Trust in Science

What do the data show?

The level of trust in the scientific community has been stable and at a level similar to the most recent trust numbers for higher education and police. We rank just below Germany, Mexico, and Turkey, and well below China and Russia. The scientific community was also the only institution that saw rising trust before COVID. That trust diminished somewhat with the onset of COVID.

What might explain these patterns?

The slight growth of trust in science before the pandemic might reflect recognition of the new medicines and other discoveries emerging from the scientific community. We also note that the data for trust in science come from a different data source than the other trust measures, which could explain some of the differences across institutions.

The drop in trust in science during the COVID pandemic might be explained by the overall contentiousness of the pandemic and the unusually significant role of science in making decisions. The scientific community was asked to make judgements on social distancing and other health measures that involved science but also entailed difficult value judgments that are beyond the scientific domain. Specific concerns emerged about whether COVID originated from a lab leak (in China), poor and overconfident communication about COVID-related evidence, conflicting and shifting advice from the scientific community about how to respond to the pandemic, and political conflict over appropriate public health and social distancing measures being recommended by the public health community.

Across all these institutions, trust is higher in institutions that are closest to our daily lives and with which we have the most direct experience. This is clearest with the comparisons of local and federal governments and of police with the criminal justice system. Also, the more distant institutions are from those they serve, the more their values and orientations tend to diverge from what local residents prefer.

Local government has seen the steadiest trust. While trust in science and the criminal justice system have also remained fairly stable, they have experienced more variation in recent years.  The federal government, higher education, and the police are at the other extreme with the largest declines in trust. This might be partially explained by increasingly negative political and media messages about these institutions.