Tonight, I witnessed the most "impressive" display of crackpottery that I have ever seen in my life.
First, some background: There's a guy who hangs out at NBI who is apparently a former professor of a prominent visitor of whom I've never heard who came to visit the place when this guy came. He is known among several people, including the person being honored by this conference (though people seemed loath to mention the crackpot's name---I'm guessing he used to do real work that may well have also been good real work). He had been asking asinine questions during most of the talks, and I realized pretty quickly he was a nutcase when he brought up the same thing (that was sufficiently specific for me to think this) in two talks on wildly different topics. He also did the usual name-dropping of huge names in a historical context (questions along the lines of 'Why don't you use the original view of [fill in subject] by [fill in several famous names] instead of the way you're doing it.' --- this is not an exact quote, but it has the gist of several of the guy's questions) In one incident, which was admittedly amusing (even though I feel bad for the person involved), he actually got into a shouting match with the wife of the person being honored in the "discussion" following a talk. But this was not what achieved the record...
What achieved the record is as follows: Tonight was the conference dinner, and there was some toasting and a tad bit of roasting of the honoree/birthday boy. This guy shows up in the middle of dinner, hands out sheets with new lyrics to "God Bless America" (well, those aren't the original lyrics either, but I don't remember the precise name of the original tune from England) and a title of "God Bless Cvitanovic'." The lyrics included references to several of today's talks, and are really, really horrible (kind of like my current D & D character, except this is real life). In fact, they were impressivly horrible. He then lead us in song (most people were actually were willing to sing; I giggled and requested a gong from the people at my table) in one of the largest collective 'wtf' moments I have ever seen. I certainly appreciate this sentiment, and that's why people sang along, but this was just so utterly ridiculous.
Well, the birthday boy can now say that somebody has written and sung a ballad in his honor, and there aren't many people nowadays who can do that.
Regarding the Q&A crackpottery like this, how do you handle it when you're the speaker? Thankfully I've never had to find out, but you've given a lot more talks than I have. Seems like just about every department of halfway decent size has one of these clowns, so I'd be surprised if you've escaped the phenomenon...
ReplyDeleteWell, I had just that opportunity a couple days ago. (Also, this applies not just to crackpots but also to generally annoying audience members.)
ReplyDeleteThe key is to answer the question in such a way that it does not lead to follow-ups. I was speaking about BECs and was asked about the current perspective(s) on studying it that department from the original one (that this guy stated was a certain thing, although I don't know if the latter part is only in his mind). He also asked if I was sure such things were making things simpler rather than more complicated.
I gave my answer, which he seemed to accept, in two parts:
1. I basically pointed out that what he said was a platitude (though I didn't use that word) because it's basically true of just about everything everyone studied, so there's nothing special here.
2. I mentioned that one gets different insights with different ways of doing things and that I felt these techniques provided insight. (He didn't deserve any more than that for the second question.)
Also, when I get questions from either crackpots or obnoxious people, the very quick snide remark is also viable for getting things moving. I've definitely been known for doing that before when an audience member says something obnoxious.
If nothing else, there is also the old staple of saying something very fast and that you can discuss it in more detail offline. While the person will still be there to bother you, at least then things can move on during the public portion of your talk.
Finally, if nothing else works, you can tell the person that he/she is out of his/her element and should shut the fuck up. (I have seen that happen -- though with nicer language -- on occasion when somebody is really persistent. I doing remember actually doing this before, but it wouldn't surprise me if I had.)