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by davidamarquis 3885 days ago
Good mathematical work is rarely an all or nothing proposition. Many independent ideas are required and when the mathematician is very good it is rare that there will be many mistakes.

So even if there are issues with some aspect of the proof there is usually lots of interesting stuff that can be salvaged. The proof of Fermat's last theorem as originally given is an example. It was wrong, though it got patched later, but the original work was still very exciting I think.