> it’s reasonable for a beginner in physics to trust that calculus works without fully understanding its foundations. Even the beginner doesn't have to "trust

> it’s reasonable for a beginner in physics to trust that calculus works without fully understanding its foundations. Even the beginner doesn't have to "trust" that calculus works. He can verify for himself that using calculus to manipulate equations in the theory yields predictions which are confirmed by experiment. The main area where I see that "trust" would be required in science is reporting of raw data directly obtained from experiments that other people run. Yes, everyone else has to trust that the person who is reporting that data actually ran the experiment they claim to have run and recorded that exact data from that experiment in its entirety--that they didn't make up the data, or massage it, or cherry pick only certain runs, etc. That is why, when scientists are found to have violated this trust, the penalties are typically severe. Other than that, though, you don't have to "trust" anything in science blindly. Whether a particular set of data is consistent with a particular set of theoretical predictions is something that can be verified independently. And since theoretical predictions are just mathematical derivations from certain stated axioms, those can also be verified independently. So no one ever has to just take someone else's word about those things.