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That is the process, according to the NIST, that led the towers to collapse. The institute found “no corroborating evidence” for theories that the towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives planted in advance. It said that even the perception that the towers “pancaked,” as a cursory look at video footage might suggest—and as is associated with films of demolition using explosives—is inaccurate. NIST’s reading of the evidence, moreover, is that there was no failure of the floors—falling down one upon another one by one—but rather that the inward bowing, as described in the previous paragraph, initiated collapse.

What ammunition do the conspiracy theorists have to challenge the NIST account, and what is it worth? We came across a study of just that, dedicated solely to Professor Griffin’s criticism of the NIST reports on the Trade Center, and written by a NASA research scientist named Ryan Mackey—in language anyone can understand. In his analysis of Griffin’s work, Mackey applies what the astrophysicist Carl Sagan called a “baloney detection kit.”

Vital tools in the kit include independent confirmation of the facts, not confining oneself at the outset to a single hypothesis, and adherence to Occam’s Razor—the principle that precedence should be given to the simpler of competing theories.

The approach of Professor Griffin, the conspiracy author who presents himself as reasoned and judicious, in Mackey’s view “violates every single tenet” of the baloney detection kit. Mackey demonstrates as much, successfully in our view, over some three hundred pages. Errors made by Griffin regarding the NIST report, Mackey writes, “are so numerous and substantial as to discourage further analysis of his claims.” Here, large and small, are examples of Griffin’s claims, Mackey’s rebuttals, and on occasion points of our own.

Contrary to the NIST’s finding that fires so weakened the Twin Towers as to cause their collapse, Griffin has claimed that the fires were not especially hot, that there was no evidence that the heat was “breaking windows.” In fact, video and photographs show hundreds of windows broken, with either flame or smoke visible.

Griffin, who on the one hand argues that the fires in the Twin Towers were not hot enough to fatally weaken the steel columns, on the other hand asserts that molten steel was seen. For steel to have melted, he writes, “would be very strong evidence” that the columns were in fact “cut by explosives.”

There is in fact no good evidence—evidence, as distinct from verbal eyewitness recollections—that any steel, as distinct from other metals like aluminum, melted. According to Mackey, moreover, explosives, “particularly those used in real controlled demolitions, do not melt steel. They destroy steel through impulse.”

One possible scenario, Mackey writes, might support steel having melted at the very moment of collapse. That, he says, would fit not with the use of explosives but of “high-temperature incendiaries,” such as thermite—the presence of which has been postulated by skeptic Dr. Steven Jones.

Jones has claimed to have discovered “thermitic” material in four samples of dust from Lower Manhattan. There are multiple problems with Jones’s assertion, however, the first of them a problem that requires no scientific knowledge.

In all criminal investigations, a key factor is what detectives call the “chain of evidence” or “chain of custody.” To be truly useful, evidence must have been handled with extreme care, to obviate questions as to its authenticity or origins. Dr. Jones’s samples of dust emerged five years after 9/11, following an appeal by him for dust that might have been preserved.

One handful of dust reportedly came from a citizen who scooped it up on 9/11 from a handrail near the end of the Brooklyn Bridge, then preserved it in a plastic bag. Another was reportedly found the following day on a pile of laundry near an apartment window. Of the two other samples, both also picked