When we deceive ourselves and allow others to deceive us on myths, mysteries, and magic in mathematics, be they via half-baked concepts, faux hypotheses, fallacies, paradoxes, tricks, and the like.
How can we fall for less magical thinking in mathematics? By teaching about faulty thinking habits, exposing false assumptions or hypotheses, warning against unquestioned extrapolation or generalization of rules or formulas, and debunking irrational or conspiratorial thinking.
Fogey/fogy /fougi/ sl. (early 18C+, orig. Scot) old-fashioned, stuck-in-the mud.
Person with old fashioned ideas which he is unwilling to change: Come to the disco and stop being such an old fogey!
You think me an old fogeyand an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. I saw three generations since O’Connel’s time. I remember the famine. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty years before O’Connel did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things. (James Joyce, Ulysses. PenguinBooks,1992. p. 38)