Agreed. It took me a few years of paying close attention to CYDY to figured out if NP was for real or a slick snake oil salesman, which he sometimes comes across as. His "numbers" are rarely specific enough to sound like more than fluffy adjectives to me (scientist by training, statistician by trade), and my knee-jerk response to him is often "what is he hiding?" But slowly I came to realize that he just tends to present his impressionistic vision of they way things are and the way they ought to be and really believes that his presentation of numbers is sufficiently clear. But it rarely is. I believe he's sincere but has difficulty making clear, quantitative narratives. To me it is looking more and more like the picture that emerges as the data become clearer will look great. I'm still not 100% convinced, but Patterson's paper helps to remove some doubts.