I attribute it to a misunderstanding of what authority is. People believe, and thusly treat, authorities as prescribers. As people who tell you what to do. Tha

I attribute it to a misunderstanding of what authority is. People believe, and thusly treat, authorities as prescribers. As people who tell you what to do. That's not what an authority is. An authority is a heuristic. It's someone who has heard the question before and can answer it faster than reinventing the wheel. That's what a dictionary is. Someone else went and surveyed all the uses of a word and documented it so that you don't have to do it yourself. An authority is a search engine. Being authoritative is being a good search engine.