Image: Arno Ghelfi
Scientists have had a rough year. The leaked “Climategate” e-mails painted researchers as censorious. The mild H1N1 flu outbreak led to charges that health officials exaggerated the danger to help Big Pharma sell more drugs. And Harvard University investigators found shocking holes in a star professor’s data. As policy decisions on climate, energy, health and technology loom large, it’s important to ask: How badly have recent events shaken people’s faith in science? Does the public still trust scientists?
To find out, Scientific American partnered with our sister publication, Nature, the international journal of science, to poll readers online. More than 21,000 people responded via the Web sites of Nature and of Scientific American and its international editions. As expected, it was a supportive and science-literate crowd—19 percent identified themselves as Ph.Ds. But attitudes differed widely depending on particular issues—climate, evolution, technology—and on whether respondents live in the U.S., Europe or Asia.
How Much Do People Trust What Scientists Say?
We asked respondents to rank how much they trusted various groups of people on a scale of 1 (strongly distrust) to 5 (strongly trust). Scientists came out on top by a healthy margin. When we asked how much people trust what scientists say on a topic-by-topic basis, only three topics (including, surprisingly, evolution) garnered a stronger vote of confidence than scientists did as a whole.
When Science Meets Politics: A Tale of Three Nations
Should scientists get involved in politics? Readers differ widely depending on where they are from. Germany, whose top politician has a doctorate in quantum chemistry, seems to approve of scientists playing a big role in politics. Not so in China. Even though most leaders are engineers, Chinese respondents were much less keen than their German or U.S. counterparts to see scientists in political life.
Build Labs, Not Guns
More than 70 percent of respondents agreed that in tough economic times, science funding should be spared. When asked what should be cut instead, defense spending was the overwhelming pick.
Techno Fears
Technology can lead to unintended consequences. We asked readers what technological efforts need to be reined in—or at least closely monitored. Surprisingly, more respondents were concerned about nuclear power than artificial life, stem cells or genetically modified crops.
U.S. vs. Europe
Europeans and Americans differ sharply in their attitudes toward technology. Higher proportions of respondents from Europe worry about nuclear power and genetically modified crops than those from the U.S. (In this grouping, Europe includes Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, but not Britain, where opinion is more closely aligned with that of the U.S.) In both Europe and the U.S., nanotechnology seems to be a great unknown. Europeans also expressed a mistrust of what scientists have to say about flu pandemics.
Suspicion Over the Flu
On June 11, 2009, the Geneva-based World Health Organization declared the H1N1 flu outbreak a pandemic, confirming what virologists already knew—that the flu virus had spread throughout the world. Governments called up billions of dollars’ worth of vaccines and antiretroviral drugs, a medical arsenal that stood ready to combat a virus that, thankfully, turned out to be mild.
A year later two European studies charged that the WHO’s decision-making process was tainted by conflicts of interest. In 2004 a WHO committee recommended that governments stockpile antiretroviral drugs in times of pandemic; the scientists on that committee were later found to have ties to drug companies. The WHO has refused to identify the scientists who sat on last year’s committee that recommended the pandemic declaration, leading to suspicions that they might have ties to industry as well.
The controversy got a lot of press in Europe—the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, declared: “The pandemic that never was: Drug firms ‘encouraged world health body to exaggerate swine flu threat’”; the controversy in the U.S. garnered little mention.
The brouhaha seems to have influenced opinion markedly in Europe. Nearly 70 percent of U.S. respondents in our survey trusted what scientists say about flu pandemics; in Europe, only 31 percent felt the same way. The figures represented the largest split between the U.S. and Europe on any issue in the poll.
Climate Denial on the Decline
Numerous polls show a decline in the percentage of Americans who believe humans affect climate, but our survey suggests the nation is not among the worst deniers. (Those are France, Japan and Australia.) Attitudes, however, may be shifting the other way. Among those respondents who have changed their opinions in the past year, three times more said they are more certain than less certain that humans are changing the climate.
This article was originally published with the title In Science We Trust.
