from something other than a detonation, that fell onto itself perfectly at free fall speed." *Correction: They didn't collapse at free fall speed!"


Ok.. how about the Delft University Building in Holland. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=2&amp;ved=0CCAQtwIwAQ&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.liveleak.com%2Fview%3Fi%3Dff1_1210707903&amp;ei=vajsTeqBFKji0QH_stmYAQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNGwNKZ9-dw4Cl1GxDT75Le_AJukTQ
They look quite similar. While it is not 47 stories like Building 7, it's 13 stories and collapsed from fire alone. You also have to ask yourself "what would a building collapse look like?" Some have suggested the building should have fallen over like a tree, but this is a scientific question. This is a scientific question that has an answer. The answer is that the path of least resistance is straight down. In France, there is a demolition technique called Verinage. Check out some of the videos on youtube. The collapses are initiated by a "crushdown" effect similar to the collapse of the towers.

"First of all, there would be resistance at EVERY floor. That means it would have been momentarily stopped 120 times, especially early in the collapse. "

There is going to be some resistance, but the floors were not designed to hold weights in excess of 3 times the static weight. When you have several floors collapsing, the force increases by several times due to gravity. In the case of the towers, the weight coming down was about 30 times the static weight. For example, when you place a 15 pound weight on your foot, you won't feel any pain. But when you drop it from twelve feet, you foot is pretty much destroyed. The best way to think of this is to imagine the collapse as 30 floors vs. 1 floor. After that floor collapses you have 31 floors vs. 1 floor etc. The bottom part of the structure is not just a hunk of steel, it's made of millions of small parts capable of failing due to excess weight. If a critical column or structural component of a building fails due to fire, you can get partial or total collapses. If you acknowledge this point there's nothing strange about the collapse. It was on fire for seven hours without firefighting and was seen with a large bulge around 3 pm by several structural engineers using transits. Also the fires started on multiple floors, unlike most office fires which would just start on one. The collapse was also a progressive one. The east penthouse collapsed first. Overall the collapse took around 16 seconds. NIST did an extensive state of the art investigation into the collapse of building 7. Have you read any of it?
"How about the perfectly diagonal cut through what remained as the stub of the infrastructure?"
This was done post collapse by a clean up crew. http://www.debunking911.com/thermite.htm

"Or did each side burn through to give way at the exact same moment, thus causing an uncanny symmetrical collapse?"
The collapse was not symmetrical. It actually fell across the street damaging a bank to the point where it was feared it too might collapse .http://www.nmsr.org/nmsr911d.htm

"I would love to see somebody build a scale model of the scene and re-enact the alleged tragedy in a controlled environment, but for now I'll stick with common sense."
Do you realize how ridiculous this sounds? Why would they have to build a physical model of the structure and fly a plane into it when you can do computer models? These have been done and show that everything is consistent with the videos. This includes a computer simulation created by an engineer who was skeptical of the collapse initiation hypothesis offered by NIST. (But not a supporter of CD) http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~astaneh/
"The list goes on and on, but please keep in mind that I have absolutely no motivation other than the truth."
I hope you really mean this. As for the "list" you speak of, I suggest reading my article which goes into the "long list effect." http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/blog/2010/05/23/conspiracism-explained/ Once you realize nearly all of the claims are false, your position becomes untenable. It is this that is the difference between us. I reject all of your premises, and can tell you why. If you can show where I went wrong, by all means do.
"I'm getting tired, and I'm not sure Winston will read this because it doesn't agree with his beliefs"
This is pretty funny. I think Edward is aware of every claim you've made in this post. If you think you've come up with some new arguments, you must be living in the year 2004. Try googling "X debunked" or browsing the jref forums. This is all really old, and has been debunked ad nauseam.

"THIS WAS NOT SOME ROGUE ACT BY A TERRORIST BECAUSE THEY HATE OUR FREEDOM!!!!"
This I agree with. Again Michael Scheuer gives six reasons for why extremist groups hate us.

""An anti-U.S. defensive jihad was mandatory for six reasons:
1. The U.S. military and civilian presence in the Prophet's homeland on the Arabian Peninsula
2. Washington's protection and support for tyrannical Muslim governments
3. Washington's unquestioning and unqualified support for Israel
4. Washington's support for countries that oppress Muslims, especially Russia, China, and India
5. U.S. and Western exploitation of Muslim energy resources at below market prices
6. The U.S. military presence in the Muslim world outside the Arab Peninsula"

There are a lot of great books available that answer all of your questions and put them into context. If your interested I suggest reading "The Looming Tower" and "Ghost Wars" for starters. The challenge for you is to be willing to reject your current beliefs based upon new information and more reliable evidence. This is the rational thing to do. In my opinion, Conspiracy theories work in the exact opposite way. They rely upon the least reliable evidence (anomalies, quote-mining, junk science) and ignore what the vast majority of academia and what the consensus of relevant scientists has to say.

Excerpts

"I thank you for taking the time to acknowledge my post, but I am afraid your arguments are set out to debunk a film, rather than seek truth. "
If I weren't interested in the truth I wouldn't take the time to study this stuff. The point I cannot stress enough is that you are still convinced that a lot of these claims are correct. I hate to think of this as picking sides of a fence...
"A commission appointed BY BUSH himself, comprised of his political pals. The fact that these three have controlled American politics for over three decades. These are the things I am concerned with. Real life things, not a point-counter-point."
I think there is a big misconception about the 9/11 commission. They got their information from over 93 different agencies, almost half of were nongovernmental. There were thousands of experts and forensic scientists who studied the evidence extensively. The commission was not just Bush and his buddies making stuff up. There was four years of independent and governmental investigations that were brought together to form the conclusions of the 9/11 commission report. Just out of curiosity, have you read it?

"I told you that from 2001 to around 2006, I was a staunch Bush supporter. At one point, I told my mother that he will go down as the greatest president in history. I had to eat a lot of crow when i admitted that I was blind. "

I understand this. I think our political beliefs generally sway us into other belief systems. To say Bush was a bad president is one thing, to say he took part in the conspiracy of the century without any supporting evidence is another. I think Michael Shermer said it best. The best reason to doubt that Bush did 9/11 was that it worked. : )

"And regarding your claim that I've raised points that are innaccurate or false, again, my information comes from wikipedia, so if you believe that wikipedia delivers false information, that is a different argument."

There's nothing wrong with using wikipedia as source, as long as its coming from the secondary or primary source. The wiki article itself could be inaccurate, but must of the time they're pretty good. The parts I thought were inaccurate I addressed, and those are not on wikipedia. Some points you made I agreed with such as the fact that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 and that the extremist groups do not hate us because of our freedom fries. And just to clarify I am not a very big supporter of our system of government, or the people who run it. If there was evidence for any of these grand conspiracies I would pick them up and run with them. And so would all of the big US critics such as Noam Chomsky. Chomsky's take on 9/11 conspiracy theories. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwZ-vIaW6Bc

"Weell, certainly, you mean every floor. That's over a hundred floors! lol So, mathematically speaking, it COULD NOT fall at free fall speed."

None of the buildings did fall at free fall speed. Even the Architects and Engineers for 911 truth have dropped that claim. Now their big anomaly is that Building 7 was in for free fall for 2.1 seconds. I don't think I was very clear about the crushdown effect. Did you see the verinage demolition videos? They work by pulling out structural members with cables, causing the upper portion of the building to crush the bottom half. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwFHEoiUZ7o

"What about symmetrically? Do you not see this? You can not say, "there would be SOME resistance, BUT....." That's it. There would be resistance, hence adding time to the 10 second free fall, yet that was not the case. the building was detonated. Period."
They didn't collapse symmetrically. They all ended up hitting surrounding buildings, severely damaging them. Both the towers tilted before collapse. To see this very clearly, watch this video. It shows the perimeter columns bowing to the point of buckling. http://www.youtube.com/user/RKOwens4#p/u/34/bMZ-nkYr46wYoure making a bald assertion there when you say the buildings were detonated period. There is no evidence of loud explosions on any audio or video or seismographs, no cases of deafening or blast lung which we would expect, no fatalities from flying glass, and no evidence of detonation cords or bombs in the rubble. If there were bombs in the trade center buildings people would have been able to hear them from about a mile and a half away. Here is what a demolition sounds like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79sJ1bMR6VQ&amp;feature=related

You don't have to take my word for it but I've looked at both sides of the argument and have concluded the CT claims are pretty much all wrong. There was no conscious effort to try to believe the official story. And I'm pretty well read on the conspiracy theory literature. I just honesty don't find any of it compelling. That isn't to say that there aren't real conspiracies out there. (There are!) I came to my position after carefully evaluating both the quality and context of the long list of conspiracy claims, which took a while. I highly recommend reading through the debunking sites I posted, and to check out some of the videos when you get the chance. There's a lot to learn and "unlearn" so by all means take your time. I used to believe in some of this stuff too, so I understand where you're coming from. But in all seriousness it's important to read up on both sides of any debate, if your looking for truth. While it may be painful to spend hours reading material you may not agree with, it's important, and gives you a better understanding for how thinking can go wrong.

"So, you will continue using the word "Conspiracy Theorist," a blatant tactic of propagandist throughout history."

I don't think this is always a pejorative term. It's taken to be offensive to people who believe some of the more plausible conspiracy theories because they are lumped in with the nutty ones. I agree it says nothing at all about a person's actual beliefs, but it's the same with the word "debunker." I usually switch between "true believers" and "Cts". I am simply referring to some one who believes in a conspiracy theory. A great definition of a conspiracy theory is given by Oxford philosopher Steve Clarke.
"A theory that traces important events to a secretive, nefarious cabal, and whose proponents consistently respond to contrary facts not by modifying their theory, but instead by insisting on the existence of ever-wider circles of high-level conspirators controlling most or all parts of society."

"They do dirt, questions are raised, the pretend they are "investigating" it using their political buddies, slowly we forget about it, the book is closed, and anyone who doesn't buy it is called a Conspiracy Theorist or a Bush-Basher. Same playbook, Dave."

But the 9/11 commission was largely based on dozens of other investigations. Including books by investigative journalists, scientific reports and thousands of other investigators who have looked into the backgrounds of the hijackers, the collapse of the towers etc. I think you're point goes both ways. I can be called a sheep or a shill for accepting the "official story." It's not about accepting one view or the other, it's about understanding the difference between a strong and weak theory, and which one describes the theory at hand. But in order to criticize one side or the other, you need to understand what they actually believe.

This reminds me of a point you raised in a previous email.

