Science is a part of our culture, and yet in many ways it stands apart. Scientists make knowledge and strive for that knowledge to be more trustworthy, more credible and, as a consequence, more important than other knowledge. What about science and scientists enables them to do this and why is scientific knowledge dismissed from cultural, political and social debates nonetheless? In this talk, Dr Bart Penders will visit the origins of scientific credibility and its social history, and will trace it into its present form of discussions about rigour and research integrity.