&quot;To attempt to speak ill of a field you know little about and yet still find to be trivial or unrigorous is puzzilingly tactless and embarrassingly presumptuous.&quot;<p>This is one of the most common academic tactics: to claim that those who are outside the field are ignorant of it and therefore cannot pass judgment. As someone who claims to be a scientist, you should know that this is an appeal to authority and that a scientist would welcome criticism from anyone regardless of training or background provided their argument was well-argued and supported by evidence.