A new Pew Research Center survey finds the share of Americans who say science has had a mostly positive effect on society has fallen and there’s been a continued decline in public trust in scientists.
Key findings from survey below:
Overall, 57% of Americans say science has had a mostly positive effect on society. This share is down 8 percentage points since November 2021 and down 16 points since before the start of the coronavirus outbreak.
About a third (34%) now say the impact of science on society has been equally positive as negative. A small share (8%) think science has had a mostly negative impact on society.
Trust in scientists
When it comes to the standing of scientists, 73% of U.S. adults have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests. But trust in scientists is 14 points lower than it was at the early stages of the pandemic.
The share expressing the strongest level of trust in scientists – saying they have a great deal of confidence in them – has fallen from 39% in 2020 to 23% today.
As trust in scientists has fallen, distrust has grown: Roughly a quarter of Americans (27%) now say they have not too much or no confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests, up from 12% in April 2020.
Ratings of medical scientists mirror the trend seen in ratings of scientists generally.
Read Chapter 1 of the report for a detailed analysis of this data.
How scientists compare with other prominent groups
The Center survey of 8,842 U.S. adults conducted Sept. 25-Oct. 1, 2023, finds that, despite recent declines in ratings, scientists and medical scientists continue to be held in high regard compared with other prominent groups in society.
Smaller shares of Americans express confidence in business leaders, religious leaders, journalists and elected officials to act in the public’s best interests. As with scientists, most of these groups have seen their ratings decline in recent years.
Americans have expressed low trust in federal government and other institutions, like Congress, for decades. And political polarization – the widening gap between the views of Republicans and Democrats across a broad range of issues and attitudes – has come to be a dominant feature of American political life.
Differences between Republicans and Democrats in ratings of scientists and science
Declining levels of trust in scientists and medical scientists have been particularly pronounced among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents over the past several years.
In fact, nearly four-in-ten Republicans (38%) now say they have not too much or no confidence at all in scientists to act in the public’s best interests.
This share is up dramatically from the 14% of Republicans who held this view in April 2020. Much of this shift occurred during the first two years of the pandemic and has persisted in more recent surveys.
Confidence in scientists has also moved lower among Democrats. The share of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents with a great deal of confidence in scientists – which initially rose in the pandemic’s first year – now stands at 37%, down from a high of 55% in November 2020.
But unlike Republicans, a large majority of Democrats (86%) continue to express at least a fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests.
The overall differences in partisan views remain much more pronounced today than they were prior to the coronavirus outbreak.
Read more here.
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The first goal of a scientist employed by our goverment is to keep his/her job and collect their paycheck. They report what is politically correct. I once read a NASA scientist writing about climate crisis and that is almost exactly what he said.
The same is true for Generals and Admirals in the miitary and almost every government agency. Achtung !
Even Pontious Pilate understood this when he asked Jesus “What is truth ?
As has been said, when you mix science and politics, you get politics. And politics pays for most of the science that you get. Caveat emptor would apply if only you decided what got paid for.
Scientists and so-called “health experts” in my view demonstrated during COVID that they were the C and D students in school. Scientists use to tell you if they didn’t know (they would tell you in this way: Not telling you stuff that wasn’t true)
Nowadays, the scientists and so-called health-experts swear it true the things that are not true (instead of declaring that they don’t know-which is also an answer).
Nowadays, those who think they know it all do not care about who they injure with their geysers of false information, they just want status and to be listened to, and they also want you to do whatever they say.
No one surveyed my opinion, but if I had been asked, I’d agree with the majority and say my opinion of scientists, doctors and other so-called “health experts” has also decline. As a matter of fact, it is sloped down like the prow of a motorboat,
I STOP BELEVEING THEM BACK ABOUT 60 YEARS AGO. WHEN I KNEW THEY WERE LIEING ABOUT POT.NOW THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS WHAT I AND MANY DID BACK THEN=ONCE BOUGHT ALWAY OWNED AND NEVER TRUSTED=NOW WE ALL KNOW THE POT HAS HELPED MILLIONS WITH ALL KINDS OF MEDICAL PROBLUMS=AND STILL THE GOV AND THERE PUPITS HAS IT ILLEGAL=THAT SAYS IT ALL AS FARE AS I CAN SEE=
Charles Darwin was unaware of the facts surrounding the motor known as the Bacterial Flagellum. If Mr. Darwin had had knowledge about the motors inside the human body, such as the Bacterial Flagellum, he would have understood immediately the concept known as Irreducible Complexity. The citizens don’t trust some scientists because politics and money, sometimes, rule over truth. Fauci got rich selling snake oil. The same fraud perpetuated by the Fauci fans is similar to the fraudulent thinking used by Darwin fans. The difference is Darwin was smart enough to recognize the holes in his own theories, while Fauci stubbornly refuses to talk truth, as he counts his money. Einstein immediately recognized his false assumptions about the expansion of the universe, and he acknowledged it. While many famous scientists have reversed their thinking when evidence is presented, Fauci will probably die a wealthy man, without a legacy like Einstein or Darwin. Too bad – So sad.