> I don't personally believe in using people's fame as a proxy for assessing correctness.

I'd hope most people would agree with you, since fame is not the same as expertise. A well-known author who happens to talk about a subject they are knowledgeable about can be worth paying attention to, but the same author talking about a completely different field may (should?) warrant more skepticism. Authorship can be a useful signal, but that doesn't mean it is always a useful signal.

> but then it's up to you to develop your own ability to see through bullshit

I mean, yes, that is ideal, but unfortunately but not all BS is equally detectable. Sometimes it really does take intimate knowledge to know someone is incorrect, and achieving that for everything just is not realistic for most, if not all, people.