From pessimism to optimism. A reply

Abstract

The diversity of the comments makes it an easy and a complex task to address them. It is an easy task, since each of the commentators presented clear yet widely ranging opinions about the extent and relevance of theories in GSA, which differ astonishingly – from accusations of just presenting ‘theory-lite’ (Veit) to the very positive view that there is even more relevant theoretical discussion in GSA than mentioned by us (Kristiansen). The surprisingly diverse comments lead us to suppose that we have probably found a middle ground between the pessimistic and the more optimistic perspectives. However, commenting on the responses is also a complex task, because the only way of doing justice to them is by discussing them individually.