In response to Carsten Schneider's argument that the QCA community has split into a small minority of unhelpful QCA "idealists", mainly Michael Baumgartner and myself, and a majority of QCA "realists", of which Schneider says he is a member, I have written a rejoinder that is partly a personal anecdote about my academic development, partly a scientific reply to the QCA "realists". You can download the text here.