[jjeaff]

I'm not a huge fan of "appeal to authority", but I'm curious what your credentials and experience in this area are?

The person you are arguing with claims to have direct experience working with viruses in a lab setting.

Is this another of HN's all too frequent, "computer science major arguing with expert in field completely unrelated to computer science"?

[pavas]

Reasoning doesn't require credentials, please let's keep it that way.

[SiempreViernes]

One of the parties did an appeal to authority as a way to _prove_ they entered _relevant_ evidence.

This is obviously entirely misguided, and if you start making such basic logical mistakes it is expedient to inquire about the posters background to know if they've reached the limit to their ability to create reasoned arguments.

[pavas]

There are nuances, but at it's core either it was valid for them to make that appeal and it is valid for us to request their credentials (which is essentially an appeal to authority--"who has the better credentials?"), or it was not valid for them to make that appeal and it is not valid for us to request their credentials. I lean towards the latter view.

Logical mistakes don't weaken a person's entire argument (we don't want to just see who's "winning"), or even weaken the line of reasoning they were invoked to support -- they just fail to provide evidence.

One of the parties called into question the validity of a paper the other party posted, and the other party rebutted by implying that as the director of an established institution, the paper's author has something to lose. I find that argument weak, but the initial questioning of validity also provided no evidence or made any strong arguments as to why the paper was not valid.

Appeals to authority are useful not as logical arguments but as a way to avoid wasting time on drivel, and I don't believe that to be the case here.