Waggoner's article is actually more bizarre to me on the second read. The claim does not appear to be that the paper bad, just that interested, non-credentialed amateurs don't get to have (public) opinions, no matter how well-reasoned. While I'm highly skeptical of armchair epistemology a priori, there are plenty of criticisms of the (un)linked article that are more interesting and educational than pointing out it's written by someone without a PhD in epistemology.
I don't think that's his intended meaning: "There isn’t enough time to evaluate everything on the merits" from the article.
If the author had said "I don't know what I'm talking about, but here's what I reckon" people would have spent a lot less time reading and debunking it.
No. The standard practice is to use passive forms.
EDIT: I've been informed by the people responding that passive form is now considered archaic, so apparently using first pronouns is now acceptable. This must've changed since I did my research.
> Nature journals prefer authors to write in the active voice ("we performed the experiment...") as experience has shown that readers find concepts and results to be conveyed more clearly if written directly.
Wikipedia says it is discourage in the social sciences, though, because "it fails to distinguish between sole authorship and co-authorship" [1].
I'm curious now why it is so important to distinguish between sole authorship and co-authorship via writing style. If you are reading the paper itself, a glance at the author list will tell you that.