handwaving

Waving the hands.

Pertaining to empty gesturing, with little substance behind it; vague; not supported by data.

Alternative form of hand waving (“empty gesturing”).

McClatchy goes on to try and level a damning critique, which amounts to a lot of handwaving about things we already know.

If one looks today at the logical literature, one finds that there is a great deal of handwaving going on of the same kind as that used by Gödel in his paper. That is, informal arguments are given to show that a formalization of a certain statement is formally provable in a certain theory.