----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Thanks for the reference, Daniele. I actually have heard of the author, possibly the book, but have not checked it out. I may have seen the reference in one of John Allen Paulos' books, all of which I highly recommend, such as _Innumeracy_, _I Think Therefore I Laugh_, _Mathematics and Humor_, etc. These are very good and include good ideas for classroom use. I've been looking at a lot of the secondary literature on Holmes, including pastiches, parodies, etc., but also some wild non-fiction stuff on holmes and method. There are actually a lot of courses out there on Holmes and science. One of the things I am pursuing is the idea that Holmes's method is the method of what the ancient greek geometers called "analysis" and "synthesis", which I define in the article "Working Backwards" cited in my earlier post. I cannot find anyone else who has made the argument (maybe nobody cares!), although lots have made the argument that Homes's method is Peircian "abduction" or "retroduction". This is important in my view not only because it is absolutely exactly spot on as I can prove with strong evidence, but also because it leads to the relation between "abduction" and "retroduction" on the one hand and the method of analysis of the ancient greek geometers on the other, which nobody as far as I can tell has explored (please help me find the work that has explored these connections if it exists!). There are some more important implications that I can't get into here. By the way, all this derives from clues provided in footnotes and never elaborated in the work of Adolph Lowe, relating to his methodology of public policy and economic theory, that he called "instrumental analysis." He tried to explain what he meant by instrumentalism by citing Peirce's abduction, Polya's "heuristics", and Michael Polanyi's work. Anyone insterested let me know and I can send some quotes and several page drafts outlining the argument as I have so far developed it. Mat Forstater ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]