Most Americans haven’t stopped trusting scientists. Via FiveThirtyEight:
, making it the second-most trusted institution in the country of the 13 institutions rated by the GSS over that time period, after the military.
And that is holding true in the time of coronavirus, according to separate surveys by Lazer’s COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public’s Policy Preferences Across States and by the Pew Research Center. In a May survey of more than 20,000 Americans, Lazer’s team found that both Democrats and Republicans trust scientists and doctors to handle the COVID-19 pandemic more than any other individual or institution, including Congress, President Trump, state government and even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Between surveys conducted in April and May, trust in scientists/researchers and in doctors/hospitals each fell by only 1 percent.
The Pew survey, which was conducted in April and May, found that trust in scientists has actually grown. Pew has been doing a version of this survey for several years, so it’s possible to look at how opinion has changed over longer time periods. In 2016, for example, 76 percent of Americans had at least “a fair amount of confidence” in scientists to act in the best interests of the public. By the spring of 2020, 87 percent of Americans had at least “a fair amount of confidence” in scientists.
There are partisan differences at play in this data, said Cary Funk, director of science and society research at Pew. Democrats, for example, have shown trust in scientists during the current pandemic, while Republicans’ trust has remained about the same. Funk said she hasn’t really seen partisan differences in approval of medical scientists like this before. But even with that, the context is important.
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