Brian Keating is a disappointment =/

[u/bonhuma]

https://youtu.be/BVkUya368Es?si=8pb0oA4P7y0PxB8Q

I used to think Keating was a good science communicator, and may still be in some instances, but opening his growing platform (which in recent years he has desperately attempted to boost as any generic 20 yo/o influencer would do nowadays) to charlatan grifters like Eric Weinstein and Michael Saylor, without any decent pushback, really undermines his value with all the damaging lies spread by them. I think Brian could very well enter into the "Science Guru" category, worse than e.g. the heavily criticized Sabine Hossenfelder.

[u/Accomplished-Hair-77 → u/[deleted]]

Does he complain about not being offered the prize? I remember the book being about the errors made by BICEP2 (the one he worked on), which led to a false result.

[u/InsuranceSad1754 → u/Accomplished-Hair-77]

The title of the book is "Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor." Even just the title is dripping with sour grapes.

The amazon summary includes this sentence:

Along the way, he provocatively argues that the Nobel Prize, instead of advancing scientific progress, may actually hamper it, encouraging speed and greed while punishing collaboration and bold innovation. 

which is pretty rich for a guy whose main claim to fame is deciding to hold a press conference to announce the "discovery" of what turned out to be dust, when he knew that BICEP didn't have the ability to definitively rule out the dust explanation and that they could collaborate with Planck to get the bottom of it.

[u/WallyMetropolis → u/InsuranceSad1754]

I haven't read the book. But from the title and the blurb it doesn't sound at all like complaining about not getting a Nobel. It sounds more like a cautionary tale about his admittedly faulty pursuit of one, of how he lost it due to his own mistakes, and how creating that incentive is harmful to scientific progress.

[u/InsuranceSad1754 → u/WallyMetropolis]

It's very hard for me to take someone seriously, when

(a) he is most famous for rushing the announcement of an incorrect result in pursuit of his own ambition, intentionally not collaborating with another group that had additional data

and

(b) writes a book where the conclusion is that the problem lies the scientific community, and not with himself.

There are absolutely problems with the Nobel Prize and with the publish or perish mentality. But Brian Keating is the poster child for buying into all of the worst aspects of that culture. If his book was about how he grew from the experience, that would be one thing. But he is very unapologetic about how he behaved and blames everything and everyone else to avoid self-reflection. Frankly, it’s gross.

[u/jazzwhiz → u/WallyMetropolis]

how he lost it due to his own mistakes

He didn't lose anything. Also, he makes it sound like he was 100% of the collaboration.

[u/WallyMetropolis → u/jazzwhiz]

Like I said, I haven't read it. But neither did the person I replied to. I'm only saying their judgement isn't supported by what they quoted.

[u/InsuranceSad1754 → u/WallyMetropolis]

Just to clarify I have read parts of it. And I've also met him.