Nature magazine has an interesting essay how science works: “The security of knowing nothing” is basically arguing that we need to trust other scientists.
…take it on faith that Genghis Khan defeated the Khwarezmid Empire, that praying mantids moonlight as sexual cannibals, and that man landed on the Moon. There is only so much a person can check: trust is the oxygen of the scientific community.
This is my venture capital – not any particular knowledge but to know whom I can trust. Most of the Nature essay is about other things but at the end it cooncludes that “the challenge is to deal with liars and cheaters”.
scienceblog:doi:10.1038/446992a
“In god we trust” – motto of the United States declared by the Congress in 1956.