WTC 7 was a controlled demolition

Remarkably, Pro abandoned all his previous arguments in the face my rebuttals, and in the last round has introduced a completely new argument. I will rebut his new argument first, then return to summarizing the unanswered points I made previously. Argument that WTC 7 Collapse Could Not Be Predicted The new argument is that the Fire Department predicted that the building was going to collapse, which Pro claims they could not have known by observation of the building. Hence, he implies, conspirators must have tipped off officials that they were about to demolish the building. That would be the same conspirators who supposedly had no qualms about murdering 3000 people in WTC 1 & 2, but who then wanted to avoid unnecessary injuries in WTC 7. The reasons for deciding that WTC 7 was about to collapse were: 1) Apparent serious damage, 2) A bulge in the southwest corner of the building, 3) creaking noises indicating structural failures, and 4) the risks posed by the open atrium design. Authorities viewed the evidence in the light of the collapses of WTC 1 & 2 which demonstrated the possibility of steel high rise buildings collapsing. The Wikipedia article on WTC 7 has a good summary with references: "At approximately 2:00 p.m., firefighters noticed a bulge in the southwest corner of 7 World Trade Center between the 10th and 13th floors, a sign that the building was unstable and might collapse.[33] During the afternoon, firefighters also heard creaking sounds coming from the building.[34] Around 3:30 pm FDNY Chief Daniel Nigro decided to halt rescue operations, surface removal, and searches along the surface of the debris near 7 World Trade Center and evacuate the area due to concerns for the safety of personnel.[33][35] At 5:20 p.m. EDT on September 11, 2001, 7 World Trade Center collapsed." http://en.wikipedia.org... "...also we were pretty sure that 7 World Trade Center would collapse. Early on, we saw a bulge in the southwest corner between floors 10 and 13, and we had put a transit on that and we were pretty sure she was going to collapse. You actually could see there was a visible bulge, it ran up about three floors. It came down about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, but by about 2 o'clock in the afternoon we realized this thing was going to collapse." Deputy Chief Peter Hayden http://www.911myths.com... "1 - Although prior to that day high-rise structures had never collapsed, The collapse of WTC 1 & 2 showed that certain high-rise structures subjected to damage from impact and from fire will collapse. ... 2. The collapse of WTC 1 damaged portions of the lower floors of WTC 7. ... 3. WTC 7, we knew, was built on a small number of large columns providing an open Atrium on the lower levels. ... 4. numerous fires on many floors of WTC 7 burned without sufficient water supply to attack them. ... For these reasons I made the decision (without consulting the owner, the mayor or anyone else - as ranking fire officer, that decision was my responsibility) to clear a collapse zone surrounding the building and to stop all activity within that zone. Approximately three hours after that order was given, WTC 7 collapsed." Dan Nigro, Chief of Department FDNY http://forums.randi.org... Photos of WTC 7 before its collapse show that it had suffered major damage. http://www.911myths.com... Pro contends that because no steel building had ever collapsed before solely due to fire, that it would be unreasonable to suppose that WTC 7 would collapse. However, few reasonable people would suppose that something never happening was grounds for overruling the clear evidence that just such a thing was about to happen. Everything that has ever happened happened a first time, and that first time was without precedent. For example, the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapses due to resonance set up by wind conditions. When the bridge started oscillating, it was perfectly reasonable to believe it was going to collapse. No one in his right mind would rule it out on the grounds it hadn't happened before. Summary of the Debate Pro's previous thesis in this debate was that there are ten identifying characteristics of controlled demolition and that WTC 7 showed all ten of these characteristics. Pro could provide no authoritative source for the alleged ten characteristics, and I traced them to a retired professor of religion, who apparently invented them. In any case, many of the alleged characteristics are false: no explosives are used in upper stories, beams are not cut into transport lengths as part of demolition, thermite is not an explosive and as such it is never used in controlled demolition. The other characteristics cited by Pro are common to any large building collapse: the building falls close to straight down due to gravity, the building falls at close to free-fall rate, and a cloud of dust is produced by the energy of the falling mass. In real controlled demolitions, there are no explosives used in the upper part of the building but the rate of fall and cloud of dust are produced nonetheless. A common characteristic of real controlled demolitions is that extensive building preparation is required, yet none of the 4000 occupants noticed any preparation. I asked Pro how it could be that even as determined a conspiracy as the Mafia cannot keep secrets for long, yet there was no direct evidence of a 9/11 conspiracy from conspirators. Pro did not respond. Throughout the debate I asked pertinent questions, and failed to respond to any of them. For example, I asked Pro repeatedly how it would be possible for a sudden shot of thermite to keep steel melted for weeks, rather than having the steel resolidify in a minute or so, as happens when thermite is used for welding. Pro had no response. During the debate I explained the real cause of the WTC 7 collapse as verified by computer simulation and over 200 qualified engineers employed by NIST, about half under contract from outside the government. Pro declined to say if he ever read the report and gave no evidence of errors in the analysis. Independent authorities in structures at universities (cited in the referenced Wikipedia article) and in Structures Magazine have verified the NIST analysis. I asked Pro to provide evidence of qualified structural engineers who had found errors in the NIST report or had run convincing computer simulations of their own. Pro provided nothing beyond vague claims of lists of architects (who may be working on designing church interiors or single family homes) and such non-credentialed "authorities." Pro claimed repeatedly that the collapse of WTC 7 strictly from the bottom floor upwards. That does not agree with the documented evidence of a bulge in the southwest corner of the building nor with videos showing the penthouse on the top of the building moving inward prior to the collapse being evident on the exterior. The computer simulations show how this happened, with the collapse starting internally. Pro's case is a long example of the confirmation fallacy. He selects evidence that appears to be consistent with his theory, but ignores contrary evidence. No matter how pointedly presented, he won't consider anything contrary to his theory. Perhaps most fallacious is the idea that if something has not happened before, then it must be a conspiracy that made it happen. New and unusual things happen every day. When disastrous things happen, engineers try to find new design methods to prevent them from happening again. If WTC were the 50th building to collapse due to fire, we would wonder why the design method was not fixed. It is more likely to be unique than a repetition. The resolution is negated.