Life was simpler when I was a mathematician. As Gertrude Stein might have said, “a proof is a proof is a proof”: Once validated by the community, a mathematical result provides a rock-solid foundation on which one can build. By way of contrast, Henry Pollak once said that “there are no theorems in mathematics education.” In the social sciences, we seek to substantiate rather than to prove.
Alan H. Schoenfeld, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley, Tolman Hall, MC #1670, Berkeley, CA, 94720-1670; alans@berkeley.edu