Thanks Roger and Chris. I suffer from CRS disease, and so did not realize this had been discussed here before. Though I know I was reading posts here regularly during the time in question . . .

The whole thing appears to just be indicative of the human mind's ability to fool itself by data-picking, and carelessness in data-mining. I'm thankful to people such as Roger who can bring the formidable power of math/logic to bear on the subject. I've been doing surprisingly well in my math classes, and intend to take either calculus or statistics, or both, soon (after an at least semester-long hiatus).

As with so many of these theories, it is the lack of any remotely plausible mechanism that causes us to be initially, at least, very skeptical. And for this, we are simply labeled "nay-sayers".

And Roger corrected my contention that the theory involves an S-wave shadow zone, stating the theory involves a P-wave shadow zone. He may well be right, as I've not seen Whitesides' or anyone else's formalized description of the theory. Both P- and S-waves have shadows zones beginning at about 103 degrees, and, for some reason, only the initial boundary of 103 degrees is usually mentioned. So I'm not sure why these supposed FFA's are likely to be located at that margin . . .

Mike Williams