[split] Authority and the Appeal to it.

[RadioFM]

And I'm no less guilty of this, I too take the expert's opinions with fewer grains of salt more often than not

This is the natural thing to do, when you are yourself not well-versed enough in the subdiscipline at hand.

Expertise doesn't have to corelate with a degree or academic position, though it often does. I spent so much time studying fashion of the early 15th century, that I can tell when an entry in Eggy's list is not dated to the correct half of the 15th century. But I would make a huge fool of myself if I were to join in on a conversation between experts on 13th century dress. 

The problem is that being on Dunning-Kruger's "Mount Stupid" and having actual expertise feel just the same, with the only difference that the former provides more self confidence.

I agree. It's a valid default position, and I also understand not trying to foster back-and-forth arguments and confrontation against professional medievalists. The Voynich MS. is enough of an eye-roller as it is; having to deal with amateurs who just learned about paleography a while ago can be frustrating from the POV of a professional medievalist. I can understand that.

I know I'm probably standing on Mount Stupid on many things, and I keep this in the back of my mind whenever I disagree with some of you. On this particular issue (LFD's 5 Hands) I was (am) surprised to see it was so promptly accepted by many who have surely sifted through hundreds of manuscripts over the years, and especially on the basis of "Well I'll just trust the expert on this one".

Although we see different hands (not necessarily scribes) on the VMS, IMHO Torsten and others have raised valid objections against LFD's Hand IDs, that seem swiftly dismissed by many here with some retort along the lines of "Yeah... but you're not a world class or professional paleographer".

By that same token of simply defaulting to experts, should also take into account that 20th cent. paleographer (forgot their name) that was certain it was all one single scribe? or Panofsky's initial hypotheses about Iberian provenance or Qabbalistic influence? I hope you see my point: If you agree with LFD's findings because your assessment is the same, that's perfectly fine. There problem is to just blindly accept someone's findings as a cornerstone for future research based solely on the author's (real) expertise, and following the same logic, dismissing rebutals from anyone just because they lack such expertise.