[cnasc]

I think an appeal to authority is only fallacious when it's an appeal to an authority that has no relevant expertise. Something like "my dentist says that anthropogenic climate change isn't real, you don't think you're smarter than a doctor do you?"

In contrast, when it comes down to John Q. Internet vs a scientist with relevant expertise, I think it's a reasonable heuristic to think the scientist is more likely to be correct.

IMO the downvotes were more related to the delivery than the content.

[Kaivo]

Interestingly, there seems to be an equality bias[1] where the experts opinions weight no more than any other person's opinion. So apparently the reasonable heuristic isn't always applied in how we perceive and judge information.

[1]http://www.pnas.org/content/112/12/3835

[mythrwy]

Yes, but appeal to authority is still appeal to authority as opposed to discussing the merits of the idea. In this place we are better than that. Or we should be.

If the discussion was "who is more likely to be right", well, that's a different matter and I'd agree with credentials. But that's not an interesting discussion really.