Poll: Majority of Republicans don't trust science

[Geoffrey Howe]

I have now discovered science is an “institution.”

[DINGO Joe]

Sounds about right, as I certainly don't trust a majority of Republicans.

[dead0man]

just so we're clear, the consensus with the red avatars is that people who "do not trust science" are stupid?

[HAnnA MArin County]

We really needed a poll to confirm what most of us who live in reality already knew? The bigger news would have been if a majority of GQPers said they DO trust science. 

[Person Man]

Lol somebody designed a terrible push-poll question and Republicans took the bait.

That doesn’t change the narrative of the analysis of this poll. The analysis being that the median Republican voter is differently challenged.

[Person Man]

just so we're clear, the consensus with the red avatars is that people who "do not trust science" are stupid?

Not “are” just “probably are”. If the world has no cause and effect or if things like facts are illusions, then they aren’t stupid because “stupid” isn’t a thing because nothing really “is”.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Lol somebody designed a terrible push-poll question and Republicans took the bait.

That doesn’t change the narrative of the analysis of this poll. The analysis being that the median Republican voter is differently challenged.

"Differently challenged"
Speak in English please.

[Joe Biden 2024]

I don't need a poll to tell me that.

[vitoNova]

As others have noted here, the poll asks about science as an institution, not a method for understanding the universe.

Politically speaking, same exact thing.

Also, is that a Taxi Driver scene in your sig?  Cybill Sheperd was fine as goddamn sh*t in that movie.  (Even though I never actually watched the whole movie; but it's on my bucket list)

[vitoNova]

Yes, I was so amused by Eric Adams naming it as his favorite New York City movie that I rewatched it a couple of weeks ago.

I can't believe the dude in that movie took her to a pornography on the first date.

I would have been hittin' it sideways to Sunday.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

It's very strange that people think it's only the right that is critiquing and, in some instances, trying to delegitimize science.



(Wiley Publishers)

Every arena of science has its own flash-point issues—chemistry and poison gas, physics and the atom bomb—and genetics has had a troubled history with race. As Jonathan Marks reveals, this dangerous relationship rumbles on to this day, still leaving plenty of leeway for a belief in the basic natural inequality of races.

The eugenic science of the early twentieth century and the commodified genomic science of today are unified by the mistaken belief that human races are naturalistic categories. Yet their boundaries are founded neither in biology nor in genetics and, not being a formal scientific concept, race is largely not accessible to the scientist. As Marks argues, race can only be grasped through the humanities: historically, experientially, politically.

This wise, witty essay explores the persistence and legacy of scientific racism, which misappropriates the authority of science and undermines it by converting it into a social weapon.

---

"With his usual alacrity and insight, Jonathan Marks demonstrates how we (the human sciences) allow, even enable, misguided racial perspectives and racist research. In showing us our history, he provides an important cautionary tale for present and future scientists. This book is a must read for researchers and students alike. History not learned is doomed to be repeated." - Agustín Fuentes, University of Notre Dame

[...]

"Is Science Racist? is an especially important read for undergraduate and graduate students in anthropology, biology, genetics, psychology, and other human services and behavioural sciences academic fields. Marks eschews scientific jargon and technical language, making this book accessible to a general readership, and he covers a tremendous amount of ground in this brief work. The book is also an essential read for established scholars and practitioners in the aforementioned fields." - Ethnic and Racial Studies

I think by decade's end (and certainly once the post-pandemic glow has subsided for Dems) works like this will be more frequently read and, in a way that we've already seen over the last five years, the narrow academic argument herein will be warped into something much more maximal that is weaponized to bludgeon the entirety institution (which of course in many cases deserves it).

The essay above is much more nuanced than the title suggests, but the choice of title here was no doubt meant to provoke and cast doubt on the entirety of the institution. Likewise Vine Deloria's and other indigenous activists' and writers' takes on scientific imperialism and creation stories will be unearthed and we could very easily see a resurgence of accepted creationism. We already saw earlier this year a mainstream left narrative that essentially gave non-white people permission to not take the vaccines due to the history of scientific racism. Moving forward it's not hard to imagine the racist history of science being used to justify or excuse some excessive and frightening countermeasures.

In fact, if the question in the poll provided was phrased to mention eugenics instead of institutions, then the Democratic trust would certainly be much lower. Rightly so, as eugenics was an insidious and unsupported ideology designed and exploited for evil purposes. But my points here are that (1) science is and has been frequently warped for social purposes, (2) conservatives are not the only ones who mistrust or sow mistrust in science, and (3) elements of the new left could soon mainstream critiques of scientific ideas that are currently thought of as untouchable.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

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.

[Hammy]

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?

No, we have this narrative because the very same people who treat religion, a matter of faith, as some indisputable fact that everyone must follow is rejecting science (something based on quantifiable reality and hard data) because reality isn't giving them the answers that fit their pre-existing viewpoint.

[Hammy]

No, we have this narrative because the very same people who treat religion, a matter of faith, as some indisputable fact that everyone must follow is rejecting science (something based on quantifiable reality and hard data) because reality isn't giving them the answers that fit their pre-existing viewpoint.

The trouble with your characterization lies is that we also have a sizable and influential political faction that treats science as a set of indisputable edicts that everyone must follow.

But again, science is still based on quantifiable reality, where religion is not. There is a huge difference here, especially when there's strong evidence that the science denial is killing people, such as with climate change and the rise of mainstream antivax sentiment.

[Ancestral Republican]

No, we have this narrative because the very same people who treat religion, a matter of faith, as some indisputable fact that everyone must follow is rejecting science (something based on quantifiable reality and hard data) because reality isn't giving them the answers that fit their pre-existing viewpoint.

The trouble with your characterization is that we also have a sizable and influential political faction that treats science as a set of indisputable edicts that everyone must follow.

Oh, brother!

[Horus]

Which science are we talking here? If it's the "science" the LA county teachers union is using, I don't trust science either.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Which science are we talking here? If it's the "science" the LA county teachers union is using, I don't trust science either.

Dontcha know science is merely a tool designed to make me look right?

[Person Man]

Lol somebody designed a terrible push-poll question and Republicans took the bait.

That doesn’t change the narrative of the analysis of this poll. The analysis being that the median Republican voter is differently challenged.

"Differently challenged"
Speak in English please.

You mean they aren’t?  They don’t have unique challenges?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Lol somebody designed a terrible push-poll question and Republicans took the bait.

That doesn’t change the narrative of the analysis of this poll. The analysis being that the median Republican voter is differently challenged.

"Differently challenged"
Speak in English please.

You mean they aren’t?  They don’t have unique challenges?

It's hard to dicipher what you meant. 'Differently challenged' may as well be Greek to me.

[ProudModerate2]

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

I specifically say "peer reviewed science" because just saying "science" can be anything from the artist's renditions of space with bad captioning, to an unreviewed paper like the one that linked vaccines to autism. There is such a thing as bad science.