Yes, you fundamentally are.
>I have deep expertise in this exact area, and based on my experience and knowledge and ability to read papers in this area, I can confidently say that this is a bad "paper" that does not prove the claim made.
There is no functional difference between the here because you don't even provide an argument as to why this is.
What is the real difference between "I have deep expertise in this area and knowledge and experience" and "I have a PhD"? Is a PhD not a proxy for expertise, knowledge, and experience in a subject?
What is the difference between "believe me" and "I can confidently say that this is a bad "paper" that does not prove the claim made"? Are you not asking me to believe your conclusion based entirely on your authority? You have made no argument for me to evaluate.
One form is more verbose, but it is still 100% an appeal to authority.
It is one thing to state your credentials and then make an argument. It is another to state your credentials and a conclusion with no argument.
"We speculated that in COVID-19, beyond the classical pulmonary immune-inflammation view, the occurrence of an oxygen-deprived blood disease, with iron metabolism dysregulation, should be taken in consideration. "
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7267810/#:~:tex....
The guy complaining here is simply wrong. He's backpedalling because he made an unscientific and unsupported statement that oxygen deprivation is caused only by inflammation. There is plenty of evidence of other mechanisms at play. Nitpicking them is fine, pretending they don't exist is foolish, which is what he is getting called out on.
I'm saying: I have deep expertise in this exact area, and based on my experience and knowledge and ability to read papers in this area, I can confidently say that this is a bad "paper" that does not prove the claim made.
You have no skill or experience in this area, and you choose to believe the paper instead of my assessment of the paper. That is certainly your right, but your basis for doing so is "it's a paper and I don't know who you are", which is self-evidently silly.