THE COUNTRIES THAT TRUST SCIENTISTS THE MOST — AND THE LEAST
Tania Rabesandratana - June 19, 2019 - www.sciencemag.org
Nearly three-quarters of people worldwide solidly trust scientists. That’s one of the main findings of the Wellcome Global Monitor, a new survey that asked 140,000-plus people in more than 140 countries how they think and feel about health and science. Other polls have asked similar questions, but this one, conducted by Gallup World Poll on behalf of London-based biomedical charity the Wellcome Trust, claims to be the first to study on a global scale how attitudes vary by nationality, gender, income, and education.
France most skeptical about science and vaccines, global survey finds
An index based on five questions found that fifty-four percent of people trust scientists at a medium level, and eighteen percent at a high level, whereas fourteen percent have a low level of trust. But regional differences are striking. People in Uzbekistan say they trust scientists the most, residents of Gabon the least. On the benefits of science, more than one-third of people in southern Africa and Latin America say science helps “very few” people in their country.
The survey also explored attitudes toward vaccines and found people in France are the most skeptical. The survey reveals a global gender gap in self-assessments of scientific knowledge: Globally, forty-nine percent of men say they know “some” or “a lot” about science—a full eleven percentage points more than women.
Geniuses everywhere
Comparing how people rate their scientific knowledge with actual tests of their acquired knowledge reveals that people in some countries are overconfident in their self-assessments (the United States) whereas people in other countries (China) underestimate how much they know.
Tania Rabesandratana is a freelance science writer/contributing correspondent for Science.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/06/global-survey-finds-strong-support-scientists
