Dr. Brian Keating

Now, I do other things that he doesn't do and that's OK.

Or my colleagues will say that a real scientist doesn't do that.

A real scientist doesn't dumb things down or popularize it and write books and do podcasts and go on –

But that's also nonsense because a real scientist has to be able to give back to the public who pay his or her salary or else guess what?

You're not going to have a salary anymore and you're going to be unemployed doing what you love doing but not getting compensated for it.

Well, first of all, I try to assume that everybody is a human being, not just some avatar with a made-up name.

But I only have that kind of blissful naivete until they give me a reason not to.

respect them and believe what they're saying and believe that they're a good faith actor.

Unfortunately, that happens way more times than I get, you know, positive commentary, you know, that we can engage and be respectful and treat each other as colleagues.

So

when that happens, I'll continue indefinitely.

However, if you disrespect me, just like if you disrespect me in my face, like, you know, I can take care of myself.

You would never say that to me in my face, you know, be insulting like that.

or we will have a problem.

And I'm not a traditional academic in that sense.

I don't back down from those things.

I train and I do all sorts of things.

But in my case, I'll treat you with the respect that you don't deserve at first, because you might just be this keyboard warrior out there, but only up until you kind of abuse that trust.

And so a lot of times, I regret it because I am relatively friendly.

On the other hand, sometimes I've come to change my mind about certain topics that I've been very entrenched in.