Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved an interesting problem

Re:Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved ... by syn0byte on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @01:58PM (#18294790)

Yes, it was a mostly non-answer to a mostly non-question. It was in response to citing a proof in your own work, not a comment on the need for peer review of proofs in general.

The bulk of your rebuttal is exactly my own point. Peer review doesn't actually prove anything one way or the other. The ultimate truthfulness of a cited proof is all that matters. The idea that cited proofs should be peer reviewed don't add intrinsic validity, it just fosters academic laziness.

"Boy that's a fantastical claim that doesn't seem right; but all the citations are peer reviewed and I see nothing obviously wrong so I guess its true!" -OR- "Boy That's a fantastical claim that doesn't seem right; I don't see anything obviously wrong here so lets double check the cited proofs they based this on."

What's the practical upside to only using peer-reviewed proofs besides speed at the cost of fidelity? What's the practical downside to using unreviewed proofs besides "more work"?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved ... by Jweb_Guru on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @10:05PM (#18298043)

People do use unreviewed proofs. They just mark those results separately from the rest of the paper so that people (correctly) know not to rely on them, or at least to continue to treat them as tainted; they also usually try to avoid relying on such theorems for critical results. Which is a way better solution than what you're proposing, which is to just mix them in with proofs that people are reasonably confident in and hope for the best.

[ Parent | on HN ]