Engineering and Erosion of Trust

Abstract

Engineering is a social enterprise. What makes this enterprise worthy of public trust? A model is developed to explain how disciplinary communities within engineering evolve credible bodies of knowledge. Such bodies of knowledge constitute the “expertise” of professionals. If respect for such bodies of knowledge is lost, then respect for the expertise of individual professionals will also be lost. Professional respect thus depends upon the integrity of those social processes through which bodies of knowledge develop. If such social processes are deficient, the trustworthiness of a profession will erode. This paper describes how such erosion of trust can occur and what corrective actions might be taken.