Authority in Science: no coercion, no blind faith

This authority in science and art, however, bears a very different character from that of parents, teachers, and government; it is not juridical in nature but ethical. It cannot and may not use coercion; it does not have the power to punish. However prominent and important these people who act with authority are, their witness counts only to the extent that they can advance grounds for it. Hence their authority finally rests, not in the persons (so that the statement: “he himself said it” would suffice), but in the arguments on which their assertions are based. And since all people have a measure of understanding and judgment, blind faith is impermissible here, and the striving for independent insight, insofar as it is necessary and possible, a duty. Also in the field of history this is the case. In fact, knowledge of history is totally based on authority, on the testimonies of others. These testimonies, however, need not be blindly believed but may and must be rigorously examined so that the historian’s own insight comes into its own as much as possible. In short, in the sciences human authority is as strong as its reasons are.

—Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics : Volume 1: Prolegomena (p. 464). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.