Monday, January 7, 2008

9-11 Conspiracy Theory Buffs Don't Need No Stinkin' Science


Last night, while watching some good ol' American football, William called me with a great idea for a new feature on Dink & Flika - Make Fun of 9-11 Conspiracy Buffs. This fantastic idea was spawned from The History Channel's 9-11 Conspiracies: Fact or Fiction. The show picks random 9-11 conspiracies (just Google "9-11 Conspiracy" and you will be inundated with examples), has the proponents explain why they believe in said conspiracy, and then it has experts (engineers, actual investigators, etc.) explain why the conspiracy is wrong.

Basically, it comes down to this - the conspiracy buffs first convince themselves that 9-11 was an inside job and then proceed to select the evidence that reinforces that belief. They routinely discard or simply ignore the scientific facts that would readily disprove whatever theory they're hopelessly clinging to.

For this inaugural feature, I selected a filmmaker highlighted on last night's show. I don't remember her name, the name of the movie, or what exactly was her job on the movie. And since a 2 minute Google search provided no further insight, I gave up on research. Which, interesting enough, is probably the same amount of research she put into her conspiracy theory before believing it's as true as water being wet.

Anyway, film lady, after watching the footage of the Twin Towers falling, determined that the towers fell entirely too quick. She is not a structural engineer, nor was she involved in the investigation of the collapse. Rather, she just felt it happened too quick. To test this hypothesis, she pulled out a little-known footnote to Newton's Law of Gravity - I'm paraphrasing here - the speed at which a floor of a 110-story building falls is exactly the time it takes to say "Clickity-clack." (Side note: I am not making any of this up.) To test how long it would take a 110-story building to fall using the footnote to Newton's Law of Gravity, she had a "major Republican" say "clickity-clack" 100 times. It took over 3 minutes - significantly longer than the 15 seconds or so it took the towers to fall.

You might want to read that paragraph again - sometimes things that stupid need to be read twice to really comprehend the lack of intelligence. I'm not sure why a "major Republican" needed to used in the testing - unless they say "clickity-clack" more accurately than a "major Democrat". I don't know.

On a completely different note - sorry for not posting today. I had to drive to Raleigh for my paying job, and, thus, was away from the computer all day. I promise to do better tomorrow, or something....