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|Prehistory=It can be argued that authority delegation with regard to knowledge has been an essential feature of human society since time immemorial. Treating Homo sapiens as an epistemic community, Bernard Williams postulates that in early human societies, the division of epistemic labour was essential to survival: some knew best how to find berries; others were expert at tracking the movements of dangerous predators. [[CiteRef::Williams (2002)|pp. 41-62]] Aristotle recognized that if you wish to learn about the nature of bees, you’ll do better to ask an apiarist than to talk with your barber. [[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p. 144)]]

In recent decades, social epistemologists and sociologists of scientific knowledge have observed that most of what we know derives from the testimony of trusted others. [[CiteRef::Bird (2000)|pp. 272-273]][[CiteRef::Coady (1994)]][[CiteRef::Lipton (1998)|p. 1]] Ludwik Fleck was one of the first to apply such ideas specifically in a scientific context. In his concepts of Denkkollectiv and Denkstil, he emphasized the fact that most individual knowledge derives from, and is embedded in, social sources. [[CiteRef::Bird (2000)|pp. 15-17]] Similarly, Thomas Kuhn recognized the central importance of testimony in the education and training of scientists – of their induction into a disciplinary matrix. His central notions of paradigm and disciplinary matrix depend heavily on sources of authoritative testimony such as textbooks, journals, oral presentations at conferences, and informal information sharing networks.

Such notions have been applied in a variety of contexts. Steven Shapin, for example, argued that only gentlemen were accorded epistemic authority within the Royal Society of 18th century England. [[CiteRef::Shapin (1998)]] From a highly individual pursuit in the 18th century, many areas of science evolved by the 20th century into massive and complex projects conducted by large groups – so-called “big science.” In this context, John Hardwig proposed that science is fundamentally a group effort. Citing a single scientific paper on the lifespan of subatomic particles, with 99 authors (in the Physics Review Letters in 1983), Hardwig argued that within such a group, trust in authoritative testimony is essential to the creation of scientific knowledge. [[CiteRef::Hardwig (1985)]] In contrast, Theodore Porter analyzed peer evaluation of work emanating from the one-of-a-kind neutrino observatory in Sudbury, concluding that assessment of character and integrity were essential to authority delegation in this instance. [[CiteRef::Porter (1995)]] Unbeknownst to Porter, this work would later be so highly valued as to gain a share of the 2015Nobel Prize in Physics.