If a lot of very smart people didn’t find a single example in all the years knot theory has existed, it obviously is not that obvious.

That is not necessarily true. Knot theory is quite niche, maybe nobody before tried bruteforcing counter examples

	▲	trueismywork 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		We have huge data about knots in protein folding. Given that the proof is a counterexqmple, if it was easy, it should have been observed already in data I feel.
	▲	nyeah 5 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's not necessarily true. But it's pretty likely. It's worth considering as a possibility.