"pointing me toward books is meaningless to me, because there are books that both conflict and support what I am saying. There are talented writers and spin-meisters for both sides. "

Are you saying it's too difficult to tell whether someone is being honest? All you have to do is check their sources, or see if their work is corroborated by other evidence or scholars.
9/11 CT advocate David Ray Griffin is a great example of someone who writes well, but when you fact check him, you realize he's either an incompetent researcher or a liar. For instance, he claims that there were no muslim names on the passenger manifests. What is his source? A "9/11 victims list" from CNN.com. Now around that time the Boston Globe had released the passenger manifests with all of the hijacker's names on them. How is it that Griffin has failed to acknowledge the Boston Globe article all of this time, while also ignoring criticism of his book pointing out that he was not referring to the source he claimed to have been?

"Nobody wants to believe such heinous things."
I actually disagree with this. There are a lot of people I have spoken to who believe 9/11 was an inside job, who really do want to believe it because they feel like they possess secret knowledge, and that everyone else is just sheeple. Like I said before I have no dog in this hunt, and have believed in some Cts before. A lot of what Noam Chomsky discusses in terms of government and military conspiracies, is far worse than 9/11 being an inside job. He said in an email chat with Kevin Barrett that even if 9/11 was an inside job, it wouldn't make it in the top 100 atrocities list. So I don't think this is a valid reason for why people debunk things in most cases. In most cases people debunk things because they don't think there's any validity to the claims they are debunking, and they explain why that it is so.

"I am very familiar with being blinded by your ideals, which in this country, in this age, are very much pre-determined by us and molded by propaganda at a level beyond expert. They mold our brains like play-doe."

I agree with this. John Loewen summarizes all of the myths and problems with the American history curriculum in his book "Lies My Teacher Told Me." Our history textbooks all portray the US as the good guys, omit a lot of the horrendous things we did (ex. our interactions with the Native American), generally tell the story from the perspective of a white christian male, and gets kids to memorize "facts" instead of building critical thinking skills. I think the lack of a course on critical thinking for the high school level is the biggest problem with our education system. We are also heavily influenced by the mainstream media like you said. If you haven't done so already you should watch Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. It's still on google video.

"Are you not suspicious of Dick, George, and Don?"
Well.. they're politicians. I'm skeptical of all politicians and what they say. That isn't to say that they lie about everything. We know Bush and his gang lied about the WMDs so it is not inconceivable that they lied about other things. The reason we know about this is because of the leaked manning memo.

But I think the Bush Administration was inarguably one of the most incompetent, so there is a heavy burden of proof to be met when one claims they managed to pull off a rather large scale conspiracy. If they couldn't just plant WMDs in Iraq, how could they manage to coerce thousands of people into orchestrating 9/11?

"And after holding three of the top positions of power in the world for the better part of four decades, do you honestly question the ability of these men to orchestrate 9-11?? Are you serious? Danny Ocean could pull that off, Dave. Those three men could rearrange the seasons if they wanted too, Dave. They could even make their kids president!"

I have to ask this again. If they could pull off 9/11, why not just plant WMDs in Iraq. That would involve far less people, and would much a million times less risky. Would benefit them greatly. Unless presented with some evidence, I find it really hard to believe that the Bush Administration orchestrated the attacks. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I also find it hard to believe that any group would be dumb enough to take such risks. All it would take is to have one detonation cord discovered, or one of the demolition guys telling his girlfriend what he was doing.

I have yet to even hear a coherent narrative to how they would have even done it. There is an absence of evidence that would have to be there, you'd have thousands of people who would have to silenced for the rest of their lives. On the other hand, we have a convergence of evidence that shows who the real perpetrators were and a coherent narrative to how they did it. I think the big problem with 9/11 conspiracy theories is that they do not take into account the history of US and middle east relations. We can speculate all we want about what happened, but it won't get us to the truth. If one rejects what virtually all scientists and scholars agree on, and reject in wholesale everything the government says, you are just going to wind up chasing down rabbit holes. And this brings up another point.
If 9/11 was an inside job, we are left with two scenarios. Either they (US) did it and covered it up. Or they did it and left behind incriminating evidence. If A, then we can't really do anything about it, they got away with the perfect crime. If B, I'm all for exposing them. Bringing up past examples of suspicious behavior or even some valid points about political figures that I agree with is not going to say anything about what happened on 9/11. What you're doing is just asking questions. We're far past that stage, it's been 11 years. There are answers, they're just not as appealing as a bombs being planted by cia agents, voice morphing etc. The reality is we got caught with our pants down. And all it took was the purchase of nineteen plane tickets with months of prep work on how to take over the planes.

"I ask you again, don't seek out to debunk a stupid movie. I will hand you one half of that movie, ok? Let's say I looked it all over and I admit right now that the film was overzealous in their presentation of certain facts and were not totally accurate on some of the quotes, dates, figures, facts, and there were a few things they presented that were not completely corroborated and may very well have been false."

I've been over the zeitgeist movies for a while now. Most of my articles are about specific claims and CTs, not about the zeitgeist movies. They are as inaccurate as they ever were and don't care too much about them. I would actually say it's closer to 90% of the info is inaccurate.
It seems like you misunderstand my position. I don't doubt that the government and military have carried out conspiracies in the past. Noam Chomsky is someone I believe exposes a lot of them, most worse than 9/11. (In terms of fatalities) For example, our support for the atrocities committed in East Timor during the 70's and onward.
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199910--.htm

I don't present Chomsky's take on East Timor as fact, but bring it up as a example of a conspiracy I find somewhat plausible, that is worse in scale than 9/11.

What I doubt is strictly the points I bring up in the Zeitgeist movies. (nearly all of them) This says nothing about my views about our foreign policy or government. It says nothing else about me in general. All I care about is what's true. And the best I can do at finding it, is making sure my scholarship is sound, and that my logic is valid. Looking at both sides of the debate, I've found that the books and articles which argue for a government conspiracy lack the kinds of scholarship you would expect, and are largely illogical. For instance, if we wanted to get into Iraq and Afghanistan for oil, why not make the hijackers come from those countries? The choice of hijackers from Saudi Arabia makes no sense.

Sean's response in its entirety:

"I ask you again, don't seek out to debunk a stupid movie. I will hand you one half of that movie, ok? Let's say I looked it all over and I admit right now that the film was overzealous in their presentation of certain facts and were not totally accurate on some of the quotes, dates, figures, facts, and there were a few things they presented that were not completely corroborated and may very well have been false."

OH no, Dave Don't blatantly cut my quotes out of context now. Finish what I said there.

Such actions, like qouting out of context show your agenda. It is the same reason you abbreviate CT, because it is used so much. You have stuck religiously to your talking points, all of which I have already seen on your site. I want you to answer my questions, not fit your 9-11 debunking where it works.

I want to know WHEN THE ANGLO's WHO SIGNED THE DECLARATION AND WHO OBVIOUSLY CONTROLLED THE WHITE HOUSE FOR THE BETTER PART OF OUR FIRST CENTURY WITH 6 guys ENDING WITH jOHN QUINCEY ADAMS (interesting, huh? that the son of a founding father would be elected?
When did they relinquish autonomy in the white house and allow an african american nobody to control things?

Are you telling me that the same handful of men owned the white house and all of its dealings, including the initiation of their own central bank, simply "stepped down" at some point?? When?? And is it not a coincidence that they are back in charge in the year 2000? Or do you deny that the Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld family lines trace RIGHT BACK TO The Kights Templar, or to keep it less CT, 12th century England?

If you want to be honest, the bloodlines go back to ancient Egypt (King Ramses (alternate spelling of rumsfeld)

I have to go and there's no sense continuing if you don't see the obvious.

I dont care about an independant film. I want to talk Bush-Windsor. founding fathers, Anglo Protestent rule, and democracy. Let's talk that and how inconcievable it is that these men manipulate the world.

Dave's response

"OH no, Dave Don't blatantly cut my quotes out of context now. Finish what I said there.

Such actions, like qouting out of context show your agenda. It is the same reason you abbreviate CT, because it is used so much. You have stuck religiously to your talking points, all of which I have already seen on your site. I want you to answer my questions, not fit your 9-11 debunking where it works."

There is really no agenda, but I guess I understand your point on that quote. If you read my full response, you would see I addressed those points later on. My analyses of the Zeitgeist films and 9/11 Cts are of just that. I have never written an article about George Bush, Big Oil or anything about the evil bloodlines. By default, you assume I reject all of it because I take fault with what I've written about. Why is that? I have yet to make any assumptions about you, and have not even referred to you as a CT. And BTW I explained why I use the abbreviation CT, and that I do not define it as "crazy person." It shouldn't be such a big deal. If you take it as an ad hominem attack, ignore it and deal with the other points I make.

"I want to know WHEN THE ANGLO's WHO SIGNED THE DECLARATION AND WHO OBVIOUSLY CONTROLLED THE WHITE HOUSE FOR THE BETTER PART OF OUR FIRST CENTURY WITH 6 guys ENDING WITH jOHN QUINCEY ADAMS (interesting, huh? that the son of a founding father would be elected?
When did they relinquish autonomy in the white house and allow an african american nobody to control things?"

Again, you are just asking questions. You contacted me to ask about how you can add corrections to the articles on CS, and now we are talking about bloodlines and george bush's past. Neither of which are covered on CS, and neither of which are relevant to the criticisms of other theories.

"If you want to be honest, the bloodlines go back to ancient Egypt (King Ramses (alternate spelling of rumsfeld) "
This is pretty interesting if true, but I couldn't find a source for this.

"I dont care about an independant film. I want to talk Bush-Windsor. founding fathers, Anglo Protestent rule, and democracy. Let's talk that and how inconcievable it is that these men manipulate the world."

Ok so we are done talking about the material covered on CS?

Sean's post in it's entirety:
OK, Dave, I understand being young and pasionate about politics. You are much smarter than I who voted for Ross Perot at 21, and this is the first and last time I will mention your age, because it doesn't mean anything except, in MOST cases a person's politics at a young age is usually the opposite of what it ends up. Also, I mention that because part of the reason I'm doing this, besides looking for the truth, is because you can still change. I'd never crack an older person like my mother. lol (I try)
Ok, take your time, but one more thing. Let me put everything in perspective for you. This is not conspiracy vs. no-conspiracy. I'm am right down the middle, with NO partisan agenda whatsoever (especially since they dont exist), it just so happens that the conspiracy side has been going strong for about three years now, and I am at the point where the burden of proof is on the debunkers.

As I watched the film (again haha I cant get enough) with my brother-in law who, up to a few months ago was a hard-lined conservative who told me that I should be in a tin-foil hat when I mentioned these films, and who now invited me to watch a new film, simple looked at each other and laughed. It was funny, but maddening, hysterical, but disturbing; it was all of these things, but never did we think it was uncertain. This is a matter of fitting a square into a triangle....

So, anyway, do what you gotta do. This would be impressive. I'm not sure how we could score it, but let's see if it makes it out of the edit room first.

