[joshuamorton]

And as others note, that would be a reasonable social science paper, but "flimsy oversimplified model that might explain a phenomena" does not a mathematics publication make.

It's not made clear (and others mention) that the paper has changed a lot, so it's current form is different than it was originally, and it appears that the author tried to sneak it in to at least one journal, without normal peer review.

That's not good science.