I dislike the early section about arrogance. Who cares? I don’t care if someone is being arrogant, humble, or anything else, when it comes to mathematics proofs. Imagine if Hardy had scolded Ramanujan for being “arrogant” and dismissed his correspondence?
At best, by trying to judge arrogance, you’re trying to use it as some type of correlate with being a crank and more quickly dismiss a claim without spending the effort to read it.
At worst, it’s trying to entrench the superficial credential of mathematics academia and journal publication style of collaboration and peer review, which frankly (and especially in mathematics, where polymath amateurs can easily be responsible for ground-breaking solo work) is overdue for being replaced by a more fully open, unrestricted participation model of discovery and publication.
Some arrogant cranks are going propose time-waster claims. Just accept it. Don’t care if they are arrogant or not.
At best, by trying to judge arrogance, you’re trying to use it as some type of correlate with being a crank and more quickly dismiss a claim without spending the effort to read it.
At worst, it’s trying to entrench the superficial credential of mathematics academia and journal publication style of collaboration and peer review, which frankly (and especially in mathematics, where polymath amateurs can easily be responsible for ground-breaking solo work) is overdue for being replaced by a more fully open, unrestricted participation model of discovery and publication.
Some arrogant cranks are going propose time-waster claims. Just accept it. Don’t care if they are arrogant or not.