OH wait, your questions. I'm sorry. Whistle-blowers? I could probably gather about 20 if I had a second, but off the top of my head, umm, Wesley Clark....hey wait a minute, Dave. Why does this sound familiar? Dave, are you using talking points, Dave? I'm sorry, man, but I am being to see a white spy vs. black spy going on. I'm trying to be neutral and you are hitting me with talking points, or should I say hot button topics. lol
Come on, Dave....OK since the answer to that question is everywhere, I'll pick the first place I see and give you that list. I'm sure I knew many of them already.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&amp;aid=17961

and the strongest piece of evidence? How much time you got, buddy? (quick DaveChapelle) No, seriously, I don't want to ruin anything for you so I'll say numbers one through thirty (1-30) are on the film you are going to watch. Beyond that off the top of my head:
and in no particular order-

-the look on George Bush's face when they whispered in his ear that morning, a morning which he prayed would not happen, but like Jesus on that last night in Jerusalem, knew it would. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.....so, yeah, the close-up of him in high def.

-while we're on George W (poor kid) and that seven minutes in front of the kids....that seven minutes in front of the kids. Totally inexcusable. (Although, like I said, I almost feel bad for GW.)

-and I promise to leave him alone after I lump together the buckets full of misspeaking, fumble words, saying obviously rehearsed things, looking as nervous as a whore in church, as if he stood to get a beating for f---ing up. OK that's it for Little George, as Saddam Hussein called him, and rightfully called him. Is it odd for your dad's good to call you little ---------?

-- One more Bush thing. The fact that he insisted on taking questions from congress only with uncle don and not recorded and no hard questions....etc lol All of these concrete things glued together by the crystal clear body language of all involved, from Ari Fleesher to the head of FBI with the big cartoon face who got canned quickly, and of course, GW, who all but had a sign up saying My father made me do it! I just want my baseball team back. I can't wait for this eight years to be over. My dad's gonna set me up and.........lmao Dave, I wish that were more of a joke.

-Of course there is all the stuff I talked about with those three family crests and their power. That too, reads like a child's encyclopedia as to what is going on.

-Now, all of those things are heavy claims that I know to be true, but everyone has to find their way. However, more physical proof, that is there for all to see include
--The disappearing airlines at two crash sites. I have not see as much as a seat, or one of those rolse royce engines that are 8 feet in diameter.

-the pictures of the pentagon-----where do I start??

--the fact that the pentagon is one of the most secure building in the world, supposedly, with security camera lining the entire circumference, yet there is only ONE surveillance camera, and it just happens to have the wrong date, but forget that end piece, one camera, out of a hundred or more. There was ONE other tape, a gastation across the street but FBI officials were there immediately to confiscate it.

---Did I say pictures at the pentagon? and in Shanksville.

--Odd report made in cincinnati and put on their website that a plane had an emergency landing in cleveland due to a bombthreat, flight 93.

--hundreds and hundreds of eyewitnesses, there on the scene or shortly after claiming the heard explosions going off down the building as they ran down. Hundres on the scene or shortly thereafter who claim that it definitely was not a commercial airliner.

---Every photo or video taken of the scene, either showing a mysterious shape under the belly of the plane, from all angles, and it's uncanny resemblence to an armed military plane. The flash of light obviously seen before the impact, from all angles,

--Oh sorry George---there was only one tape that had caught the first impact at all on video. It was a french film group doing some little thing on the NYC fire fighter coincidently, when it happened they got it. It wasn't seen until later, yet George Bush says clearly, in response to what he thought when he saw the footage, "I remember seeing that first plane hit and thought......"

--The 911 comission being a joke from the start. (believe me, I was there during the whole thing. It was a joke.)

--Bush=oil=Bin Laden=Saudis

--The owner of the building 7 stating that they made the decision to "pull" the building, meaning it was rigged with devices.

--The symetrical free fall collapse of the towers.

---Did I mention the pics of Shankesville and pentagon? Also the manuever that this pilot would have had to make being a poor to moderate flyer.

---The molten steel at the bottom of the scene that was omitted.

--The blatant suppression of news.

---Building 7

--NORAD blunders

--lack of evidence that Osama Bin Laden did it. In fact, much less evidence that Osama did it then THEY did it.

----I could write until morning, but all of that, plus that film, plus the fact that I know this is a government capable of decimating people, countries, and races without blinking an eye.

(The above is a perfect example of a "proof by verbosity)

My response

Here are two sites to look over about the pentagon claims: http://www.911myths.com/html/pentagon.html
http://sites.google.com/site/wtc7lies/911pentagonflight77evidencesummary

Whistleblowers
Note that none on that list had direct knowledge of a conspiracy on 9/11. The closest is Sibel Edmonds who claims to have read about the US military working with Taliban forces like the mujahedeen in the 1980's. This would be pretty big if true, but there is no evidence for this, and unlikely to have been in the hands of a Turkish translator. She could have just been remembering something else, or confused about what she was reading. After all it's been 9 years since she's worked there. The main point is that this has nothing to do with 9/11 or foreknowledge.

On Plane Site:

At first discovering the documentary is from 2004, and includes some of the older sillier claims left out in the more recent truth documentaries, I didn't see a point in debunking it frame by frame. This has been done for the more recent films. But since this is a movie you're familiar with, and since I accepted the challenge, I'll do a point-by-point analysis. Since the film focuses a lot on the Pentagon theories, I will give a quick summary of the evidence for Flight 77 crashing there.
-Light Pole and generator damage is consistent with Flight 77's trajectory
-Engine, FDR, black box among other plane parts were recovered. http://sites.google.com/site/wtc7lies/PentagonDebrisMontagecopy1.jpg
-100+ eyewitnesses who saw the plane
-Radar evidence
-Subsequent analysis by Purdue University and dozens of structural engineers, independent investigators and forensic experts.
-Testimony from first responders who handled passenger remains
-Forensic experts positively identified the passengers DNA, and personal effects were recovered and sent back to the families.
-Airphone and cellphone calls made by passengers tell us that the planes were hijacked
-Damage to the pentagon is consistent with plane crash. When light aluminum crashes into a reinforced concrete wall, you wouldn't expect much to survive. The plane is not going to make a cartoon cutout into the building. Check out what happens to a F-4 phantom when it hits a reinforced wall at 500 mph.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--_RGM4Abv8

Here is a video simulation of the plane's trajectory, and outlines the areas of the Pentagon that were damaged.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVDdjLQkUV8

Sean's response in its entirety:
No. not at all. That's ludacris, Dave. I am afraid you are comfortable in your niche and won't change. I will not let you calmly lay these talking points out anymore. I think we should just move obn. You can continue preaching to your choir. No hard feelings.

I say that Dave because I feel myself getting all uptight and it's a worthless argument. You and your associates have "covered all the bases" , huh? I will not have you say that there's nothing there.
Where's the damage to the roof from the tail? If the tail fell off where was it? Where was the plane?? My God, Dave, did you see the wall?? Where was the plane??

Where was the plane in Pennsylvania?? Where, Dave? I do NOT see a plane or anything beklonging to a plane anywhere at the scene. What about the computer monitor on the third floor of the pentagon, untouched??

You are truly hypnotized of you are telling me that a passenger jet hit that building.

So, you refute ALL of that video footage. The flash from every angle, the bumped belly of the plane, the eyewitness reports of explosions....why did the owner silverstein admit that they "pulled" the building???

But the big one.....where's the plane??? Where are the planes?? Did they disappear?? Where is the plane that hit the pentagon, underground? Where was it in the first shiot when they arrived on the scene?? Where are all of the video surveillance footage?? The PENTAGON???!! One tape?? Why did they confiscate the gas station so quickly? Why did George W say he saw the first plane hit the building when NOBODY did?

is that the only picture of a plane???

Dave, listen to me Dave. Planes Don't Just Disappear!! They do not vaporize into thin air, Dave.

This is one of those things where it doesn't matter what the talking points are or what lone picture or explanation you turn to, because I saw it with my own eyes. No plane.

My response:
And so what, is the list of evidence I presented all faked?? You are making an argument from personal incredulity. It doesn't matter whether you don't believe a plane crashed there because it did. Most of the plane was found inside the building, because that's where it crashed. What was left was a bunch of small pieces inside the building which I have presented. When you send a plane at 500+ mph into a reinforced concrete wall, this is what happens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZjhxuhTmGk

I know I gave you too much to digest there, and it's clear from your response that you're going into denial mode. I listed plenty of evidence that Flight 77 crashed there, the burden of proof is on you to say how you can make sense of the crash scene without a plane being involved. We don't need a video to know it crashed there, we have plenty of other physical evidence, corroboration from experts, and eyewitnesses who saw the plane hit the building. To reject all of this out of hand would be irrational. The reason why we don't have a good video is because the plane was flying in too fast to capture on the shutter speed of security cameras, and because typically you face security cameras towards the ground, not up at the sky. There is not one shred of evidence for a missile or bomb, and not one eyewitness reported seeing a missile. You have nothing. And I already provided an instance of an open field plane crash that resembled Shanksville. The reason why you don't see large parts of the plane is because most was recovered after they dug it up. Some pieces were found 30 feet deep. I'm curious to hear what you think happened to Flight 93. If it was shot down by a missile, wouldn't you expect large pieces of plane scattered over large distances. What do you think the debris field in Shanksville was, if not a plane that crashed into the ground?

Sean's response:

hahaha. First of all, that is a computer re-enactment, the only shot was a lightpole that could've been in front of my house! But what's great is that they show this cartoon, then flash to a real life scene that shows NO PLANE!! Where is the plane?? I don't care about light poles. The plane!!

Answer this: You say it was hot enough, due to building materials + jet fuel to cause river of molten steele to flow at the base of the towers, and in the pentagon enough to vaporize a jetliner within seconds (which is preposterous) So, is it not fishy that the terrorist's passport, wallet, and the koran were found blocks away from the towers!!??? ARE YOU KIDDING? lol

How could you say, with a straight face (lol) that the damage to the pentagon was consistent with that of a 767??? How?? Where's the tail, the wings, the two engines, 8feet in diametr??? Where are they? Why was a wooden desk left unsinged on the second floor, yet an entire plane vaporized?? It's insane for you to argue this, Dave. It looks very poor.

I don't know what to do if you can look at this picture. THIS PICTURE. Not the ones you carved out. This link, the video at 0:03, pause it look point blank at that hole moments after a supposed plane crashed into it and tell me that a 767 hit it. Did you even look at the cartoon you showed me? You are telling me that your cartoon, which is surrounded on youtube by cartoons showing it to be impossible, is more substantial than this actual photograph taken on the scene??

