All this points to is the danger of believing someone based on reputation rather than evidence. Empirical evidence is the basis of science, not reputation. No

All this points to is the danger of believing someone based on reputation rather than evidence. Empirical evidence is the basis of science, not reputation. No one, no matter what they've done before, gets to present their hypotheses as fact without evidence. One problem that outsiders to a field have is that we may lack the background knowledge to evaluate the evidence for a hypothesis. In that case, I try to rely on consensus rather than one expert opinion.