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26 Comments
Add Commentfascinating
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article is less than useless. People who visit the Nature and Scientific American websites are not a random sample of people. Rather they tend to be people who are already inclined towards science (and/or scientists) and therefore, more likely to take experts' words at their value. The article outright states that the sample is highly educated (19% PhDs) when the general population is composed of >1% PhDs. On top of that, the 19% PhD population is probably composed of PhDs in a scientifically background.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHad this article actually taken a random sample of the US and Europe, the results would be far different. Anti-science attitudes has never been more prevalent in the US. This is why this study is less than useless; it not only provides no interesting conclusions but it actually concludes erroneously and gives an extremely distorted picture of the general population.
Frankly, I'm surprised this got by so many editors. A college freshman taking an introductory statistics course could have pointed out this fatal flaw in the first paragraph.
argh, that line should read less than 1% PhDs, not >1%.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey acknowledge their 'fatal flaw' themselves (so i guess they've done their freshman stats course...), pointing it out and bitching about it doesnt make their survey any less right. It just shows your incompetence to read critically, and translate everything as you read to "XX% of [our respondents/awesome science people] think this". Even if it doesn't give a true representation, it is rather interesting none the less to see such wide variation within the science community.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAppreciate it for what it is, and not what you think it should be.
This is the poorest 'quality' article I have read in my decades of reading Scientific American.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's a mishmash of statistics thrown together with absolutely terrible graphics
I don't know what hurts more...my brain or my eyes.
The article devotes one line to the sample and then treats that sample as if it were the general public in the rest of the article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree - this is a serious flaw in any study. In this case it could have been addressed very simply by, for example, changing the statement:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Europeans and Americans differ sharply in their attitudes toward technology."
to:
"Europeans and American readers differ sharply in their attitudes toward technology."
While this may seem to some to be a trivial point, since a reader should remember that the sampled population was initially described, in practice many people will recall independent statements such as:
"Europeans and Americans differ sharply in their attitudes toward technology."
I'll try this again, for software validation purposes...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree - this is a serious flaw in any study. In this case it could have been addressed very simply by, for example, changing the statement:
"Europeans and Americans differ sharply in their attitudes toward technology."
to:
"Europeans and American readers differ sharply in their attitudes toward technology."
While this may seem to some to be a trivial point, since a reader should remember that the sampled population was initially described, in practice many people will recall independent statements such as:
"Europeans and Americans differ sharply in their attitudes toward technology."
Who wrote this??...!! In junior high school it wound get a C plus
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Does the public still trust scientists?". This has what to do with the survey? Zilch. It's like asking what the public thinks of funding a baseball stadium and then asking only baseball fans.
"Numerous polls show a decline in the percentage of Americans who believe humans affect climate, but our survey suggests the nation is not among the worst deniers."
Ha! Ha! 'worst' deniers. did this writer really use the word 'worst' or was it slipped in as a joke? What does 'worst' mean exactly?...most, least, least dedicated, least moral...what type of word is 'worst' in describing the results of a survey?
We expect quality and not a lack of meaningful methodology and dumbed down writing coherence.
Astrodont,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrue, using a loaded term like worst deniers implies that there are best deniers. One assumes they mean most skeptical.
I find the "Investment In Science" a complete revelation. After all I certainly wouldn't expect that a survey of "The CPA Journal" readers would show that they felt that funding accounting departments was indeed a worthy endeavor.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe flaw makes it even more interesting. More people than what I thought who are 'already inclined to science' actually voted for trusting their friends & family to give them accurate information on important facts. Oh, and journalists. That one makes my brain not know where to begin.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI noticed your comment read how well do you trust in science? To be honest I do not at all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLets take the theory of the dinosaurs extinction.
How many times has the scientic theory change in the past 50 years? God word the bible has been the same for 2600 years or more and much more acurate!
Science could do well to accept we are only human prone to mistakes God is all powerful prone to perfection!
