“Science and Scientists Held in High Esteem Across Global Publics” was the headline of a September 29, 2020, news release announcing the results of a new multinational survey from the Pew Research Center. The survey examined public opinion about science and its place in society as well as several specific science-related issues. Represented in the survey were twenty countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Trust in scientists was generally high. In every country, a majority of respondents—ranging from 59 percent in Brazil and Taiwan to 90 percent in Sweden—said that they trust scientists to do what is right for the public “a lot” or “some” of the time. Only the military enjoyed a comparable level of trust; business leaders, the national government, and the news media were generally regarded as less trustworthy. In the United States, 77 percent of respondents said that they trust scientists to do what is right a lot or some of the time, slightly below the median response among the twenty countries, 78 percent.
But trust in the objectivity of scientists was not so high. Respondents were asked whether they were more inclined to agree with “Scientists make judgments based solely on the facts” or “Scientists’ judgments are just as likely to be biased as other people’s.” The median response among the twenty countries was 54.5 percent for the former and 40.5 percent for the latter. In only three countries were scientists more likely to be regarded as biased rather than objective: South Korea (50 percent biased, 48 percent objective), the United States (51 percent biased, 46 percent objective), and Taiwan (52 percent biased, 42 percent objective).
There was also a general tendency to trust experience over expertise. Respondents were asked which is the better way to solve problems: “Rely more on people who are considered experts about the problems, even if they don’t have much practical experience; or Rely more on people with practical experience with the problems, even if they aren’t considered experts.” The latter was preferred in every country, sometimes by a large margin. In the United States, 66 percent of respondents favored experience over expertise, matching the median response among the twenty countries.
It is not entirely clear to what extent these three questions are measuring the same underlying attitude. The expertise-versus-experience question seems particularly problematic, because it emphasizes situations in which expertise and experience are not correlated, which are not necessarily typical. It is no coincidence, for example, that Dr. Anthony Fauci is both one of the world’s leading experts on infectious diseases and one of the most experienced combatants of viral pandemics, including HIV/AIDS, the H1N1/09 swine flu, and COVID-19.
What factors affect trust in scientists? In its report, the Pew Research Center noted that “highly educated people and those on the political left tend to express more trust in scientists than those with lower levels of education and on the political right,” although not in every country. In the United States, the tendency holds true: only 30 percent of respondents who did not complete postsecondary education said that they trusted scientists to do what is right a lot of the time, as opposed to 43 percent of respondents who completed postsecondary education and 48 percent of those who took three or more science courses there.
Similarly, although 38 percent of respondents in the United States overall said that they trusted scientists to do what is right a lot of the time, only 20 percent of those identifying as right-leaning said so, while 62 percent of those identifying as left-leaning said so—a gap of forty-two points. The gap between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans was even wider, at fifty points. The Left/Right gap in the United States was the widest among the fourteen countries in which respondents were asked about their politics, with Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom close behind with gaps of thirty-nine, twenty-nine, and twenty-seven points, respectively.
There were similar ideological gaps regarding the questions about the objectivity of scientists and expertise versus experience. In all fourteen countries except South Korea, left-leaning respondents were more likely than right-leaning respondents to regard scientists as objective rather than as biased: the United States had the widest gap here, thirty-three points, between 64 percent and 31 percent. And in eleven of the countries, left-leaning respondents were more likely than right-leaning respondents to favor expertise over experience. Here the gap in the United States was twenty points, between 43 percent and 23 percent.
As for specific issues in science, only 75 percent of respondents in the United States said that human activity contributes “a great deal” or “some” to global climate change, below the median response among the twenty countries. But asked about childhood vaccines, 70 percent said that the preventive health benefits are high, and 60 percent said that the risk of side effects is low or none—above the median response in both cases. Asked about genetically modified foods, 38 percent said that they are generally unsafe to eat, and 27 percent said that they are generally safe to eat—below and above the median response, respectively.
In her 2019 book Why Trust Science?, historian of science Naomi Oreskes observes that society presupposes trust in experts, adding, “Scientists are our experts in studying the natural world and sorting out complex issues that arise in it. Like all experts, they make mistakes, but they have knowledge and skills that make them useful to the rest of us.” Yet it is clear that trust in scientists cannot be taken for granted, so the investigation of the factors that affect it is critically important. Understanding data such as the results of the Pew Research Center’s survey is crucial to any attempt to bring science to the level of trust that it deserves.