They distrust experts because they all work for the government.
That's correct; this is one of the central tenets of conspiracism. On any question where expertise applies, the conspiracist tries to shift the debate from the validity of the exposed knowledge to the trustworthiness of the proponent. An expert may be highly informed and well experienced, but the conspiracist will dismiss his evidence because it is allegedly tainted by working for the wrong people, and will insinuate that the expert is simply lying.
Similarly the conspiracist's expertise is trustworthy because it is untainted by the Powers That Be, even though the expertise itself is really only layman's supposition. This is done because one's ability to show proper understanding is generally not debatable once he has submitted to a test of it; you either know your stuff or you don't. But one's socio-political allegiance, however, can be endlessly haggled over, on no better evidence than speculation.
True - if you define White's peers as those who believe conspiracy theories.
Indeed, which is why Robert declines to name the "peers" that have reviewed White's work. We know full well that White's true peers are simply other ignorant amateurs. But he wants to equivocate "peer" to mean those who are provably skilled and qualified in the field. Despite his earlier protests that doing so would constitute a fallacious appeal to authority, he is still trying to paint Jack White as an expert in photographic analysis.
We already went through this. Robert doesn't think any of his critics are qualified or experienced, so he writes them off as "self-proclaimed experts." But yet he was completely unable to discuss any subject regarding photographic interpretation himself. He doesn't have the capacity to judge who is an expert and who is not. Therefore charlatans like Jack White could laugh all the way to the bank, safe in the knowledge that their victims would lack the technical knowledge to expose them, and that he could spin any real criticism into a political argument.
But it is sad that Robert thinks that just because people without any qualifications accept some of the nonsense Jack White wrote, that White's claims therefore have any legitimacy.
Jack White's fanboy phenomenon was indeed amusing. No matter how many times his ignorance was exposed, no matter how many times he was caught blatantly lying, there were still plenty of people willing to pat him on the shoulder and tell him it was okay, the Big Bad Government is just picking on him.
Most conspiracy theorists who rely on photographic interpretation fall into the same question-begging error. They assume they already know all they'd need to know about photography, so when something happens in an image that they don't understand (or think they do, but don't), then their answer is always that it "must" be due to some tampering or fabrication. They never accept the answer that they don't see what they expect to see because their expectations are wrong. That is, they beg the question of their own competence and experience. In fact they beg it so egregiously that the question of validating their expectations never arises!
Hence gullible folk like Robert try to tell us that the strength of White's claims is "in the evidence itself," and
not in White's alleged expertise. So they tell us that attacking White's expertise is a red herring -- an appeal to authority. That fails for two reasons. As I wrote at length earlier, it fails first because White
absolutely believed himself to be an expert, and upon the basis of that expertise to have found things wrong with the photos. That is, White had no problem claiming his prodigious skill as a photo interpreter was the basis on which the evidence rested.
Second, it fails because White is right about how his expertise affects the strength of his claim. According to Robert, the evidence we should be paying attention to are the so-called "anomalies" in the backyard photos. But they're only "anomalies" because White says they are. What is an "anomaly?" It's the departure of an observation from its expected condition. What one expects from a true photograph depends largely on what training and experience one has had in the aspects of photography that pertain to the expectation. It's possible (nay, likely) for one's expectations to be in error if one is not properly trained and experienced.
But Robert would have us believe that these "anomalies" stand on their own, alone, irrespective of the knowledge and skill of those who are pointing them out. Robert wants the world to believe they exist completely independently of anyone's opinion, and that they are obviously self-evident. Like every other deluded person in the world, Robert
cannot tell us why something should be the way he says it should be. I can speak at length about what I expect to see in true photographs. Robert just wants us to believe his claims are self-evident. That's consummate begging of the question.
No, White tells us these are "anomalies" because they violate
his expectations. And he further tells us
his expectations are valid and pertinent because he is an expert in photography and in the mathematical and physical laws that govern how objects appear in photographs. Except that he demonstrates all the time that he is no such person. Hence we can go on to show that what he calls "anomalies" are really just things about true photographs that Jack White doesn't understand because he has never been properly trained, tested, or experienced.
