You are right, the big mistake is to equate amateur with incompetence etc…

To go pomo for a second, clearly this is the death throws of the proffessionals discourse of power… he is feeling challenged… what by? Possibly the fact that intelligence is not defined by professional status – that many non-professionals take a sincere, deep and lifelong interest into something and can become quite expert in it, without it ever being anything more than a hobby.

What about Patrick Moore the astronomer? He is an amateur, and a recognised expert in lunar observation, all without formal tertiary level tuition.

The one sympathy I have with Keen, although this is not the point he is making, is that the growth in information technology has made the fallacy of authority a serious problem. It is not just intellectual laziness, but a genuine perception by those who do not research critically enough, that because it is published on a neat/nice blog the author must be some form of authority.

But you will never eradicate this error from the top-down. The responsibility for accurately percieving authority belongs to the individual.