A new analysis shows that trust in scientific expertise among the American public remained high during the last six decades and that the Trump administration attacks on scientific expertise did not modify the basic confidence of Americans in science and scientific expertise.

The study, “Citizen attitudes toward science and technology, 1957–2020: Measurement, stability, and the Trump challenge,” was published in the journal Science and Public Policy.

    • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      8 months ago

      One person does something bad and you doubt the entire discipline?

      Accept that perfect doesn’t exist. Some people will make mistakes. Some will be outright evil. But science is the best method we have for understanding the world around us. Nobody has ever come up with a better way.

      • natecheese@kbin.melroy.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        One person doing something bad? You clearly didn’t read the article.

        And to suggest that our scientific research institutions shouldn’t be scrutinized or there isn’t room to improve the process is a little naive.

        • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          8 months ago

          You think this suggests there should be no scrutiny?

          Accept that perfect doesn’t exist. Some people will make mistakes. Some will be outright evil. But science is the best method we have for understanding the world around us. Nobody has ever come up with a better way.

          Understanding that there will be mistakes and bad actors means taking care to scrutinize. That’s why we have things like peer review.

        • lad@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          And to suggest that our scientific research institutions shouldn’t be scrutinized or there isn’t room to improve the process is a little naive.

          But ey didn’t suggest that 🤔

    • lad@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      8 months ago

      This was an amazing read, although that doesn’t mean that science is somehow at fault in this. As usual, it’s people and bureaucratic institutions that make this possible, but it’s also people who find it out and call con-artists out