The bible is dead and full of errors here and there, many of their claims are fallacious. No changes are made to update its contents even as we know more about the world we live in, it is unchanging and will stay that way, even after a few thousand millenia from now it will be the same old book.. By then our knowledge of the world's processes have increased exponentially and the bible would be way outdated.. Comparing it to Science is useless as religion is about beliefs in a supernatural entity and Science is based on what we know of the world.. Beliefs wont change if the belief is strong enough, while Science will always evolve as man find new ways to better know this world better to ensure our survival..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReligion is not always right.. Illnesses caused by the devil, not by diseases?? Witches that exist because they have been "impregnated by the devil" that led to Witch Hunts worldwide that claimed many lives with "marks of the devil" that were caused by biological reasons?? The world is flat, not round?? The Sun revolves around the Earth, not the Earth revolves around the Sun instead?? The world was made in a week, not 6 billion years?? If "God" created us, why was there early humans being found like Homo erectus, did he create us modern humans or did we evolve?? Did "God" create the first humans with which kind skin colour, which of the early humans were white, black or yellow skinned, or did we evolve the various skin colours as response to different amounts of uv radiation exposure by the sun?? The early humans created by "God", had incest as they had sex within its own family tree, is incest morally right?? The bible also advocates slavery and also led to the Crusades that killed many Muslims, is it morally right to kill people that believe differently then you?? Is it even right to kill others just because "God" said so?? Is "God" a tyrant in disguise?? Do people who are religious have "extremely high moral standards", who are ready to criticise anyone of being "immoral" that so? Then why does even Catholic priests who are one of highest authority in the religion even sexually abuse kids?? Were the events in the bible truly original and happened in real time, or mainly oral traditions passed down from one generation to the next or even from other cultures, for example stories of an ark and a great flood existed in many cultures??
Has religion been updated yet?? Worringly, not yet and it will stay that way forever till the end of time..
Learn more from:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.talkorigins.org/
http://www.freewebs.com/oolon/SMOGGM.htm
This is why I haven't renewed this year. SA is putting out progressively dumber and dumber articles; this is almost down to USA Today levels - reminds me of the garbage cover story several months ago on renewable energy that completely ignored cost considerations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpeaking of less than useless and freshman stats classes, who let the authors of this piece get away with taking the mean of ordinal, non-numeric data? Likert-scale data can't be used in that manner, no matter how badly you want them to be real values.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnless this comment is written in something other than your native language (in which case I retract all snark), you might want to start with trusting your English teacher.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeside the serious flaws in this article already commented on by others, there is another mistake here that I think is unforgiveable: 'antiretrovirals' for H1N1 influenza? Please. H1N1 is not a retrovirus. I suggest you change that to 'antivirals' immediately.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this>Climate Denial on the Decline
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...
>our survey suggests the nation is not among the worst deniers. (Those are France, Japan and Australia.)
I think it plausible that substantial fraction of Japanese people who responded to the survey has recently (in one year time span) become more doubtful about human influence on climate change and that the fraction may be larger than in the USA.
But it does not mean that the current fraction of the doubtful is larger in Japan than in the USA. The editor, have you surveyed this and the result was that the number is larger in Japan? If this is not the case and you made the above claim of "the worst denier" based just on the count of recent change of minds, I think this is a very misleading report.
Scientific American too frequently has graphics that are illegible and art department influenced. I'm afraid to subscribe to the digital magazine for fear of having the same experience.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, it all looks very promising that so many people have such confidence in science and scientists, but it's really rather meaningless. Anyone reading Scientific American in the first place has a perspective that is skewed in that direction already. All the survey really shows is what the readers of SciAm think and sadly we are a minority in society...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn Scientific American we do not trust? This article is worthy of a tabloid! Maybe there is some wishful thinking that a biased survey will pull along unsuspecting, less literate, public to the opinion of the scientifically literate readership of two science magazines.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"attitudes differed widely" NOT! The "How much do you trust ..." chart is the stereotypical deceptive chart that does not include the full range to exaggerate differences. The reality is that attitudes differed only by about one point!
In "When Science Meets Politics ...," no matter how I try the percentages do not add up. I give up! There is no point in reading on. It is my first SA bought at an airport in many years. It may be a few years before I buy another one.
I hope that Nature is not publishing a version of this! That would seriously undermine my trust of that publication.
Wow people into science trust science more than anything???!!!! Duh I agree with some of the others.... useless poll....way to sell yourself SA
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn a pub I read recently: In G_d we trust, all others pay cash... If people mistake science for G_d, let them read Spinoza: Deus sive Natura. But thanx to science, I now have a titanium hip joint....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn a pub I read recently: In G_d we trust, all others pay cash... If people mistake science for G_d, let them read Spinoza: Deus sive Natura. But thanx to science, I now have a titanium hip joint....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this