Short answer responses to common Truther Claims
CLAIM: Jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel
Steel needn't be melted for it to bend and twist. The temperatures reported by NIST were more than sufficient to weaken the steel to the point of critical failure.
CLAIM: Molten steel was photographed pouring out of the twin towers
A Molten material was photographed pouring out of the twin towers. Probably it was aluminum from the hull of the aircraft. Aluminum melts at a much lower temperature.
CLAIM: Aluminum doesn't glow when it is in liquid form.
Yes, it does.
CLAIM: The Twin Towers were designed to withstand the impact of an aircraft.
Yes, a smaller aircraft with less fuel, moving at a much slower speed. Moreover, the towers DID survive the impact. It was the resulting fires that ultimately did them in. Or more precisely a combination of the two factors.
CLAIM: Black smoke indicates a lack of oxygen or lower temperature.
The only thing you can reliably determine from the blackness of smoke is the presence of hydrocarbons.
CLAIM: The twin towers fell at 'freefall speed'.
Free-fall isn't a speed it's a rate of acceleration. Nor did the towers fall at freefall, as evidenced by the fact that the debris accelerated towards the ground faster than the rest of the building.
CLAIM: Photographs of the wreckage show beams that were cut at 45 degree angle.
They were, by the clean up crews clearing the debris from ground zero. We have photographs of them doing this during the clean up.
CLAIM: Larry Silverstein said "Pull it"
After lamenting the terrible loss of life to the fire chief, Larry Silverstein, asked him to "Pull it" to which he responded by evacuating all of the firemen from WTC7. In the broader context, it is clear he wasn't talking about the building but rather the people in it.
CLAIM: 'Pull' is a controlled demolition term
Not by explosives it's not. It refers to the act of pulling a building down by way of hooks and ropes attached to heavy machinery. WTC7 didn't come down by hooks and ropes.
CLAIM: Building 7 wasn't hit by a plane.
No, it was hit by falling debris, not the least of which was a falling perimeter column.
CLAIM: Steel-framed structures have never collapsed before due to fire.
Yes they have. Ex: Kader toy factory, Mumbai Oil Platform, I-580, etc..
CLAIM: Steel-framed high-rise skyscraper have never collapsed due to fire before.
If steel-framed structures can collapse due to fire, it holds that steel-framed high-rise structures can as well. There is no tenable reason to assume that making them taller suddenly makes them immune to fire. That it hasn't happened before is no argument that it can't or hasn't.
