I wonder what his qualifications are???. I don't believe anyone has questioned this yet.
I don't think the issue is qualifications. The problem I see is that, all too often, we (myself included) use words and opinions rather than references, experiments and mathematical proofs. The problem is that it is much easier to state opinions that we believe are facts, rather than taking the time and effort needed to establish proof to someone who does not yet have that experience. But, if we don't provide that proof, how can someone else judge? It becomes a he-says she-says battle of words. Who can be believed? It should not be majority wins, or lack or qualifications looses. It needs to be scientific standards applied. I think providing references to well-accepted scientific texts/journals is a valid proof, and should take priority over opinions in words from anyone here, no matter what their credentials. Next, someone here with good experience or credentials is free to provide experimental data/analysis or mathematical analysis/calculations to prove a point. In this way, we can evaluate claims as a group, much the same way scientific journals are reviewed.
However, this is time consuming. Personally, I've taken the time to provide detailed experimental and mathematical evidence in other forums (never here I don't think). The time required is considerable at typically over 1 week of full time work to do an adequate job, and requiring over 10 pages of writing, plots and analysis. Then, it can be really frustrating when naysayers in the thread dismiss even that at a glance, but then the truth and proof is there to a scientific standard for all to see. Let's not forget than many scientific facts are not accepted by many people, so we are never going to convince everyone of something that has been proven with scientific rigor. Also, any scientific fact is still open to criticism. It is not absolute truth, but just a reasonable viewpoint to hold on to, based on preponderance of evidence, and the underlying assumption that the thing we are studying obeys scientific laws.
Anyway, perhaps a way to minimize the issues with some of these debates is for the moderators to hold us all to a higher standard. They should ask, "where is the reference?", or "provide the calculations", or "do the experiment and show the data". Going forward, I'm going to think more along these lines. Instead of arguing about words, I'll try to argue about mathematical analyses and interpretation of experimental results.