@Lauralee No, the text is correct as it stands. This response from Dr Goodman:

“This is the counter-intuitive result. Ground state binding is a bad thing, because lowering the energy of the ground state increases the barrier between the (bound) ground state and the transition state. Binding the ground state is like digging a hole in the ground at the take-off for a high-jump. The bar does not get any higher, but the jump gets harder.”

With this statement, did you intend to underscore a different but mutually less effective action on either type of binding or did you mean to say, “… much *more* effective for ground state binding.”? If I read the rest correctly, it seems as though you intended to say the latter. If the ground state binding is made more efficient, it would seem the the difference between ground and transition states would be narrower. As I am not a biochemist (or any type of chemist for that matter), I may be treading on ground I have no shoes for, but thought I’d chance the question because I am genuinely curious.