US public likes scientists, poll finds

While scientists rank near the top of the professions that Americans admire the most, a large fraction of the public chooses to ignore what scientists have to say on evolution and human-caused climate change, according to a study released last month. The US public also holds highly favorable views of science itself, with 84% of those surveyed believing that its benefits to society are mostly positive and only 6% thinking the opposite. But the study by the nonprofit Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that a surprisingly low 17% of nonscientist participants regard their country’s scientific achievements as the best in the world, and it gauged the public support for increased federal funding for science to be lukewarm.

Perhaps most strikingly, only 32% of those surveyed agree that humans and other living things have evolved over time through evolution by natural selection, compared with 87% of the surveyed scientists who believe so. A large gap also exists between scientists and the public on the issue of climate change, where just 49% of the public agree that Earth is growing warmer because of human activity, compared with 84% of scientists.

Scientists stuck with the science

“I’m fond of saying that the purpose of science is to tell us about the nature of the natural world, whether you like the answer or not,” says Alan Leshner, executive director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which paid for the survey. “The public at large or policymakers are free to deny, disagree, or just disregard what the science is showing,” he told reporters. “Scientists don’t have that luxury.”

The Pew study comprised three surveys: a Web-based questionnaire of randomly selected members of AAAS who are scientists, and two telephone surveys of the general public.

One of the public polls was aimed at assessing the scientific acumen of the general US population. It found that Americans are knowledgeable about basic scientific facts that affect their health and their daily lives, but they are less able to answer questions about other science topics. For example, 91% are aware that aspirin is an over-the-counter drug recommended to prevent heart attacks, but just 46% know that electrons are smaller than atoms.

The study found that only members of the military and teachers are more admired by the public than scientists. The 70% of survey respondents who viewed scientists as contributing a lot to society’s well-being even edged out by 1% those who feel that way about physicians. Large majorities of the public survey group think that government investments in basic scientific research (73%) and engineering and technology (74%) pay off in the long run, and 60% believe that government investment in research is essential for scientific progress.

But when it comes to public funding, science is viewed as a mid-tier priority, says Scott Keeter, Pew’s director of survey research. The 39% of participants who say that federal spending on science should be increased compares with 67% who favor more for education and 61% who want more for health care. Coming in below science are defenses against terrorism, where 35% favor more spending, and aid to the world’s needy, where 26% want greater support. The good news, says Keeter, is that support for science funding has not eroded on the priority scale since Pew last studied the issue in 2001. At that time, the percentages of the surveyed population wanting more for education and health care were 9 points and 10 points higher, respectively, than they are today.

Scientists blamed the news media for much of the public’s poor understanding of science, with more than 76% agreeing that news reports failing to distinguish between findings that are well-founded and those that are not constitute a major problem for science. Nearly half of the scientists described the media’s oversimplification of science as a major problem. Leshner, who is the publisher of the AAAS-owned Science magazine, says he “was struck” that scientists put “less focus … on the education system in the US, which surely has responsibility for what people know and don’t know.”

Interestingly, although most scientists were aware of allegations that the Bush administration had suppressed scientific results that conflicted with its ideology and 87% of them believed those charges were true, that controversy was largely invisible outside the science community: Of the public respondents, 54% said they had heard nothing about the suppression.

Public education needed

Leshner says the results point to the need for improved science education at the K–12 level and for more and deeper interactions between scientists and the public. “I would argue that it’s the general public that needs a basic understanding of science, not just those who go on to higher education. You can’t live in modern society and not have a fundamental comfort and familiarity with the nature of science and what it is, because it pervades every aspect of modern life,” he says. “The scientific community has a tremendous responsibility to not only produce useful, interesting, and provocative science but to go out to the public and work with the public” to ensure that the science is useful and productively used.

What surprised him most, he says, is the opinion of the public survey participants that US science is not preeminent among nations. “From my own experience when I travel to Europe or Asia, people are constantly seeing American science as the target, the gold standard that they are aspiring to,” Leshner says.

Of the nearly 10 000 scientists who were contacted for the survey, 2533, or 25%, responded. The overall margin of error for the scientist survey was plus or minus 2.5%.

The poll of public attitudes toward science was based on interviews with 2001 adults 18 or older, and also had an error margin of 2.5%. The survey measuring the public’s basic scientific knowledge involved interviews with 1005 adults, and carried a 3.5% margin of error.

The study and an online version of the public scientific knowledge test that was used are available at http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/528.pdf .