That crazy, and I GUARANTEE that if we got 10 random people and showed them one of my real life pictures versus one of your real life pictures (frames, movies...whatever) and put one of my cartoons versus one of your cartoons. We would average aroun 9.5 in my favor by the end of the day. lol I mean that, We'll go shot for shot, I'll pick mine out of a hat, and you carefully grab the most disproportionate little gif animation flash cartoon you can. I'll take anyone of the camera angles. One is more obvious than the last.

By the way, your cartoon mentions the security camerA, what about the cameras lined up around the entire perimeter, plus the satelitte coverage. Are you telling me that the most secure building in the world, our nations PENTAGON, only had ONE camera????!!!!! The same number of cameras that the gas station across the street had. So, our surveillance is on par with an average citgo????

Actually, lets stay on that one for a while. lol Let's talk security cameras, Dave. One camera? As Bill OReilly would say, "What say you?" One camera? The Pentagon?? WSY??

Where's the gas station video? Why was it initially not released?? What were they covering up?? Why Cheney and Bush together before congress? Were they afraid Bush would say something wrong?? Why would there be anything wrong to say if they didn't do anything??

My response:
Here's an early photo of the crash site, before the fires were put out. Is this consistent with a missile?
http://sites.google.com/site/wtc7lies/01749r.jpg

You keep asserting that planes can't vaporize upon impact of a reinforced wall, but I've provided you with a video of an F-4 phantom that shows this can happen. What gives?

You keep jumping around from claims about the towers to shanksville, let's stick with one for now. And I really want to hear what you think about the list of evidence i presented. Is it all fake? All the eyewitnesses and forensic investigators are in on it too? This is where CTs get to the point where they are unfalsifiable, and where I lose interest in them. By this logic you can make a CT about anything.

"Answer this: You say it was hot enough, due to building materials + jet fuel to cause river of molten steele to flow at the base of the towers, and in the pentagon enough to vaporize a jetliner within seconds (which is preposterous) So, is it not fishy that the terrorist's passport, wallet, and the koran were found blocks away from the towers!!??? ARE YOU KIDDING? Lol"

Well there was no tests done on the molten metal flowing, so by default it was probably aluminum, brass or zinc. (among other metals) You are confused. Flight 77 did not partially vaporize due to heat, but due to the collision of a lightweight aluminum jet flying at the speed of a bullet into a reinforced concrete structure. Similar to the F4 phantom crash. It broke up into a bunch of small pieces, which can be seen littered on the lawn, and larger pieces penetrated the building and were later found inside. The passport and other personal effects were ejected from the plane upon impact. Other personal effects such as luggage, seats, letters, passengers' body parts were also found on the street at the time.
Excerpts:
"An F4 is hardly a 767. Why the Jamie McCintire lies. This is just going to go back and forth. So, I'll let you get back to the CT's on the web. I'm done. You dont want to believe so you will never believe. I'll leave you with two questions to ask yourself.
1. This is a lot of BS you have to dig through for something that is so innocent, ain't it? I mean, why not release ALL the tapes? Why not appoint a truly independabnt commission? Why not testify separate and under oath?? (THat is indefensible)"

But you said planes can't vaporize. And besides both are made of aluminum. You are now making an appeal to perfection logical fallacy. Take the time to read over what I said, and take into consideration that you could be duping yourself into believing all of this. It's called cognitive dissonance. You continue to ask a bunch of questions, I have provided good answers to a lot of them. Instead of just asserting that my answers aren't good enough or that they are "thin", you need to catch up and read the debunking sites. Your claim that I just don't want to believe in any of this fails for reasons I've already mentioned. I used to be a CT, I fell for it just like you are doing right now. The further you travel down these rabbit holes, the further you'll be from reality. I believe I have been very patient and respectful so far, but I am beginning to lose interest. You are smart enough to answer all of the questions you've raised, but fail to because you'd rather have all of the "secret knowledge" you've acquired, then to start from scratch and discover that the 9/11 commission report is accurate. I understand why this is and I hope you reconsider your views.

"Dave Dave your site, conspiracy science has shown itself to be a group of frauds, political science majors and politician groupies who, when faced with straightforward questions, resort to vile name-calling.

You do not have to be a pyschiatrist to know that to get angry like that is a certain sign of frustration, like a cheating spouse.

You see that during our entire talk I have not once resorted to so much as a mild insult. My "note" was very straightforward and very valid, yet these political science majors could only muster up that I am a jerk off? That is embarrassing, Dave. You HAVE NOT given good answers to any of them. The photos dont add up. You cant tell me why there is no surveillance at the pentagon. You cant tell me why they refused to be alone or under oath before the commission....
oh yeah and you never answered how tower 7 fell a block away, 8 hours later.
and I forgot to say that you were only ten years old when this happened. lol Just kidding. Why is it that I can carry on this discussion without a drop of animosity or hostility toward you or anyone accross the aisle from me, yet your group instantly spews venom?? At least it is obvious who the NICER people are out of CT's and debunkists."

The reason why a lot of members are acting like that is because they can see you are obsessed with this stuff. If you were to ask one question at a time without coming off as closed-minded or sarcastic, they would actually respond. Most of the people I've talked to on CS really do know their stuff. They just don't feel like debating people on it they believe will never change their beliefs. And I hate to say it but I understand why. Every answer I've given you, is according to you, not good enough. This is not my problem. When I hear about the list of evidence for Flight 77 crashing there (plane debris, DNA, radar, eyewitnesses etc.) is no reasonable doubt that it crashed there. You apparently think this is either meaningless or fabricated evidence because we don't have a video. Since you keep asking about the video, I will give you the answer once again in a slightly different way. The cameras at the Pentagon would be pointed towards the ground, not up at the sky. Like I've said before, most of these cameras were not set up to record and had security guards stationed in rooms watching them 24/7. Other problems with capturing the plane on a security video camera, is the fact that they record at a frame rate too slow. The reason why they don't release a video is because the video you want doesn't exist. If you believe that the list of evidence I cited was all fabricated, why wouldn't the conspirators just fake a video too? Think about this for a while. I know you have not said this, but in order for you to be consistent in your assertion that Flight 77 didn't crash there, you would have to believe:
-Plane parts from a Boeing 737 were planted inside a burning building
-Hundreds of actors were hired to fill in as eyewitnesses for the plane
-Hundreds of forensic investigators who identified DNA from all of the passengers were paid off
-Structural engineers from esteemed universities published reports they knew to be false
-Radar technicians were paid off to claim that they tracked the plane
-Light poles and a generator were damaged in some way to make it look like a plane flew through that area. And this was done without anyone else noticing.
-All of this but the conspirators fail to come up with a faked video.
If you can believe all of that, our minds must be wired up differently.
Not only are your demands unreasonable but you move the goalposts. First you asked for a piece of debris that resembled coming from a plane. When I post dozens of pictures of plane parts and debris you then say "Where's a video?" The thing is this typically never ends. If I showed a video you'd probably say it was photoshopped or something. This is why people don't like debating CTs. Not because they're afraid of the truth or ignorant of CT claims. But because most of the time it's pointless. Here's a quote from Vincent Bugliosi's book on the Kennedy assassination sums this up nicely.

"The Warren Commission critics and conspiracy theorists display an astonishing inability to see the vast forest of evidence proving Oswald's guilt because of their penchant for obsessing over the branches, even the leaves of individual trees. And, because virtually all of them have no background in criminal investigation, they look at each leaf (piece of evidence) by itself, hardly ever in relation to, and in the context of, all the other evidence"

If you probe every little detail of any historical event, you'll end up with some unanswered questions or find some weird stuff. This does not mean everything is a conspiracy.

"Lastly, I have been very polite not to point out that in reality, you are still very young and inexperienced, and that every man, to a T, will say that he knew nothing at the age of 21, so please do not speak with a tone of "I used to be like you, but......" or suggest that I suffer from some sort of mental disorder. "

I don't think you understood what I was trying to say. I am not trying to say you are inexperienced or dumb, I am saying that I believe you are making some mistakes in your logic and scholarship that I made in the past. I am aware of all of the claims you are making, and have a few years of research into the debunker's counter arguments. My conclusion: debunkers make far more compelling, logical arguments, and refer to actual evidence, not just some anomalies that laypeople find baffling.

"oh yeah and you never answered how tower 7 fell a block away, 8 hours later. "
I did discuss this earlier in our conversation. If you want a technical report, there is the NIST report on building 7 which concluded the building resulted in a progressive collapse due to fire. Despite what a lot of CT sites claim, the fires were large and on at least 16 floors, making it one of the largest, if not the largest office fire in history.(based on area of the building) The building showed signs of weakening around 3 pm, and was deemed unstable by structural engineers who assessed it on site. If you read the firefighter testimony, it all corroborates NIST's hypothesis. If you want to argue that explosives or thermite were used, you need to provide some evidence. To say "I don't understand how the building collapsed, therefore it was x", you are making an argument from ignorance logical fallacy. If you don't want to read NIST's conclusions or read any of the material on "debunkoid" sites, I did show you a video of another building that collapsed from fire. This should be sufficient to establish that building can be weakened by fire, and can in fact collapse.

"WHY DID HE REFUSE TO GO UNDER OATH???? You also failed to answer that. because there IS NO ANSWER!!!!!!! Except to hide and pretend it didn't happen!"

I'm beginning to think you do not read my entire posts. I have addressed this already. This is speculation on my part, but couldn't it just be that Bush didn't know wtf was going on at the time, and that going under oath could result in perjury charges for something he might say out of ignorance or confusion? And like I pointed out before, if these conspirators were going to plan this all out, wouldn't they know that at some time they would have to testify? Why wouldn't they write out a script for Bush to memorize or something. There's another possibility I think even you would consider. Maybe there is something Bush knew beforehand about the attacks. Whether it was some small details or that he knew about everything. (LIHOP scenario) I personally doubt that is the case, but it is a far more believable scenario than Bush and his cronies orchestrated the whole thing.

Sean's response in its entirety:
"Give me a break, Dave. IM NOT THE ONE WITH A WEBSITE!! You are obseessed. But it's like marching for a cause or picketing a labor dispute, putting up a sign and chanting, but when someone asks why you are doing this, you walk away.

Because they see how obsessed I am?? What a lame excuse. When I champion a cause, I can't wait to be engaged, obsessed or not.
It is the same reason Bush would testify under oath or alone.

All you had to do was answer ONE of my questions, but you see the intelligent responses I recieved. You would think the Bush administration (or any) wouldn't leave their supporters high and dry, forced to answer CT's with a blurry picture of a cadillac bumper to support their story!

JUST remember one thing. YOU are the one with the website. They are the ones who came up with the boxcutter story, not me.

hahaha I must remember that. They couldn't answer my questions because they see how obsessed I am. That is hysterical. Since you're on such a roll, or should I say, spin, maybe now would be a good time to adress the insistance on being with uncle Dick and NOT under oath. Can you tell me why anyone in the world with nothing to hide would make that request?

