It is not just an artifact of media coverage. Political polarization in attitudes toward science has greatly increased.

That is the result found by an analysis issued in late January 2022 of the 2021 General Social Science Survey (GSS) data by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Chicago. The survey was conducted a year into the pandemic and found that confidence in the scientific community increased among Democrats between 2018 and 2021 but fell among Republicans.

Overall, 48 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in the scientific community. But now there is an astonishing thirty-point gap in confidence between Democrats and Republicans, up from a nine-point gap in 2018. In 2021, 64 percent of Democrats have a great deal of confidence in the scientific community but just 34 percent of Republicans say the same.

A similar gap in trust was observed for confidence in medicine, but the differences were less pronounced.

Democrats have historically had a somewhat greater level of trust in the scientific community, but the data show the polarization increased between 2018 and 2021 as the COVID-19 pandemic emerged and health and vaccine information became increasingly polarized.

The GSS survey also documented a decrease in trust in other institutions such as education and religion. Overall confidence in education dropped from 26 percent in 2018 to 18 percent in 2021, a disturbingly low number. Confidence in organized religion dropped from 21 percent in 2018 to 15 percent in 2021. Republicans’ confidence in religion held steady, but confidence in religion by Democrats—and particularly independents—dropped. The 2021 GSS was conducted December 1, 2020, through May 3, 2021, and includes interviews from 4,032 American adults.

“It is definitely a stark change for these particular trends on confidence in scientific leaders and leaders in medicine, to see this degree of polarization,” said Jennifer Benz, deputy director of the Associated Press-NORC Center for public Affairs Research.

The Associated Press contacted more than a dozen scientists about the decreasing confidence in science, and the scientists were more concerned than surprised. Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences, noted that scientists and policymakers tend to be cautious and wary of risk—pushing safety, masks, and vaccines—while “Republicans as a group value individual liberty.” The data suggest Republicans and Democrats are following the cues of their leaders, said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

Science used to be something all Americans would get behind, Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley told the Associated Press. “But we now see it falling prey to the great partisan divide. The world of science should be a meeting house where right and left can agree on data. Instead it’s becoming a sharp razor’s edge of conflict.”