How should I proceed when a (famous) professor says I'm not good enough for research? I am a PhD student in a Computer Science department, doing research of a mathematical nature. Some of my research problems drifted from my advisor's area of expertise, so I reached out to a researcher from my department about it (who is a world expert in this field). This professor is well-known with many achievements in this field.
The first meetings went well, I learnt a lot, got valuable feedback and I was so happy I had the opportunity to talk to this guy. However, after a few meetings he started with &quot;let's have a meta-talk about you&quot;. Then, he brutally attacked me: he said I am not good enough for research, that I can get better but it would never be good enough for research career, that &quot;people are born with the ability to know if their proofs are correct&quot; and since I made some gross mistakes in what I sent, it is clear I &quot;don't have it&quot; and basically I shouldn’t  expect to get as good as people with a research career.
Since then, he mentions it in every talk we have. It can be in &quot;minor&quot; comments (e.g. &quot;you have to be realistic and understand you can't really do it&quot;, &quot;if you do it alone it will be difficult for you&quot;, &quot;it is like chess, and you just don't have it&quot;) or in bigger conversations.
As you may understand, I felt horrible after the first time (and I still do, after each of these meetings). I really appreciate him and his opinion, so I took it really bad.
How can I know if he is right? How should I proceed? His words really made me think that maybe he is right.
RE the exact words used: I actually recorded the meetings, so my quotes are accurate.
I am sorry that it happened to you. This is not a pleasant experience, and frankly it's a shame that toxic professors and supervisors are still common in academia.
Academic research is broad and multi-dimensional. Some people excel in writing proofs, others design and set up wonderful experiments, collect useful data and find beautiful dependencies within. Some people propose fantastic theorems, which take hundred years to prove, others prove or disprove them after hundred years. As a community, we do research in a variety of exciting ways, which mutually support each other.
No single researcher is equally excellent in doing all these things. We have our strong areas and our blind spots. But saying that someone is not fit for research based on a couple of shortcomings in their proof is completely unfair, unjustified, ridiculous and unkind. This is opposite what a University professor should do, in my opinion. A good supervisor would encourage a student to try different things to identify where their strength and passion are. A toxic person would identify a single error and draw far-reaching conclusions from it to undermine student's confidence and make them feel bad about themselves. This is an extremely short-sighted and unprofessional behaviour.
Please try to disregard this person's opinion. Find someone else to collaborate with. Academia is large and although toxic and self-important people are still common, there is also a plenty of kind and supportive and truly generous colleagues around. Don't hesitate to share your experience with others to prevent someone else from having the same negative experience as you just had.