I waon't hold my breath for an answer, however, all of the wack, looney, conspiracy theory sites are always more than willing to engage in a discussion and hurl evidence at you. (An abundance of unanswered questions does give a person the look of obsession I guess. lol

OH excuse me, I have a bad habit of answer you in sections when the first paragraph is that outrageous. Although, that excuse is as flimsy as the rest. I'm not even going to ask why he sat reading to children for seven minutes or why he stated that he saw the first building get hit when nobody did, or why he stuttered all over the place when confronted with the very oath question.

And about the building seven. hahahaha whatever you say.

OK, so far you are ducking and dodging, how about why there was only one camera securing our pentagon???

MY MESSAGES ARE GETTING MESSED UP, BUT IT DOESNT MATTER. I've seen enough. You have actually convinced me further. So, before I recieve a visit from a man in a black suit, I'm done.

AND NOBODY IS SAYING BUSH AND HIS CRONIES DID ANYTHING! GW Bush is a punk kid. He had nothing to do with it except having to listen to Dad! And, the CT's aren't putting out any story. They don't know what happened, but it's obvious what didn't.

My final response in its entirety:
Here is the thing. There are roughly three groups of people who take part in debating conspiracy theories. There are the skeptics/debunkers, fencesitters and hardcore believers. At the start our our discussions I took it you were still on the fence, and still in the "asking questions" phase. I was wrong. You are clearly stuck on believing 9/11 was an inside job. I can only speculate for why this is. You have not given meaningful responses to any of the answers I've given you, most of which were ignored entirely. You've made bald assertions such as: "And about the building seven. hahahaha whatever you say." If you want to be taken seriously, you'll need to actually identify the specific faults of my logic or point out some erroneous claims. You have not done this, and to my knowledge no one in the truth movement has. I find it extremely bizarre that you keep asking some of the same questions, even after I have given you multiple answers. I doubt that you missed them somehow, but if you did scroll up. If you don't think the answers are correct, be free to point out the errors. If you have some knee jerk reaction to what I am saying, I can't help you. Reason and evidence trumps emotion.

"Give me a break, Dave. IM NOT THE ONE WITH A WEBSITE!! You are obseessed."

I do consider writing for the site a hobby of mine, but I only occasionally write articles. I'm obsessed with correcting people when I hear them saying things I know to be false, but this should be true of everyone. You are clearly obsessed with the list of factoids you've heard from CT documentaries, and this is what the members of the CS group recognized. There is little to no point in debating a hardcore believer in such nonsense.

"AND NOBODY IS SAYING BUSH AND HIS CRONIES DID ANYTHING! GW Bush is a punk kid. He had nothing to do with it except having to listen to Dad! And, the CT's aren't putting out any story. They don't know what happened, but it's obvious what didn't."

You are implying that when you keep asking why he didn't testify under oath. How are these two claims logically compatible with each other? Yeah I know the CTs aren't putting out any story. Maybe that's a sign that they don't have one. The real reason why they don't know what happened is because they are ignorant of the many great books out there that go over the history of muslim extremism, Bin Laden and the books that cover the attacks themselves and the aftermath. For instance, if you wanted to know what happened at the pentagon, there is a book entitled "Firefight" which contains interviews with dozens of first responders who talk about plane debris, passenger remains etc. It gives both a coherent and plausible narrative to the events that took place there. With the truth movement, we just have a series of questions. No evidence at all, no coherent narrative. Some make the argument that Flight 77 didn't crash at the pentagon because of little to no evidence, but at the same time maintain that it crashed somewhere else without any evidence! This is absurd.

"o summary: Debunkoids do NOT like questions. CT's love questions. Debunkoids protect their ideals. CT's seek truth. Hence, it just wont work."

This is just ridiculous. I won't get into some kind of pissing contest with you, but this is such a useless thing to say in a debate. I could just as easily assert the same thing about CTs. 'You preach from the gospel of internet factoids, and never give meaningful responses to where the debunkers go wrong.' See how easy it is? This is also an ad hominem attack. Although from reading through this exchange one could find dozens of examples that back up my assertion.

Since you have already said that you are even more convinced of your position, I see no point in continuing this conversation. If you want to hear what some other skeptics have to say, I have already given you some links that do just that. But the key ingredient to this is you have to actually sit down and read through a lot of it. I cannot stress this enough. Just glossing over the sites will not suffice. You need to comprehend the counterpoints, and then if you still find problems, point them out.

Conclusion:

You can never really win over a true believer when it comes to debating the details of a conspiracy theory. The best you can do is to try and show where they went wrong with a particular claim and hope that they start to see on their own their bad thinking. When shown the evidence requested, Sean either moved the goal post or found some other way to discount the evidence, by implying it was faked, or by ignoring it entirely. The answers I gave make a lot of sense to me, and are backed by the evidence and expert opinion. If asked to ever do something like this again, I would decline. There are plenty of reasonable people out there who are sincere when they ask questions about 9/11 or JFK and those are the people I'd like to have a conversation with. When someone asks dozens of questions at a time or dismisses all counter arguments as rubbish without any explanation, they are simply concerned with "winning the debate." Plenty of young earth creationists win debates with scientists, but that doesn't make them right. Our best way of finding the truth is science, and if we throw out what the world's leading experts have to say, all we are left with is our own ignorance.

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http://www.911myths.com/index.php/FBI_hides_84_Pentagon_videos
uld answer all of your questions about the security cameras. Most of the cameras at the pentagon were not hooked up to record. They had live security guards on watch 24/7. It's important to know who's going into the pentagon, not who went into the pentagon. According to JREF poster BCR, "The State of Virginia was kind enough to provide me with invoices for when the VDOT exterior cameras were installed. Work began on them in late-2002 and on 9/11 there was no camera system to record anything. Fort Myers had several exterior cameras, but the footage was not retained. According to security officials, the FBI did review their footage shortly after the event, but did not find any footage useful (mostly gate cameras that pointed down at the roadway)."

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After nine years of "investigating", speculation and internet gossip, the 9/11 truth movement has yet to present a scintilla of evidence to support the various "theories" they have invented. Their failure could be explained by the fact that muslim extremists conspired to commit the acts on 9/11, or from the absence of good investigating. I'm not arguing that one could dig up evidence of thermite if they just looked harder, but that if you grant certain premises and claims promoted by the truth movement, you would expect the researchers involved to do some kind of follow up. This essay outlines the kinds of research you would expect to hear about if there were good researchers in the 9/11 truth movement.

To start, let's grant the 9/11 Truth community that the nanothermite article written by Steven Jones is sound science. After the research had been completed you would expect the scientists involved  to submit their paper to a reputable scientific journal, and to have an independent lab attempt to replicate their findings. Since this is not what the scientists of the nanothermite paper have done, we need to ask ourselves why they have not done this. The most important piece of evidence for their case, the smoking gun that would be great interest to the scientific and historical communities is submitted to a random pay to enter journal in south korea for $800 with no further follow ups.
Second, I'll grant the 9/11 truth community that the 9/11 hijackers are still alive somewhere in the Middle East. It is a well known fact that Richard Gage and David Ray Griffin travel around the world promoting their books and dvds about their 9/11 conspiracy theories. With this in mind, why haven't either of them interviewed one of the living hijackers? Surely this would be damning evidence of a cover up. It is also striking that none of the 9/11 conspiracy researchers have even interviewed any of these living hijackers over the phone.

Third, I'll grant the 9/11 truth community that the architects and engineers for 9/11 truth have great arguments and calculations done to support their controlled demolition theory. You would expect some of them to get together and write an engineering paper to send to a reputable scientific journal. Again, why haven't they done this? What exactly are they waiting for? It's clear that the list of members for AE for 911 truth is nothing more than a conspiracy theory fan club. In a ten year time span, one could find 1000 credulous people in any field to believe just about anything. We musn't forget that even smart people can believe really stupid things.

To conclude this article I would like to knock down a few conspiracy claims one last time. Since these have been covered extensively by skeptics such as Mark Roberts, the JREF forum and other debunking websites, they will be very quick responses.

Controlled Demolition Theory (with bombs): There is no evidence of flying glass, loud explosions that would have been picked up by the three seismograph stations in NYC, accounts of deafening or blast lung, nothing noticed by the thousands of forensic investigators who looked at the steel, no demolition wires or wireless devices found and no video/audio evidence of loud explosions that would have been heard from a mile away. There were also bomb sniffing dogs that were brought in during clean up. Not one detected any bombs. Since we don't see any of these tell-tale signs we can conclude there were no bombs in the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Controlled Demolition Theory (Thermite): Thermite has never been used to demolish a building, and would not even work.(1) There is no plausible way to rig up the building to have the thermite burn up at the same time. Thermite cuts gravitationally so if you put it around the columns it would just burn through the floor. The chemical signatures of the dust samples studied by Steven Jones match the primer paint of the columns and do not have the right ignition temperatures as thermite(off by 400 degrees). We can conclude that the red grey chips found are not thermite and are probably primer paint chips. Lastly, none of the forensic investigators reported any kind of thermitic effects on the steel, and none of the bomb sniffing dogs trained to sniff out incendaries (thermite) detected any. (2) There are many other logical problems with the Controlled Demolition theory. How would they rig the building with thermite without any of the security guards, building inspectors, contruction managers finding out? If the security of the WTC buildings let them in, why did some of them die in the building?(surely they would know to leave) And why blow up the towers, putting the conspirators at a huge risk for exposure?

Iron Microspheres: Iron mircospheres could have formed from columns bending or the heating of the columns. These can easily account for the so-called "mysterious" iron microspheres which the other investigations into the dust addressed back in 2003. This is another example of anomaly hunting that conspiracy theorists engage in.
No Planer Theory: The planes could have easily reached the recorded speeds because they came in on a 20,000 foot dive. A perfect example demonstrating this is Egypt Air Flight 990 which reached speeds over 600 MPH before crashing. (3) All of the video evidence, eyewitness testimony and physical evidence of the plane itself show that there were planes that crashed into the WTC buildings.

