ned, I agree with everything you said. On a normative note, perhaps a site of intellect and culture like SCIY should indeed be able to fairly consider potentially valid criticisms of the book, despite lingering (and understandable) emotional reactions to the questionable methods anti-Heehs campaigners have deployed to date. Emotional militancy (even in reaction to the same) can easily subvert and discredit intellectual and cultural analysis. BTW I like SCIY and often enjoy reading here the thoughts of Debashish and everyone else that frequently posts. Any disagreements I have are purely friendly ones. Kepler