Moonbat At BYU

While it pains me to do so, I must direct some mocking and belittling action towards a Professor of Moonbat Conspiracy Theories Physics at Brigham Young University. [Disclaimer: My daughter goes to Brigham Young University - Idaho, which is a different campus of the school.] He's submitted for publication a paper claiming that "pre-positioned explosives" brought down the three WTC buildings that fell on 9/11. From an article in Deseret News:

" Jones, who conducts research in fusion and solar energy at BYU, is calling for an independent, international scientific investigation "guided not by politicized notions and constraints but rather by observations and calculations."
"It is quite plausible that explosives were pre-planted in all three buildings and set off after the two plane crashes — which were actually a diversion tactic," he writes. "Muslims are (probably) not to blame for bringing down the WTC buildings after all," Jones writes.
"As for speculation about who might have planted the explosives, Jones said, "I don't usually go there. There's no point in doing that until we do the scientific investigation."

His conclusions are self-mocking -- although you can read this article from Popular Mechanics if you want some more info. (And if you have the stomach for it, you can read this attempted "de-bunking" of the Popular Mechanics article by some moonbats here... it's quite humorous, in a sad way.) The fact is, even assuming someone in the government wanted to do such a thing, such a conspiracy could not work -- there aren't enough people who would cooperate in it. No matter how bad you think the CIA/Trilateral Commission/Illuminati might be, they just couldn't pull such a thing off. It's a fact of human nature.

I feel bad that BYU has such a moonbat on staff, and I'll see what I can do to get an explanation from the school.

Staying at PD...

Update 1309 12 Nov: I realize that I probably should have described Jones as a "member of the Black Helicopter crowd" rather than a "moonbat", since it seems that he might be coming up with his hallucinations from the "right" rather than the left. Although it does seem like the political continuum does kind of become a circle when you get into the conspiracy theory crowds...

Update 0928 13 Nov: Michelle Malkin is on the case...

Update 2103 13 Nov: A reader of Deseret News writes:

"BYU professor Steven Jones may well be what passes for an expert in his oddly paired specialties of "metal-assisted (cold) fusion" and ancient American horses, but I see nothing in his BYU faculty listing that would incline me to look to him for expert analysis of the collapse of the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attacks. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, I see signs of a kooky dilettante diminishing the credibility of my BYU degree.
"I'll let the credentialed specialists in mechanical physics and civil engineering refute Jones' specific arguments (most of which I've seen before on various conspiracy-theory Web sites), but concerning the "squibs," or puffs of smoke and debris below the main body of collapsing debris as the WTC buildings collapsed, as the towers' upper floors first failed and struck the floor immediately below the failure, the shock of that initial collapse would have propagated downward through the structure at roughly the speed of sound through metal. That would transfer a massive amount of energy downward — more than enough to probably cause lower floors to fail even before the main debris body actually landed on them."

That's the thing... there's never been a collapse of this magnitude, so instead of spouting whackjob conspiracy theories, real professors should be looking at the actual mechanism of failure.

And didn't you just know that Jones' physics specialty would be cold fusion? (For those interested, the latest DOE report debunking cold fusion is here.) He gained some fame for finding neutrons that weren't there in a cold fusion experiment... now he seems to have moved on to finding bigger things that aren't there.

Update 0126 26 Nov: The BYU Physics Dept. has issued a statement regarding Jones' work. Pretty weak:

"Brigham Young University has a policy of academic freedom that supports the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge and ideas. Through the academic process, ideas should be advanced, challenged, and debated by peer-review in credible venues. We believe in the integrity of the academic review process and that, when it is followed properly, peer-review is valuable for evaluating the validity of ideas and conclusions.
"The university is aware that Professor Steven Jones's hypotheses and interpretations of evidence regarding the collapse of World Trade Center buildings are being questioned by a number of scholars and practitioners, including many of BYU's own faculty members. Professor Jones's department and college administrators are not convinced that his analyses and hypotheses have been submitted to relevant scientific venues that would ensure rigorous technical peer review."