Ignoring Devlin's political bias, I suspect we understand the idea he was trying to outline [let me try: there's a spectrum for 'surety of proof' running from pure formal-symbol-manipulative rigor on one end, to largely unsubstantiated emotional handwaving at the other with many waystations of surety in between]. Anyhow, Keith was focusing on *proofs*. I got to wondering if there was the same sort of spectrum for *disproofs*. I had always generally thought that disproofs would all be at the for-sure, "rigorous", end of the spectrum [thinking about the usual approach: you find *one* case where the theorem fails and it's gone]... But with proofs getting a lot more complicated, subtle and LARGE I'm wondering if we'll have the same situation with disproofs as we see with proofs: of some mathematicians claiming that one part of a proof is flawed and others not being convinced, and no one being convinced one way or the other whether a proof is 'good' or not. /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers mailto:bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <--