of course. Unfortunately many decent people don't feel welcome. Pre-covid I used to attend many academic seminars out of sheer curiosity for the subject material. I didn't have any pet project or theories, just a quest for academic rigor in a subject. I of course had questions, but I guess that's the differentiation between crank and non-crank: the crank believes they know the answers and the non-crank isn't even confident they really know the question. I will readily accept that I'm some rare outlier ... I didn't really meet anyone like myself.
Yeah it's too bad if people don't feel welcome, attending academic seminars outside your field can be so much fun, all the more so if you ask some questions! People look at you funny when you ask e.g. "what is an M-class star?" in an astronomy lecture, but as long as you have a friend who can say "oh, he's just a physicist" they get over it.
