Debunking Joseph Nobles: 7 Problems With 7 Responses

Debunker Joseph Nobles has recently made a new version of his site, although it is still very much incomplete. In his latest post he has decided to address the newest site on WTC 7 made by former NASA engineer Dwain Deets. Unlike Pat Curley, who decided to examine only a few of Mr. Deets' points, Mr. Nobles has attempted to address all 7 points. Guess how many mistakes I found with his response?

One
No plane struck the 47-story World Trade Center skyscraper (Building 7).

His Response:

"Who cares? A meteor didn’t hit it, either. King Kong didn’t use the building to attack Cloverfield. That’s not how the building fell down.
And while no plane struck the building, debris from the collapsing 110-story WTC 1 did":


It shouldn't have to be pointed out anymore, but since they keep bringing it up...

Regardless, the damage has been shown to be less severe than previously thought.

I'm sure Mr. Nobles is well aware that the official story is that fire alone brought the building down, but I find it misleading to still try to use the damage as a viable excuse.

Two
No evidence of fires in Building 7 for the first 100 minutes after being struck by debris from Tower 1. (Yet fire from the debris is the official explanation for building collapse.)

His response:

"And then there was plenty of evidence of fires for the next 321 minutes the building burned."

I agree on this to an extent, but the question is if the fires were severe enough to cause collapse in the first place. And truthers and debunkers have said NIST is simply wrong on their temperature calculations.

"raising those five floor beams to a temperature of 600°C would require an enormous amount of energy, far more than was available from the burning of the office furnishings underneath the floor beams." -Kevin Ryan

"NIST's collapse initiation hypothesis requires that structural steel temperatures on floors 12/13 significantly exceeded 300°C [570°F]--a condition that could never have been realized with NIST's postulated 32 kg/m2 fuel loading." -Dr. Frank Greening

Mr. Nobles closes this argument with the following:

"If Mr. Deets has an alternative hypothesis for the sources of these fires, he has yet to posit it."

Mr. Nobles, if you have better evidence than NIST that the fires were severe enough to cause the building to collapse, you have yet to posit it.

He also mentions Barry Jennings' testimony about explosions in this part too, and falsely states that he and Michael Hess got out of the building at 12:10 to 12:15.
Jennings was quite clear about what he experienced.

Three
A free-fall drop of 2.25 sec. is finally officially acknowledged. NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) lead investigator explained months earlier that, had there been free fall, there would have been no structural components below.

His response:

"Yes, and this period of free fall acceleration confirmed the computer modeling already performed by NIST. The building had lost structural integrity over eight floors at that point of the collapse."

This has long been responded to.

Four
Mainstream media quickly transitioned coverage of the building collapse to a “feel good” spin, focusing on the building being vacant when it came down. Dan Rather and Peter Jennings were more candid with their immediate comments, relating it to the familiar demolition of buildings we all well know.

His response:

"So? Isn’t it a good thing no one was in the building when it collapsed, Mr. Deets?"

Um... I don't think he was suggesting there was something wrong with no people in the building. His point is that the building appeared to be a demolition to several people. And this includes experts as well here, here, here, here, and here.

Five
No mention of the collapse of Building 7 in The 9/11 Commission Report.

His response:

"There’s plenty of mention of the collapse of Building 7 in the NIST Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7. That’s the actual scientific paper coming from the government on this matter.
Furthermore, the 9/11 Commission Report was about how the attacks took place and the official response to these attacks. Building 7 fell seven hours after WTC 1. Why should the 9/11 Commission Report have mentioned this event? So again, who cares?"

Quite a lot of people care about this and other related issues Mr. Nobles.
The Commission Report was not an engineering report, but they didn't know that fire was the official explanation for its collapse yet. Again, it goes back to assuming that fire brought the building down, which fire has never done before.

Six
The New York Times characterized as “perhaps the deepest mystery in the investigation,” a FEMA-report appendix about a steel specimen recovered from Building 7, rather like Swiss cheese, a product of extraordinarily high temperatures.

His response:

"And that mystery has been solved. The specimen is currently at the Worchester Polytechnic Institute. The scientists there have examined the specimen. Its corrosion is due to a eutectic mixture. As the Wikipedia article makes clear, when you hear the term “eutectic” you begin to think “lower temperatures than normal for physical changes,” because that’s what eutectic systems do."

I think this was well addressed in the previous post on the topic.

Seven
No mention in the NIST Building 7 Final Report of this mysterious steel specimen.

His response:

"There was no way to ascertain where in the building the piece had come from, if it had come from Building 7 at all. NIST had all the specifications for the steel that was used in building WTC 7, and used that extensive documentation to calibrate its computer modeling. Others have studied the actual piece and are on record as saying the damage suffered by this piece was not a factor in the fall of the building."

Actually, it was confirmed that the steel came from Building 7, because Jonathan Barnett pointed out that "They didn't use this particular type of steel in Towers 1 or Towers 2, so that's why we know its pedigree." NIST completely failed to address this steel at all, along with any other actual steel from Building 7.

Mr. Nobles closes with the following:

"Mr. Deets would do best to find another hobby for his retirement years."

Mr. Nobles would do best to find something better to do than try to outwit a NASA engineer.