Nick Matzke on 9/11 Truthers: Do They Need to Be Experts?

Nick Matke has recently trashed reviewed Stephen Meyer's new book, Darwin's Doubt, and in this post is responding to Casey Luskin's attempt to defend the book. I'm still working my way through the book (one of the very slow readers), and really have nothing to add to the debate at this time. David Berlinski has decided to join the fray. I'll be curious to see if Nick responds. But what did grab my attention was one of Nick's final comments in his response to Luskin:

" This kind of thinking [Luskin's] is no better than 9-11 truther conspiracy thinking, sans knowledge of building engineering and similar necessary background."

The implication is that if one isn't an architect or engineer, then one has no business being a 9/11 Truther.  But as I commented in Nick's post:

Hi Nick,

If by “9/11 Truther” you mean someone who thinks there should be a new, independent investigation of 9/11, then one can be a competent Truther without sufficient knowledge of engineering. One only needs to know that an incomplete investigation was carried out the first time, such as not replicating the molten yellow metal pouring from the South Tower; not replicating the eutectically melted steel found by FEMA; not testing the dust for explosive residues; not explaining how WTC7 fell a [sic]  free fall acceleration for almost two and a half seconds; and not releasing the computer data for NIST’s computer animation of WTC7’s collapse.

In other words, all one needs to know is that the official investigations never did the science that a proper investigation would have required.  Further, one need not base one's suspicions of the offical version of 9/11 on any technical evidence. Jon Gold, for example, offers fifty reasons for a new investigation, none of which deals with technical evidence.

Sometimes I wonder if people such as Nick Matzke hide behind accusations of 9/11 Truthers not having the expertise necessary to support their suspicions, because they do not want to deal with the possibility that the truth of 9/11 is far more sinister than they thought.  For if 9/11 was an "inside job," then nearly all of our government's foreign policies since then, and many of its domestic policies (including spying on its citizens), have been based on a lie.   And that is a truth that would be very difficult to live with.