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Comment by brokenkebab | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure following honors/awards is always the safest path, but your answer doesn't make sense to me at all: he was awarded for infectious disease control "particularly the Ebola crisis response in West Africa", which sounds to me like valuable experience, and solid ground to claim some knowledge.

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The more explicit reason to view him as credible is his body of work. The award was ostensibly given in recognition of that work, so to cite the award in support of his credibility is pretty much the same thing as citing the work, just with an appeal to authority thrown in. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, an appeal to authority is as valid as the authority you’re appealing to.

My gripe was that OC made an appeal solely on the OBE rather than his body of work. Such awards should be viewed with suspicion as they can be awarded on the basis of saying the convenient thing as much as the right thing.

I said he was awarded the OBE because of his work in this area, not that an OBE is solely a reason to trust his opinion. He is far more qualified than the growth hacker / marketing guy who has zero expertise in this area as far as I can tell.

Well you probably should have cited a more credible award so

Thanks for putting some more meat on your appeal to authority. Seems a little bit more reasonable, but I have little faith in UK institutions in 2020.

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