Reputation substitutes for truth in scientific and cognitive contexts

Evidence

Distrust, however, is not just the opposite of trust; as such, it is also a functional equivalent for trust. For this reason one can (and must) make a choice between trust and distrust. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 262 (#expands, via linked claim)

Widespread lay knowledge of modern risk environments leads to awareness of the limits of expertise and forms one of the “public relations” problems that has to be faced by those who seek to sustain lay trust in expert systems. The faith that supports trust in expert systems involves a blocking off of the ignorance of the lay person when faced with the claims of expertise; but realisation of the areas of ignorance which confront the experts themselves, as individual practitioners and in terms of overall fields of knowledge, may weaken or undermine that faith on the part of lay individuals. Experts often take risks “on behalf” of lay clients while concealing, or fudging over, the true nature of those risks or even the fact that there are risks at all. More damaging than the lay discovery of this kind of concealment is the circumstance where the full extent of a particular set of dangers and the risks associated with them is not realised by the experts. For in this case what is in question is not only the limits of, or the gaps in, expert knowledge, but an inadequacy which compromises the very idea of expertise. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 316 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Distrust functions as an equivalent alternative to trust — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 262; Lay trust in expert systems founders when experts’ own ignorance surfaces — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 316; Reputation for violence substitutes for repeated actual violence (+10 more)

Related

• Trust is required only amid ignorance, which always grounds scepticism as well. (similarity 0.79)
• Lay trust in expert systems founders when experts’ own ignorance surfaces (similarity 0.79)
• Science substitutes intersubjective certainty for the older evidence of familiarity (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Distrust functions as an equivalent alternative to trust #expands (0.60) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 262
• Lay trust in expert systems founders when experts’ own ignorance surfaces #exemplifies (0.40) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 316