I don't know for certain at all, but I'd propose that you are being downvoted for not going far enough with lisp to grasp the point of lisp, which has more to

I don't know for certain at all, but I'd propose that you are being downvoted for not going far enough with lisp to grasp the point of lisp, which has more to do with recursive data structures--and data that is code--than just recursive procedure calling. Factorial and Fibonacci as a pair are good introductions to the issue of recursion--and lisp had recursion back in the dark ages before other languages did--but they're aren't what lisp is about. so, were some other newbie to read your comment, it might really put them off learning lisp for entirely the wrong reasons. cheers :)