Not just the high road. Your statement is accurate. His equivalent statement is inaccurate.
The quote you give sums up the whole problem.
If his argument was as you wrote it, I couldn't have found much fault with the paper.
Your statement is correct. Many statements in BL are incorrect. It is impossible to defand some of sections of BL, though many try.
BL is the worst paper of the 4 and the easiest to pick to pieces. I'm pretty sure you notice how Bazant's arguments seemed to change between BV and BL. BL is supposed to be the closure of BV, but something seems to change quite dramatically between BV and BL. BV isn't too bad of a paper, but in BL Bazant begins to claim things that seem silly.
The Achille's heel is BL, where he seems to put his foot in his mouth a few times In BV he is talking about more generalized, flexible conditions and he mentions the WTC towers only a few times.
In BL Bazant is talking specifically about the WTC towers through the whole paper. As you pointed out a few years ago, he says some things in that paper that don't make any sense.
Through BLGB he continues a literal interpretation of crush down, then crush up to the WTC towers.
It is the shift to the literal application to WTC1 and 2 that abruptly starts in BL and contimues through BLGB that makes the papers so easy to pick to pieces. That is where he screws up.
Is the screw-up important towards the end results? The ROOSD concept suggests not. So while I argued against BL and BLGB, I never claimed that the propagation should "bounce" or be arrested.
BL and BLGB are not shown to be incorrect because the buildings ultimately would completely collapse anyway....
ihey are incorrect because the mechanics sucks. The fact that the mechanics suck cannot be excused just because the buildings would have fell anyway. Hence review of the question:
"Is the screw-up important towards the end results?
may lead to an answer:
"Well, ROOSD suggests the buildings would have fell, but that doesn't change the fact that Bazant screws up in BL and BLGB."
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