>However, if a well renowned and respected Authority has an opinion that some evil schmuck disagrees with, it provides evidence as to who is more likely to be correct.
Providing evidence towards the likelihood of truth, as I said, and saying "this is true because X is trustworthy and Y is an 'evil schmuck'", as you said, are not equivalent.
Are you actually trying to argue you can't tell the opinion of children and subject matter experts apart because gathering evidence based on reputation is a logical fallacy?
That's you as you seem to have forgotten.