Almost every move that a scientist makes depends on elaborate networks of cooperation and trust

From Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science by Peter Godfrey-Smith. This goes to the underlying and enduring importance of culture as a foundation of trust.

Empiricism is supposed to urge that people be distrustful of authority and go out to look directly at the world. But of course this is a fantasy. It is a fantasy in the case of everyday knowledge, and it is an even greater fantasy in the case of science. Almost every move that a scientist makes depends on elaborate networks of cooperation and trust. If each individual insisted on testing everything himself, science would never advance beyond the most rudimentary ideas. Cooperation and lineages of transmitted results are essential to science.

No trust, no capacity to build on the past or in collaboration with one another. Everyone who sows the seeds of mistrust or fosters division is subtly but existentially attacking future prosperity.