Reccomended sites and papers that debunk 9/11 conspiracy theories:
http://www.nmsr.org/nmsr911.htm
911myths.com
http://sites.google.com/site/wtc7lies/home Mark Robert's website
http://sites.google.com/site/wtc7lies/Mackey_drg_nist_review_2_1.pdf&nbsp;  Ryan Mackey's White Paper that refutes David Ray Griffin's arguments.
http://sites.google.com/site/911guide/
JREF Forum
Sources:
1)http://nmskeptic.blogspot.com/2010/03/video-jesse-ventura-doesnt-want-world.html
2)http://ronmossad.blogspot.com/2009/04/final-word-on-niels-harrit-nanothermite.html
3)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990

By Dave Sorensen

Conspiracy theories stem from a complex web of ideas, which is constructed over many years, revolving around important historical events and political issues. There are many psychological factors and logical fallacies at work when devising a conspiracy theory and this is what I will try and cover in this essay. First we must go over what a "theory" actually is and why the term "conspiracy theory" has been coined. A theory in science is essentially a body of facts and knowledge used as an explanatory model for a set of phenomena. History uses similar methods but rarely ever refers to events like the Holocaust to be a theory.

We can infer that the holocaust happened because of an extraordinary amount of physical evidence, eyewitness testimony, letters, documents and differences in population demographics from the affected regions in Europe. When there are conflicting accounts of a historical event, we will recognize that there are two or more competing theories each with their own arguments. To contrast with the geological sciences, there was a debate over how the dinosaurs went extinct. While there are more than just two explanations, I will narrow it down for simplicity's sake. You have one camp arguing that an asteroid took out the dinosaurs, and another saying a volcano did. Both have submitted their findings to peer reviewed journals in which they are examined and critiqued by other scientists. A conspiracy theory is played off by true believers as if it's an alternative view that is both reasonable and evidence based. They would probably agree that it's another serious theory that needs to be considered, just like the volcano theory mentioned above. This then seemingly separates their belief from unfounded or weakly-based speculation, and gives them more recognition just because it is called a theory. But this is just a play on words.

There are multiple definitions of the word theory, one which defines most scientific theories, and another version that simply means: "An assumption based on limited information or knowledge."(1) Most researchers who look at CT claims would agree that what they are doing is just weak speculation, and would therefore be considered the latter definition of theory. Their "theory" is said to be reasonable because of a set of arguments used to establish that some form of government conspiracy took place, and in order to justify this you would need some form of evidence. But when a skeptic questions the narrative of a particular CT, it seems that the true believers lack any real answers or have been misinformed about the evidence. One of the main reasons why conspiracy theories prosper is because the true believers think that their view is rational and evidence based. By reading some of the many articles on this site, you will find out that this is not so. From time to time I will hear the line: "If we had any good evidence it would be a conspiracy fact!" But this classic form of conspiracy thinking is contrary to all of their beloved forums and websites, containing lists and videos outlining all of their "smoking gun" evidence.

Whenever it comes to the point of presenting positive evidence for their claims they fail to deliver. They are seemingly ignorant to any of the countless counter arguments and dodge any important questions that they should know the answers to. An example would be Dylan Avery (loose change filmmaker) who when asked 'what happened on 9/11', responded, 'I don't know'. You would think that investigating a historical event for 9 years would lead to some kind of knowledge. Their problem is that they use the wrong kind of skepticism to evaluate evidence, which is something I will get back to later. Not only is lack of any good evidence a problem for an alternative theory, but a good argument also needs to be logically sound. After all it's possible though highly unlikely for a conspiracy to be played out so well that there are no fingerprints left behind, but there needs to be some good reasons for believing an alternative theory to make up for the lack of evidence.  This is where argumentation comes into play. The standard rules for argument building consist of first establishing a set number of premises composed of facts and then ending with a conclusion. An oversimplified example would be:

1. Autism rates are rising
2. Vaccines Contain Mercury
3. Mercury is Unsafe and can cause neurological damage
4. Therefore Vaccines cause autism

The problem with this argument is that one of the premises is just wrong and the other two are very misleading. (2) A recent study suggests that autism is found amongst 1% of all age groups which Is not what you would predict if the cause of autism was from thimerosol. The increase in autism comes from better surveillance and a widening of the definition of autism to include Asperger's syndrome and other behavioral disorders. Mercury is safe in small dosages and it's important to note that vaccines use Ethyl mercury. Methyl mercury is the kind found in fish, and this can be harmful if you eat too much. Ethly mercury is much safer and leaves the body after 1-3 days of consumption. Study after study the link between autism and vaccines has failed to show up, even when removing the feared ingredient thimerosol. This conspiracy theory is one of the few that you can actually make solid, testable predictions from. If thimerosol caused autism in infants, removing it from vaccines should show a decrease in autism rates. This prediction was wrong and in fact no alteration to the rates occurred at all. Once you understand why these premises are terribly flawed, the argument falls apart.

The same can apply to the vast majority of conspiracy theories out there. What makes up the premises must be examined with careful scrutiny. You have to weed out any biased or dubious sources and get a simple understanding behind the history and science of the event. Both historians and scientists use peer review, which is the best method in pursuing the truth. One of the reasons why conspiracy theorists have so many websites and books is because they can't make it past other experts without someone questioning their premises. They target people who are unfamiliar with the facts and the science. They also use a reverse scientific method, where they reach their conclusions and then try and jam the "puzzle pieces" together. And their style of argument should stand out as very questionable if you are familiar with common logical fallacies and how science and history actually work.

Authors of "Alternative History" like to attract new people to their works by utilizing a series of techniques. The first is what I like to call the "Long list effect". In almost any conspiracy book you will find somewhere a list of their smoking gun evidence. Sometimes this list gets ridiculously long to a point where the reader stops and begins to think the author must be on to something. As the old saying goes "Its quality not quantity." If they ever had good quality evidence they would be able to convince a lot more people including large political activist groups and also be able to convince lawyers and take these things to court. The attempted lawsuits so far by the truth movement are laughable at best. (Judy Wood and the space beams). David Ray Griffin is a good example of an author who uses such the long list technique. Now I'm not saying that these authors are knowingly deceiving people by using this technique.  I'm just describing what it is they do and why it convinces people.  Another technique is the argument from historical precedent or the "The complex question fallacy". The CQF is committed when a question is asked (a) that rests on a questionable assumption, and (b) to which all answers appear to endorse that assumption. (3) This is a common tactic used by the 9/11 truth movement. They use Pearl Harbor, Gulf of Tonkin and the Reichstag fire as all examples of historical precedents of false flag terror, when anyone who reads up on the events will know that at best they are controversial at worst they have been debunked. (See false flag wiki)

Next up is the "Magic Bullet Argument".  "Alternative historians" will often employ this argument to ridicule the official story. "JFK couldn't have been hit by a swerving, dancing bullet. Therefore the official story is false."  But no one seriously believes that the bullet behaved that way. There are simple straight lines of trajectory that Oswald's bullet could have taken to kill JFK and injure Governor Connolly, thus eliminating the need for such a ridiculous alternative. Authors also use a variety of non-sequiturs (doesn't follow) , ad hominem insults, and the argument from ignorance. "We don't know what happened on 9/11, therefore we need a new investigation." In other words, they don't know anything about 9/11 because of their unjustified mistrust of any source other than conspiracy sites, books and other like-minded people. The only way someone could be so clueless about 9/11 is if they are using a faulty "Descartian" type of skepticism. This is an extreme form of skepticism which requires us to doubt everything from experience and just rely on words and emotion. But they ignore logic and critical thinking so all that's left is emotion, which is completely unsuitable for scientific inquiry. If you ignore what any disagreeing scientist says, you are not being skeptical at all. A true skeptic would take on any challenges to his belief system and pin point where others who disagree went wrong.

After reading the arguments constructed by conspiracy authors we end up with a jungle of claims. How can one sort through them all knowing which ones are true and false? If the argument is logically fallacious then it's probably not a good argument. If it's not being discussed amongst scientists and historians in the peer review process, it's probably not true. This may seem like an argument to authority, but it is really just showing that having 99% consensus on a single issue must require extraordinary evidence or a really good argument to compensate.   The reason why most people subscribe to conspiracy theories is a simple lack of knowledge in the related areas and unfamiliarity with logic. There is also the psychological need to find purpose in one's life, and the preference to believing wildly imaginative myths over otherwise boring accounts. JFK being gunned down by multiple government sponsored mobsters is much more appealing than a lone nut. People often prefer fantasy for truth because sometimes the truth can take the fun out of things. I don't agree with that statement, but I happen to be in the minority.

Individuals who have a general mistrust of others and people who are overly paranoid can use conspiracy theories to explain the world's problems away. In some cases they use them to explain why they themselves cannot succeed in life. The third factor is the appealing notion of possessing secret knowledge that most people lack. This makes individuals feel important and more intelligent than others, giving their life meaning. This also ties into a sort of "rebel complex" where the individual feels like the ultimate bad ass for not buying into the government's lies. But this is where most conspiracy theorists come to a hault. You would think that if foiling the government's evil plans gave them a purpose in life they would go out and do something about it. It seems as if most CT's just like to complain about these delusions to other like minded people constantly using the government as a scapegoat for all their problems. This is unlike any other kind of political activist group. Cognitive dissonance, cognitive closure and hindsight bias are other important psychological effects that play a part in this kind of belief as well.

Lastly, conspiracy theorists hold onto their beliefs, even when thoroughly challenged by skeptics because of what I call the "expanding web theory." Whenever a claim is knocked off their web, another one fills in that spot. "Moving the goalposts" is another popular way to describe this defense mechanism. Even when every claim has been addressed, there is still the cognitive illusion that there is so much counter-knowledge and so the true believer will just continue to be duped, or they will admit they were wrong and become a skeptic. The latter case is extremely rare.

On skepticism
How do conspiracy skeptics manage to sort through the vast information highway that's out there and find out what's true? Skepticism is a methodology, not a belief system so it's not as easy as just hopping aboard the Skeptic's society train and listening to their experts blindly. Although I ended up agreeing with most of mainstream skeptics believe, I arrived at my conclusions by investigating the material on my own. It's important to be open minded, but not so open that your brain falls out.  A good way to test this is to write up a narrative of whatever you currently believe happened during a historical event. Sometimes you can only catch the inconsistencies when you put everything together. If you find contradictions in your narrative, you went wrong somewhere. When you come across an extraordinary claim, or even a claim your just not sure about, see what other qualified experts have to say. Do these scientists have an agenda or bias? If they do then compare them to some neutral scientists, who have written papers about something related. An example would be the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings. There were plenty of foreign scientific papers written by China, Japan, the UK and Norway that all arrived at the same conclusion as the NIST scientists. Some papers disagreed with technical details but there were no credible teams of scientists that came to the conclusion that there were bombs in the building, and this is a problem that the CT crowd has not solved.

Just to clarify, it would be logically fallacious to assume that all of the NIST scientists, AIA engineers and American Physical Society scientists were all biased because they either work for the government or work in the United States. But this is a common claim made by the truth movement and other conspiracy groups. Anyone who agrees with the official story is either dumb or part of the conspiracy. This is also a classic example of the false dilemma logical fallacy. There is a third option not mentioned because of their cognitive closure, or closed mindedness. But sometimes this argument needs to be broken down in order to understand why it really fails.

