The folly of "authority"

I've been seeing a lot of posts from both sides of "the argument" using scientific qualifications as a means to make (what I understand to be) arguments from authority.This got me wondering about my understanding of the use of scientific qualifications.Here's my understanding of it all;I've always been under the impression that one's credentials were simply a way to demonstrate the accomplishment of an established standardof an amount of work to show a level of understanding (and/or competence) in a given field to the satisfaction of instructers with greater understanding/experience/training/knowlege in given field of study.I could understand how this would grant weight behind the opinions of one with such qualifications in a field, however, this does not make their conjecture (however educated it is) anything other then conjecture and neither does it mean that they are any less required to provide evidence to support their claims.Am I mistaken?

Thread copied to the The folly of "authority" thread in the Creation/Evolution Miscellany forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.