To me it sounds more like: I don't like the idea of this theory working, but I don't have a refutation.
Honestly I am surprised of hearing such an argument from one of the world's best mathematicians.
Honestly I am surprised of hearing such an argument from one of the world's best mathematicians.
A plausibility argument like Tao’s one is simply not an argument.
To show that Mochizuchi is wrong you need to point out which equation of his work is wrong, which by the way is Peter Scholze’s plan.
Tao by his own admission does not have the background to evaluate Mochizuchi’s theory and still gives this worthless plausibility argument, appealing to his knowledge of other unrelated proofs. I’m astonished.
As a scientist I would never make such a statement, moreso for a theory I admittedly don't understand.
Tangentially, it's not Tao's case, but I have seen a lot of bullying in the academia along these lines... "I am not saying it's wrong, just very bizzarre", "I am not saying it's wrong, but my Ph.D. student worked on it for two years and couldn't solve it", "I am not saying it's wrong, actually I don't even understand the details, but please recheck everything..." etc...
In mathematics there’s absolutely no place for judging the bizarreness of statements, either they are right or wrong, and of course such a judgement cannot be made by someone who admittedly doesn’t have the necessary background.
As I already said, often in the Academia saying that a result is bizarre is a not-so-subtle way of implying something is wrong by appealing to authority.