If someone makes the claim that a group of scientists or even an entire society of scientists are in on the conspiracy, they presuppose that a conspiracy went down. This presumptuousness can lead to their claim being unfalsfiable, which as philosopher of science Karl Popper always said, isn't scientific. An important question to ask believers in CT is "What would falsify your belief?" Or what evidence would convince you otherwise? If they can't answer these questions they can no longer consider themselves skeptics of the official story. They are cynics. Whenever I'm ever accused of being cynical I always say that my beliefs CAN be falsified. And this isn't just true for conspiracy theories but for any kind of claim. Show me a part of the saucer, or get ONE of your claims right! I cannot stress this enough. The one thing conspiracy theorists are competent at is getting claims wrong as I have yet to see them get one significant claim demonstrably right. For people who are stuck in the middle undecided, the best way to understand whether a group of scientists is being paid off is to do a bit of research and then using critical thinking and logic decide what's more probable.  If there is no good reason to believe someone is part of a conspiracy, or that a conspiracy even took place, it is more probable that the scientist is just doing his job. Familiarizing oneself with both sides of the argument is probably the best advice I can offer. You get to understand why each side has its set of beliefs and from that you decide which is more convincing, which makes more sense, and all while building up critical thinking skills usable for other belief systems and everyday life.

1) http://www.thefreedictionary.com/theory
2) http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=9
3) http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx

DO NOT EDIT, BEING TURNED INTO ARTICLE!

Contributers: Dave Sorensen

A brief history of fluoridation:

For thousands of years humans died from tooth decay. Tooth decay occurs when bacteria eats up our left over sugary foods (fruits, etc) and leave behind acids. Over time these acids will destroy tooth enamel, which is the hard outer layer of a tooth. This opens holes for more bacteria to crawl inside and disperse more acid. This is how teeth decay. (1) For a long time dentistry was more of an art than a science. Pulling out teeth and prescribing herbs for pain relief was about as complex a dentist's job would get up until the 18th century. Horace Wells, a Connecticut dentist, discovered that nitrous oxide could be used to render patients unconscious. (2)  (Finally those teeth could be yanked out without feeling it) Other methods and practices developed such as filling cavities with gold, large productions of toothbrushes and toothpaste. Toothpaste started off as simple mixtures of chalk and soap, but in 1896, Colgate Dental Cream was introduced which included Sodium Lauryl Sulphate and Sodium Ricinoleate as ingredients. (3)

In the 1930's a Colorado dentist named Frederick S. McKay became convinced that the origins of brown stains on his patients' teeth were connected to their local water supply. McKay's research verified that drinking water with high levels of naturally occurring fluoride was associated  with mottled enamel.(Brown spots on teeth)  By the early 1940s, H. Trendley Dean determined that taking out the right amount of fluoride would both eliminate the mottling problem and prevent tooth decay. In 1945, Newburgh, New York, and Grand Rapids, Michigan would all regulate sodium fluoride in their water systems. A lot of citizens, unaware that fluoride naturally exists in rivers and springs, feared that this was a health risk and an obstruction of personal choice. Reflecting on the past 50 years dozens of epidemological studies from around the world indicate that water fluoridation is both effective in preventing tooth decay and very safe. (4) Water fluoridation has been considered by the Center of Disease control to be one of the top ten public health achievements for the 20th century. (5) Why do people still doubt the safety of fluoride?

Humans should not consume Fluoride. It is a toxin and its unnatural

The saying goes, it's the dose that makes the poison. Yes Fluoride is toxic if you consume too much of it, but so is water, vitamin D, calcium or virtually any kind of vitamin. To say its unnatural is flat out false. It exists naturally in water and in much higher traces! As explained in the brief history section, one of the reasons for the many cases of brown spots and fluorosis (changes in teeth formation) was because there was too much natural fluoride in the water supply. The amount of fluoride in the water supply has been reduced since the 1950's to an optimal amount of 0.1-1.2 ppm depending on where you live. How much fluoridated water would you have to drink before you die from toxicity? It is actually impossible to consume the amount required. You would need to in get 5-10 grams at one time. This is 10,000 times the amount of fluoride is an 8 oz cup of fluoridated water. (1) But what about the amount in toothpaste? This is something I had worries about until I did the math. While I am not mathematician, I have estimated that the lethal dosage for toothpaste to be around an entire tube! This obviously does not mean that you should eat toothpaste. Consuming too much toothpaste can result in fluorosis.

Fluoridated water causes cancer

50 epidemiological studies done in different populations at different times have failed to demonstrate an association. These studies were done by the United States, Japan, the UK, Canada and Australia. (5) This assertion arises from a flawed study from the 1970's comparing cancer rates in 10 large fluoridated cities versus ten large nonfluoridated cities. The National Cancer Institute concluded that the study was flawed for numerous methodological reasons. A review by other researchers concluded that the level of industrialization was much higher in the fluoridated cities than the nonfluoridated. (6) There are known cancer threats with factories and pollution and this seems to fit the data much better than fluoridation. Although the flouridated cities had a higher rate of cancer, both had the same rate of increase over the years. (15%)

Studies done on the toxicity of fluoride itself have been done as well. Two animal studies were conducted by the National Tooxicology Program of the National Institue of Environmental Health Sciences and The Proctor and Gamble Company. (7)(8) There was eight groups of animals each with its own sex and species. The animals were given 25, 75 and 175 ppm of fluoride respectively. The studies concluded that "Taken together the two animal studies fail to establish an association between fluoride and cancer."

Studies from the New Jersey Department of Health have now confirmed a 6.9 fold increase in bone cancer in young males

In April 2006, a preliminary study was published that observed an association between exposure to fluoride in drinking water and the incidence of osteosarcoma in young males. The author initially acknowledged that this study had limitations and further research is required to confirm or refute this observation. After reviewing the study:

"The principal investigator for the overall study cautions against over interpreting or generalizing the results of the Bassin analysis, stressing that preliminary analysis of a second set of cases does not appear to replicate the findings."(8)
"A number of studies regarding water fluoridation and osteosarcoma have been published in the past. At this time, the weight of the scientific evidence, as assessed by independent committees of experts, comprehensive systematic reviews, and review of the findings of individual studies does not support an association between water fluoridated at levels optimal for oral health and the risk for cancer."  -Center for Disease Control

Other conclusions regarding cancer risks have been the same:
"Many studies, in both humans and animals, have shown no association between fluoridated water and risk for cancer."   -National Cancer Institute

"there has been nodetectable cancer risk to humans as evidenced by extensive human epidemiological data reported to date" -Public Health Service

"In 1993, the Subcommittee on Health Effects of Ingested Fluoride of the National Research Council, part of the National Academy of Sciences, conducted an extensive literature review concerning the association between fluoridated drinking water and increased cancer risk. The review included data from more than 50 human epidemiological studies and six animal studies. The Subcommittee concluded that none of the data demonstrated an association between fluoridated drinking water and cancer." (1b)


Fluoridated water causes osteoscheloris and other bone altering illnesses

This claim is true but misleading. In a survey of 170,000 people's xrays from Texas and Oklahoma, who had lived in communities whose water supply contained 4ppm-8ppm of fluoride, only 23 cases of osteoschelorsis had been found. Not one case of the more severe skeletal fluorosis. (2) Other studies have determined that toxicity may occur 10 years after exposure to HIGH levels. (over 5ppm) (3) N0te that this is much higher than the optimal safety guidelines. The reason that there are still communities today with more than 5ppm in their water supply is due mainly to the fact that they use natural water supplies (rivers, lakes). Another study done where community water supplies contained even higher amounts of fluorides (20 ppm) concluded that there was no evidence of advanced skeletal fluorosis. In the past 35 years, there has only been 5 documented cases of advanced bone disorders that may be linked to fluoridated water. (4)

Several European countries have banned water fluoridation
This is entirely false. Not one European country has banned water fluoridation. The United Kingdom uses water fluoridation extensively. One of the reasons this claim is so common is the fact that a lot of European countries have adopted alternatives to water fluoridation such as salt fluoridation. Salt fluoridation regulates fluoride intake in food, whereas we regulate it in our drinks. For example, in 2003, Basel, Switzerland voted to switch from water fluoridation to salt fluoridation because of technical and practical reasons. (10)  Even in countries that don't require salt or water fluoridation like Sweden and the Netherlands, they still approve of the World Health Organization's recommendations regarding fluoridation as a preventative health measure. They also support fluoride toothpastes, mouthwash, and other fluoride supplements. (11) Other reasons for a country's choice not to adopt water fluoridation come down to complex water system issues, (pipes and maintenance), practicality and politics. Water fluoridation is used in 60 different counties worldwide, and it's safety has been unanimously agreed upon everywhere.





Water Fluoridation is ineffective

The evidence is overwhelming that fluoridated water helps prevent tooth decay. Gran Rapids, Michigan, which was the first city to fluoridate was observed in a study showed children who consumed fluoridated water had 50-63% less dental decay than children examined during the original baseline survey completed in non fluoridated Michigan. Other studies which in some cases analyzed 113 studies from 23 countries came to the same conclusions. (12)(13)(14)(15)

Nazis put fluoride in the water supply at the concentration camps

This claim may just be an internet fabrication as most sites promoting either lack a source or tell you to read " The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben". But let's just accept it for now. It is claimed that the Nazi's used fluoridated water to "dumb down" everyone at the concentration camps. If this is true, how much fluoride did they use? Given that they did not abide to a then nonexistent EPA regulation of 0.7-1.2 ppm, and that they have indeed added extra fluoride to the water supply, this amount would have to be much higher than what was naturally occuring in the German and Austrian river and creeks. As explained before where natural water contains 20ppm. So how much fluoride does it take to make people docile or better yet affect their behavior in any way? Since we have no Nazi fluoride records, we can only speculate. A 1995 study done on rats who consumed up to 125 times the EPA limit showed behavioral changes and cognitive deficits but even this study was critisized for lacking proper identification of the control groups. For the sake of argument let's assume that the study was done correctly. The study showed that 125 ppm of fluoride was neurotoxic for rats, not humans. Humans would require much more because of the obvious size difference. The Nazi's would have had to add at least 200 ppm of fluoride to the water supply at the concentration camps which is 200X the amount in our water. Even if the nazi story were true it is a non sequitur.

