I feel compelled to point the author is hardly unbiased.

No author is unbiased. If you think they're unbiased it's just their biases are the same as yours or those of the status quo (whatever you might consider that to be).

I just don’t have it in me to accept anything at face value because someone says so.

Thankfully, you don't have to! You have a brain in your head, so you can read the arguments being made, think about them, and critically evaluate them. You can try to come up with counter-arguments, or failing that, look around for counter-arguments other people have made and critically evaluate those too.

The commenter above gave you sources for the quotes, so you can find copies of them and read the complete argument being made in those works.