It's a bit more than a pet peeve for me. It's exactly shirking any ability to perform or judge analysis, instead granting total deference to "authorities" that should be cited to provide credibility.

That's especially fair, as there's a good-faith way of engaging with such things that they've avoided: "Could you expand on this please?"

Even expert analysis isn't evidence. At its best, an expert can give you a sense of the range of possibilities, which might include things you never thought of. But actually knowing what's happening in a specific case requires evidence.

It seems like being clear about what you're doing (are you just discussing possibilities or trying to claim something specific) would go a long way in avoiding such misunderstandings.

(And I of course don't know which cases you're talking about, so I'm just talking about possibilities.)

Source?