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Pew Survey Documents Gaps Between Public and Scientists
PvtVoid writes: A new Pew Research Study documents an alarming gap between public perception of scientific issues and the opinions of the scientists themselves, as measured by a poll of AAAS scientists. Even worse, the gap is partisan, with clear differences between Republicans and Democrats, and between conservatives and liberals. For example, while 98% of AAAS members agree with the statement that "Human beings and other living things have evolved over time", only 21% of conservatives agree, compared with 54% of liberals. Global warming, similarly, shows an ideological gap: 98% of AAAS scientists agreed with the statement that "the Earth is getting warmer mostly due to human activity", compared with 21% of conservatives and 54% of liberals. Encouragingly, almost everybody thinks childhood vaccines should be required (86% of AAAS members, 65% of conservatives, and 74% of liberals.) Go here for an interactive view of the data.
There have always been gaps between scientists and the general public
I think the value of the study is showing how political ideology is strongly predictive of the gap.
This is obviously not a new idea, but the study provides hard data to back it up.
Aside from pointing out the glaringly obvious (people who identify themselves as Conservative gave responses consistent with what you would expect from people who identify themselves as conservative, same for LIberals), /. the summary ignores far more interesting points.
1) There is a much smaller difference between Republicans and Democrats than there is between Conservatives and Liberals, e.g. the Evolution question goes from 21% versus 54% (Ideology) to 57% versus 72% (Party Id).
2) Several of the questions show a fairly small difference between Republicans and Democrats (pesticides, animal research, world population, vaccines, manned space programs, bioengineered fuel, and space station).
What I see is people turning more and more away from learning, actual knowledge, and truth, and turning back towards religion
Where do you see that? Church membership per capita is way down in the US.
Also keep in mind the the Pew Trust is notoriously liberal, especially related to environmental issues. It isn't a surprise that their survey pushes their agenda. They're also known for sending their own employees (and having them claim to be from the general public) to attend congressional hearings so it appears there's more grass root support for their causes than there actually is.
Look at the nuke issue. Scientists want to continue building new nuke plants. Why? Because we KNOW that global warming is a REAL ISSUE that needs REAL SOLUTIONS.
However, Liberals, like conservatives, put their head in the ground and ignore the fact that new gen IV reactors can NOT have the issues that we seen in these gen II and gen III reactors.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.