by Brian A. Burchill
October 26, 2011
Foreign Policy Journal
There is a structured communication technique called the Delphi Method that draws upon the collective intelligence of a panel of experts to achieve consensus on an issue/theory/proposition. Wikipedia has a thorough explanation of the technique and some of its variations. Briefly, a facilitator provides a questionnaire to survey panelists on an issue, and then receives back the panelists’ responses, judgments and reasons. The facilitator then sends all of these replies to all panelists, and each panelist is invited to revise their own response in light of the responses of the other expert panelists. This process is repeated until the range of answers converges on a single answer with an accepted degree of agreement (consensus).
Typically, the identity of each panelist is hidden from the other panelists, and the authorship of each response is also hidden. This procedure overcomes issues of group dynamics that can be impediments to true consensus, and encourages unfettered expression of opinion and critique. The Delphi method has been used successfully since the 1950s to advance knowledge in such fields as social policy, medicine, and science and technology.
A contentious issue, which has persisted for a decade now, is whether or not US Government’s official narrative of the events of September 11, 2001, is substantially flawed. The 9/11 Commission was supposed to provide a thorough account of those events, but has failed to quell the debate. Even members of the Commission, including the Chair and Vice-Chair, have publicly criticized the Commission’s proceedings and final report. According to Harry Levins, in his September 6, 2009 article in the St Louis Post-Dispatch, the Commission’s senior counsel, John Farmer, stated that “what government and military officials had told Congress, the Commission, the media, and the public about who knew what when — was almost entirely, and inexplicably, untrue.” He also said that “At some level of the government, at some point in time … there was a decision not to tell the truth about what happened… .”
To encourage further investigation of this issue, a Delphi survey of 22 expert panelists has been conducted regarding the “best evidence” that indicates flaws in the official narrative of 9/11. This Panel included professors of chemistry, physics, aeronautics, and engineering; air force and commercial pilots; journalists; authors and film makers; an aircraft accident investigator; a public health officer; a lawyer; and a politician. This multi-disciplinary team of professionals has achieved consensus on 13 points of this evidence, and the degree of consensus was at least 90%, which means that there is a high degree of certainty that that evidence truly does refute the official narrative.
The diverse knowledge and expertise of the panelists, and the methodology used, give this 9/11 Consensus Panel a high degree of distinction, integrity, authority and credibility. This, along with the professional videos and documented references that accompany each of the 13 consensus points, provides the mainstream media with opportunity to confidently promote serious discussion, even challenge the official narrative, about this world-changing event with its continuing fallout. The 13 Points developed by the Panel are available at Consensus911.org.
Brian A. Burchill is a Mechanical Engineer and Certified Traffic Accident Reconstructionist. He was a campaign manager in Canada’s 1993 federal election, and was a candidate himself in the 1997 and 2000 federal elections. He currently manages a business that recycles scrap plastics into products. Read more articles by Brian A. Burchill.