Trust

Trust is central to the success of our interactions with others and we have a natural disposition to trust and to judge trustworthiness.  We take so much of what is told to us and formally taught on trust. When was the last time you challenged what was written in a book or magazine?  The time available to evaluate sources of information is declining as the pressure cooker of knowledge accumulation is increasing. At another level, it is important to recognize that, without trust, business would be brought to its knees. Unfortunately many in business abuse this trust for financial gain, but place at risk the very system that has served us well.

It is important to realize that much of importance to health and environment is determined down at the atomic level and requires a huge leap of faith to believe that humankind has better solutions than those achieved by nature through eons of evolution. I learned that we must take much on faith through my own research experience of exploring down at the very atoms in materials.  Here we cannot directly see the atoms and molecules involved in the materials we investigate.  Often we place the material in a vacuum to examine the microscopic world and must expect changes, particularly with biological materials. We also rely on mental models and indirect techniques in this world down at nano-metre dimensions. It is wise to question!

Trust has been described “as a built in decision rule in the human brain, allowing the human to deal with complexities that would require unrealistic effort in rational reasoning”. Faith concerns questions which cannot be settled by evidence and confidence refers to a belief in the competence of the other party.  Loss of confidence is more easily forgiven than a loss of trust.

 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_%28social_sciences%29 - 2013]