Scientists, Scholars, Architects & Engineers respond to NIST

This response is huge in that there are numerous graphics and links to cites. Follow the link below for complete response.

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Scientists, Scholars, Architects & Engineers respond to NIST

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via Electronic Mail: wtc@nist.gov
WTC Technical Information Repository
Attention: Mr. Stephen Cauffman
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Stop 8610
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8610

September 15, 2008

Re: Public Comments on WTC 7 Draft Reports

Dear Mr. Cauffman,

I am writing on behalf of a group of scientists, scholars, engineers and building professionals who are dedicated to scientific research regarding the destruction of all three high-rise buildings (WTC 1, 2 and 7) on September 11, 2001. We have examined the draft reports recently released by NIST purporting to explain the demise of WTC Building 7 (collectively referred to herein as the “Report”). We have found many areas that need to be revised and re-examined by NIST personnel before they release a final report on this matter. We have provided our names and affiliations at the end of this document, in accordance with the guidelines for submittal of comments promulgated by NIST at (http://wtc.nist.gov/media/comments2008.html).

At the outset, we would like to call attention to the fact that we requested a reasonable extension of time for the public to submit comments. Given the rate at which we were finding incorrect or contradictory statements in the Report, we would likely have found many more areas NIST needs to re-examine before issuing a final report. As we pointed out in our original correspondence with you requesting the extension, the original three week deadline was completely unreasonable. First, it took NIST more than three years to compile this 1000+ page Report. Why, then, were members of the public only given three weeks in which to comment? Moreover, NIST lists ten authors and dozens of contracted and employed staff, which over the three year investigation would yield somewhere in the neighborhood of 200,000 man-hours of labor. How did NIST expect members of the public to match or even come close to NIST's labor expenditure in three weeks? This first reason alone was enough to warrant a significant extension in the deadline for public comment.

Second, in NIST’s "Questions and Answers" page (http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/wtc_qa_082108.html), NIST has attempted to refute many of the points that members of our group and others have made regarding the WTC 7 destruction. However, NIST did not provide any references to sections of the Report that support its alleged refutations. How is a member of the public, then, able to verify NIST’s refutation without reading through the entire 1000+ page Report? Our comments are directed to many of the areas addressed in the "Questions and Answers" page, and without citations directly to the Report itself, it was extremely difficult and time consuming for us see whether our main criticisms of the NIST theory of collapse have been adequately addressed in the Report. This is especially true in light of the fact that this latest draft Report is the third different story NIST has come up with.

Your response to our request was dismissive, based primarily on your belief that a six-week comment period on the 10,000 page report NIST issued for the Twin Towers was reasonable. You also saw no problem with NIST’s failure to provide any references in its Questions and Answers page to the 1000 page Report itself, apparently satisfied with NIST committing the logical fallacy of appeal to authority. As things stand right now, your position in this matter can be seen as nothing less than a deliberate attempt to hamstring the public’s ability to review and comment on NIST’s work in this extremely important area of research.

Nevertheless, we have been able to spend some time reading and analyzing the report, and have already found numerous problems that severely undermine its veracity and usefulness. Our comments on the Report are detailed below. Note that we declined NIST’s invitation to comment only on the summary report, NCSTAR 1A. These comments are all regarding the more detailed NCSTAR 1-9 document. Of course, once NCSTAR 1-9 is revised according to these comments, the summary report NCSTAR 1A will need to be revised as well.

Based on our comments below, it is readily apparent that the NIST collapse explanation relies solely on extremely suspect computer models. Furthermore, at each juncture where NIST was given the opportunity to input data into each subsequent model, NIST has chosen to use those inputs which would cause the highest temperatures and the most amount of structural damage. Therefore, the submitters of these comments hereby call on NIST to publicly release its models and modeling data so that members of the scientific community can test whether other, more reasonable, assumptions will also result in global collapse of the structure. After all, a scientific hypothesis cannot be widely accepted unless it is repeatable by others.