Public trust in scientists appears to be on the rise, but it remains far below where it was before the pandemic.
According to a new report released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center, 76 percent of Americans say they have either a fair amount or a great deal of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests. That’s slightly up from 73 percent in October 2023.
It represents the first reversal of a yearslong decline. But public confidence in scientists remains far below what it was at the outset of the pandemic. In April 2020, 87 percent of respondents expressed at least a fair amount of confidence.
The new survey — which polled 9,593 U.S. adults in late October — also found that 89 percent of respondents viewed scientists as intelligent, 65 percent view them as honest and 65 percent see them as focused on real-world problems.
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