7 ms·

This sheds an interesting light on the referee process in that referees are given an inordinate amount of power in the scientific process. Suppose I am a refer

This sheds an interesting light on the referee process in that referees are given an inordinate amount of power in the scientific process. Suppose I am a referee, then I am a mathematician and I generally want new and interesting work released having to do with my subject area because I want more students interested in those topics validating my general area of research. If I dont plan to personally build on this work (because maybe its too confusing or doesn't shed light on what I am working on), then in a case like this where the paper is so confounding, whats to keep me from simply saying "I understand this and its correct" even if that is not the case? Its not like if you referee and approve a paper that is later proven wrong (especially in a case like this) you are run out of the mathematical community. Do they need to provide detailed explanations as to why they think its right? What would stop a referee from simply going along with it and approving this paper, especially when the community is confounded by it and doesn't want to do the work itself. Does the rigor of scientific process ultimately just come down to unrigorous consensus?

deleted 9y ago
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luckyt 9y ago
> What's to keep me from simply saying "I understand this and its correct" even if that is not the case? Then you should be able to have intelligent discussions about the paper and answer questions that come up. If you're pretending to understand it, a quick 5-minute discussion with a mathematician would reveal that this is not the case.
impendia 9y ago
Professional mathematician here. That can occasionally happen with much less important papers; e.g. someone is asked to referee something, and doesn't really feel like actually reading it but would still like to see it published. If they are not conscientious they might only briefly skim the proof and write a hasty referee report. But ABC is a major claim. The community will not be nearly so quick to reach a consensus. In particular, from what I can tell now there are a handful of mathematicians other than Mochizuki vouching for the proof, but even that is still not enough: overall, the community has yet to come to a consensus that this is enough.

deleted 9y ago

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luckyt 9y ago

> What's to keep me from simply saying "I understand this and its correct" even if that is not the case? Then you should be able to have intelligent discussions about the paper and answer questions that come up. If you're pretending to understand it, a quick 5-minute discussion with a mathematician would reveal that this is not the case.

impendia 9y ago

Professional mathematician here. That can occasionally happen with much less important papers; e.g. someone is asked to referee something, and doesn't really feel like actually reading it but would still like to see it published. If they are not conscientious they might only briefly skim the proof and write a hasty referee report. But ABC is a major claim. The community will not be nearly so quick to reach a consensus. In particular, from what I can tell now there are a handful of mathematicians other than Mochizuki vouching for the proof, but even that is still not enough: overall, the community has yet to come to a consensus that this is enough.