argument from relevant authority. A professor of "science and society" at an accredited university would be a relevant authority for the topic of the scientific method and its impact on society...

The relevance of the authority does not matter. If a well respected zoologist claims there are 24 chromosomes instead of 23, we shouldn't believe him.

Read the wikipedia article on Argument from authority before making such comments.

If I am presented with two contradictory statements, one by an expert and one not, and have no particular reason to believe one or the other, then I'm going to guess the expert is correct. Wouldn't you?

If someone posted an editorial called "Amazon is great for society and we should do nothing to trammel its growth," would you think it was irrelevant if it were written by Jeff Bezos?

e.g. using a Carl Sagan quote, rather than addressing the authors argument.

The quote was an aside.. not used to refute the article. Just a pertinent thought. Carl Sagan wasn’t being used as an athority against the argument.

Nice try on confusing the meaning of argument from authority though.