[split] Authority and the Appeal to it.

[Mauro]

For example, you might want to try and find correlation between a hand and glyph/vord statistics, see if different hands follow distinct statistical patterns. You might want to check if a given hand writes in just one or multiple Voynichese dialects, if they make many "mistakes", if they have preference for line-initial and line-ending glyphs.
There are scenarios where partitioning the VMS according to different hands instead of quires/topics is worth pursuing. I don't think handwriting analysis is a completely isolated question outside of text analysis.

Five scribes have been proposed by Lisa, that's a fact. One can refer to that fact, if it is relevant, without needing to fake expertise. For example: "This study found no significant difference between the entropy values of sections of the text belonging to the five scribes proposed by Davis (ref)." Without adding "andthussheiswrongandiamrightanditwasjusttheonebadhombreallalongwoohootheoryisbackonthemenuboys!"

I'm guessing this is a jab at TT's tone?
I'm not defending his tone nor the entirety of his objections, nor am I saying that LFD is wrong; she probably has more expertise on many matters regarding the materiality, codicology and paleography of the VMS than most (if not everyone) here.

What I'm arguing against is this line of rhetoric:

Well yes, but the expert in this case is someone that has spent time sitting through thousands of manuscripts over years, so QED.

It's essentially an appeal to authority, plain and simple. I think it's unproductive and can dishearten researchers. I mean, why would I bother disputing say, Marci's purported handwriting on f1r, if I'll ultimately be met with "Your research is basically moot because you're no professional paleographer.", even if not said explicitly

It's an appeal to a relevant authority. When for example a very bright chemist tells me something is wrong in physics, I check with a physicist. It doesn't mean the chemist is wrong, but it means that on the balance of probabilities, the person offering expertise in their domain of expertise is more likely to be right.  An appeal to authority as a logical fallacy only applies where the person being appealed to has no actual authority. Lisa may be wrong. I have no idea, but that's the point isn't it. I don't have the authority to question her and neither does anyone else that isn't in her profession. That's the peer in peer review. Btw that doesn't mean they shouldn't, but they should be expected to be held to the same standards.

On your Marci point, dispute it all you like. Write a paper, have it peer reviewed and see if people with the specialist knowledge agree with you.

If anyone can now claim to be an expert in everything and dismiss everyone else's learning on the basis of their feelings, academia as we know it is really broken..

I think you both have reasons. @DG97EEB is right in saying expert opinion should not be dismissed lightly, expecially when one is not an expert in the same field, because quite often he's the expert who is right. @RadioFM has a point too, because it happens experts (and even the consensus of the experts, I have a specific example in mind but too off-topic) are wrong after all, so the contributions of non-experts should not be swiftly dismissed just because they come from non-experts (and I have the same specific example as before in mind   ).

But, were I an academic, I would rather not waste time by reading and responding to any and every casual piece published in my field (suppose it's VMS research), most of it will be trash. I'd stick to read, analyze and eventually respond only to peer reviewed papers. I think this is normal.