Another problem with the Nazi water fluoridation claim is that the Nazi's themselves would have to get their water from somewhere else. Why would the contaminate the entire water supply with large amounts of fluoride when they could control the people there with guns and putting up barbed wire fences?( which we know they did. )

Scientific American agrees that fluoride is bad

I'm sure there are many other sites that took advantage of this article, but i will focus on how infowars misrepresented  a Scientific American article about fluoride entitled "Second thoughts about fluoride". Infowars had the following headline on their website: "Scientific Study Finds Fluoride Horror Stories Factual Industrial by-product consumed by millions of Americans lowers IQ, causes cancer" (17)

Let's see what the actual article concludes.
"About 200,000 Americans--and several million people in China, India, the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia--drink concentrations higher than the limit, but their excess fluoride comes from naturally occurring runoff from fluoride-...The report is, however, prompting some researchers to wonder whether even 1 mg/L is too much in drinking water, in light of the growing recognition that food, beverages and dental products are also major sources of fluoride, especially for young children." (18)

The US wide average is .79 ppm, but the EPA limit is set at around 4 ppm. One of the questions that is still open is if they should reduce the EPA  limit, but as the quoted passage stated, it was questionable if that even 1ppm may be too high considering the growing recognition that a lot of food and beverages now contain fluoride.

"Consuming foods and beverages with large amounts of fluoride can put a diet above this range. Below are typical trace levels of fluoride, measured in parts per million (ppm), found in foods and drinks tested at the University of Iowa College of Dentistry."

A couple examples include: raisins (2.34ppm), brewed black tea (3.73ppm) and white wine (2.02ppm).Since there is a lot more fluoride used in products today, future studies could show that there too fluoride, and necessary measures would instate safer regulations. But this is speculative. Yes it is possible but this article in no way claims that the fluoride does lower IQ, or that it causes cancer. The ADA, FDA, WHO and numerous other agencies still maintain that fluoridated water is very safe. The article also mentions studies done in China which have not been repeated anywhere else in the world, and the studies themselves did not display a high correlation. (see china studies section) Even if a new study finds 1ppm to be too high, this does not mean that we had been poisoned or dumbed down by the the whole time resulted from a big government conspiracy. One reason would be that there has been hardly any cases of fluorosis since the fluoridated water systems started. This would have been a warning that people were consuming too much fluoride.
"Historically, dental fluorosis was quite widespread in the USA. Originally the problem was termed "mottled enamel" or, local to Colorado Springs, as "Colorado brown strain". In 1930, the link was made between mottled enamel
and high levels of fluoride in drinking-water supplies (2.0-13.7 mg l-1) and the term fluorosis was adopted...."

Driscoll et al. (1983) noted that more than 700 communities in the USA were thought to have water supplies that contained at least twice the recommended optimum level of fluoride (i.e. 2.4 mg l-1 and above). They found mean fluoride concentrations in Illinois between 1.06 and 4.07 mg l-1. In a study in Texas (Segreto et al., 1984), fluoride concentrations varied between 0.3 and 4.3 mg l-1. At the highest fluoride concentration only 5.2 per cent of children were considered to have normal teeth or questionable mottling." (19)


Chinese studies indicate that high levels of fluoride can lower IQ

This claim is partially true, but misleading. There have been about a dozen studies done in China that may show a potential link. But China's water supply was not very safe to begin with, as its contains high levels of fluoride.

"Drinking water with high levels of fluoride is widespread in China and has been seen in all provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions with the exception of Shanghai, and it has been estimated (Guifan, pers. com.) that there are over 1,200 counties and almost 150,000 villages affected by fluorosis (including coal pollution derived fluorosis)."
Dental fluorosis in China has been recognized for some time (Anderson, 1932)." (20)

China has also had high rates of fluorosis, a clear sign that their citzens are consuming too much fluoride.

"It has been estimated that over 26 million people in China suffer from dental fluorosis due to elevated fluoride in their drinking-water, with a further 16.5 million cases of dental fluorosis resulting from coal smoke pollution (Liang
et al., 1997)." (20)

China does not fluoridate its water (except "the people's republic of china", so they get their water from natural sources. It's also worth mentioning that the lower IQ link may be from fluoride gases coming from coal/clay pollution, or from arsenic which is also in the water supply. (21)(22)

"we saw arsenic levels in the water that represent more than fifty times the EPA-recommended limit for consumption of fish and shellfish."  (Dartmouth biologists)

The best way to understand these studies' findings, is to track the journals down and read the conclusions they've reached. This is from a study done in 2007.

"Additionally, we recognize that children in our study groups attend school and therefore are exposed to different levels of As (arsenic)  while not at home. All the complications and limitations of our study design, however, would not lead to systematic errors that would challenge the main findings: that 10-year-old Chinese children's IQ scores were lowered by 5-10 points when they were exposed to drinking water containing 150-200 μg/L As. However, we emphasize the need for more careful evaluation of the effects of fluoride on intelligence." (23)

"Children's intelligence and growth can be affected by high concentrations of As (arsenic) or fluoride. The IQ scores of the children in the high-As group were the lowest among the four groups we investigated. It is more significant that high concentrations of As affect children's intelligence. It indicates that arsenic exposure can affect children's intelligence and growth."

In conclusion, the claim that high levels of fluoride cause a decline in IQ is inconclusive. The Chinese water supply is very different then the US water supply and contains other toxic elements that correlate with the cognitive decline. This is likely considering the studies done on rats indicated that cognitive decline required up to 75 times the epa limit. When you look at the totality of the evidence on water fluoridation safety, a link between lowered IQ and fluoridated water becomes unlikely.

The US IQ average has dropped in the past 50 years

According to most IQ researchers, the national IQ has actually been rising since the 1930's. This increase has been observed all around the world, and not just with IQ tests but with episodic and semantic memory tests. (25) This observation has been called the "Flynn effect". Some explanations for the "Flynn effect" are improved nutrition and better education.

"Average scores on intelligence tests are rising substantially and consistently, all over the world. These gains have been going on for the better part of a century--essentially ever since tests were invented." (25)

In fact, according to the data, the average IQ in the 1930's was 80! Right now the national average is 98. So the claim that the IQ has dropped since the introduction of fluoridated water is complete bunk. But intelligence really can't be measured by IQ tests alone. There are many other factors influencing one's ability to communicate, perform physical tasks and remember information, which are all part of intelligence too.


Fluorosis rates have increased in the United States in the past 30 years
True. According to the Center for Disease Control:


"Prevalence of enamel fluorosis has increased in cohorts born since 1980. This increase should be evaluated in the context of total fluoride exposure." (26)

About 10% of the cases of fluorosis can be attributed to fluoridated water. (27) The other 90% most likely comes from children who swallow toothpaste either by accident or because they think it tastes like candy. (28) Also note that the fluorosis that occurs now are extremely mild, to a point where they are more of a cosmetic problem than a health problem. Only 1% of the population suffers from fluorosis that has been listed as severe or moderate. Most of these cases are children. Overall, fluorosis is not a big problem, and the best way to prevent it is to make sure your kids don't eat any toothpaste.


* For any other questions or concerns, I highly recommend the American Dentistry Association's fact sheet on fluoride released in 2005. (16)

Sources for history section
1.http://www.webmd.com/oral-health/tc/tooth-decay-topic-overview
2. http://www.ada.org/public/resources/history/timeline_19cent.asp
3.http://inventors.about.com/od/dstartinventions/a/dentistry_2.htm
4. See sources
5. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00056796.htm

1. Hodge HC, Smith FA. Biological properties of iorganic fluorides. In: Fluorine chemistry. Simons HH. ed. New York: Academic Press
1b.National Research Council. Carcinogenicity of flouride. In: Subcommittee on Health Effects of Ingested Fluoride, editor. Health Effects of Ingested Fluoride. Washington DC: National Academy Press, 1993.
2. Stevenson CA, Watson AR. Fluoride osteoschelrosis. American Journal of Roetgenology, Radium Therapy and Nuclear medicine 1957; 78 (1) 13-18
3. Institute of medicine, Food and nutrition board. Dietery reference intakes for calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, vitamin D, and fluoride. Report of the standing committee on the scientific evaluation of dietery reference intakes. Washington, D.C: National Academy Press; 1997
4. Hodge HC. The safety of fluoride tablets or drops. In: continuing evaluation of the use of fluorides. Johansen E, Tavaes DR, Olsen TO, eds. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press; 1979: 253-75
5. US Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service. Review of fluoride: benefits and risks. Report of the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Fluoride. Washington, D.C; February 1991
6. Clemmensen J. The alleged association between artificial fluoridation of water supplies and cancerL a review Bulletin of the World Helath Organization 1983: 61 (5): 871-83
7. Bucher JR, Hejtmancik MR, Toft JD 11, Persing RL, Eustis SL, haseman JK. Results and conclusions of the National Toxicology Program's rodent carcinogenicity studies with sodium fluoride. INT J Cancer 1991;48: 733-7
8. Maurer JK, Cheng MC, Boysen BG, Anderson RL. Two-year carcinogenicty study of sodium fluoride in rats. J Natle cancer Insti 1990; 82: 1118-26
9.http://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/fact_sheets/osteosarcoma.htm
10.Bergmann KE, Bergmann RL. Salt fluoridation and general health. Adv Dent Res 1995; 9 (2): 138-43
11.Meyer J, Marthaler TM Burgi H. The change from water to salt as the main vehicle for community wide exposure in Basle, Switzerland. Community Dent Oral Epidemiol 2003; 31(6):401-2
12. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Recommendations for using Fluoride to Prevent and control Dental crisis in the United States MMWR 2001;50 (NORR1v)
13.Murray JJ. Efficacy of preventative agents for dental caries. Caries Res 1993; 27 (supp 17:28 (A review of studies conducted from 1976-1987.
14.Newburn E. Effectiveness of water fluoridation. J Public Health dent 1989; 49 (5):27989 (The analysis of the results of 113 studies in 23 countires)
15. Ripa LW. A half century of community water fluoridation in the United States. review and commentary. J Pubic Health Dent 1993, 53(1); 17014(The analysis of 50 years of studies)
16.http://www.ada.org/public/topics/fluoride/facts/fluoridation_facts.pdf
17. http://www.infowars.com/articles/science/fluoride_study_finds_horror_stories_factual.htm
18. Second Thoughts about Fluoride; January 2008; Scientific American Magazine; by Dan Fagin; 8 Page(s)
20.http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/publications/fluoride_drinking_water_full.pdf
21. http://www.scidev.net/en/news/fluoride-poisoning-in-china-due-to-clay-not-coal.html
22.http://www.physorg.com/news119117913.html
23.http://fluoridealert.org/scher/wang.s-2008.pdf
24.Rönnlund M, Nilsson LG. (2009). Flynn effects on sub-factors of episodic and semantic memory: parallel gains over time and the same set of determining factors. Neuropsychologia. 47(11):2174-80
25.http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/rising-scores-on-intelligence-tests/1
26. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5403a1.htm
27. http://www.ada.org/public/topics/fluoride/facts/fluoridation_facts.pdf
28. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20091645</p>