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.

Comments

Biased summary

[tomhath]

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).