Only 30% of Americans Trust Scientists To Tell The Truth

No nation has benefitted more from the advances of science than the United States -- and those benefits are evident in all aspects of the society, from farming to industry, from technology to warfare, from health to space exploration, from safety to communication. Science has made the lives of all Americans better.

One would think that in a society that has benefitted so much from the advances of science, a significant majority of the public would have a lot of trust in scientists -- but that is not the case. Only about 30% of the American people (less than one out of every three Americans) say they have a lot of trust in scientists to tell them the truth, while 31% say they have no trust or very little trust in scientists. About 40% say they have only a moderate trust in scientists.

The groups that trust scientists the most are college grads (42%/15%), those with some college (32%/28%), ages 18 to 29 (38%/23%), Whites (33%/28%), Democrats (38%/27%), Midwesterners (32%/27%), Westerners (33%/24%), those making $40k to $100k (36%/23%), and those making above $100k(39%/16%). Sadly though, none of these groups even approaches a majority having complete or a lot of trust in scientists.

Three groups are evenly split on the question -- men (33%/33%), those in the Northeast (27%/27%), and political Independents (31%/31%). All other demographic groups show more distrust than trust of scientists -- with the worst being those with a HS education or less (20%/42%), Republicans (21%/31%), Southerners (27%/39%), Blacks (24%/39%), Hispanics (18%/35%), those making less than $40k (21%/42%), and those between 30 and 44 years old (27%/35%).

These are rather shocking numbers for all groups -- especially considering scientific pronouncements are peer-reviewed, and are subject to repeated experimentation for verification. I would love to be able to say this distrust of science is just because of attacks on science from the right-wing, but that would not be true. Science has been attacked from both the right and the left. The right has attacked science over evolution and global warming, while the left has attacked science over genetically-modified foods -- and both groups have been somewhat successful in their efforts, causing a deterioration in the trust of scientists.

These results are from a recent YouGov Poll (conducted between February 15th and 17th of 1,000 randomly selected nationwide adults, with a margin of error of 4.2 points).