We have this narrative because Democrats are doing to science what Republicans spent the past several decades doing to religion, and the consequences will not be good for anyone.
As others have noted here, the poll asks about science as an institution, not a method for understanding the universe. But why is it asking the question like this in the first place?
I think you've got a point here.
Science isn't a single, unitary thing. I believe that the scientific method is the best tool humanity has found for understanding and changing the world we live in. "Good" (i.e. accurate, informative, reproducible, honest etc) application of the scientific method is absolutely something I want in the world, because the evidence is strong that when responsibly used, it leads to beneficial outcomes. Saying "do you trust science" is like saying "do you trust math (or medicine, or health)". The phrasing is not ideal and includes a lot of implied caveats.
I think something important to understand here is
why is discussion getting reduced to "do you trust science?" And I think the answer to that question is the same as it is to the source of many other challenges facing us today: Republicans, who collectively participate in public discourse with bad faith and malevolent intent.
If someone, in good faith, stands up and says "I trust that, as a whole, medical science in the United States is beneficial" or "I trust medicine that is properly supported by testing, research and our best current understanding", the right will inevitable use that as a launching point for a host of attacks; and those attacks will
not be driven by any honest disagreement about methodology, but because Republicans
don't like the outcome. And refuting this sort of BS is a great deal of work for little return. And so, rather than speaking in detail and opening themselves up to Republican assaults, or exhausting themselves in playing King Canute against the tide of the right's malicious, willful ignorance, or being able to simply use figures of speech like synecdoche to good effect, many people fall back on simplistic slogans, like "do you trust science?"
And this isn't limited to science and medicine. It runs through every topic of public discourse. And it is not deliberate or targeted, just an inevitable result of
decades of corrosive and poisonous Republican assaults on honest public discussion. my opinion, "Do you trust science?" is
not a particularly good or effective question. But let us be clear that it is being asked because America's collective citizenry has been under attack by the political right for longer than most of us have been alive.
The problem is the toxic wave of right-ring BS that threatens to drown our Republic. It is not that the rest of the nation has become aware of said toxic right-ring BS and has started to fight back. If "trust science!" is not a good way to push back, then the answer is not to stop pushing back, but to do more effectively.
tldr; toxic Republican BS damages public discussion and has done so for a long time, and that is an immense problem.
