The Public Distrusts Scientists’ Morals, Not Their Science

The public distrusts scientists’ morals, not their science

Who John H. Evans

Our overlapping eras of Trump and the era of COVID have seen a pretty big decline in public trust in scientists. around One in 10 Americans report less support for science now than before COVID.

That was a Findings from a November survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. In addition to this decline in support from pre-pandemic times, according to the survey, people who trust scientists “a lot” or “somewhat” have remained the same since 2021. President of the US National Academy of Sciences said that the survey “allows us to re-examine what we need to do to restore trust in science”.

But the diagnoses of the reason for the lack of trust by the scientific leaders who responded to the survey are variations of the same old ones, that is, the public does not understand science. It’s a convenient diagnosis for scientists, so it’s unlikely to help with confidence. The scientific community, on the other hand, must take into account that the lack of trust does not arise from the view of scientists as fact finders. but from a public that does not trust the moral values ​​of scientists.

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Reactions to the report suggest that the scientific community is trying hard not to see it. One last Washington Post said the news that the public had lost confidence because they did not understand scientific claims about the facts– About the cures for COVID, about the usefulness of the mask, about the origin of the virus, about the effect of social distancing, whether vaccines would prevent the infection or not. In a similar New York Times the article says CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science scientists learned “hard lessons” from COVID, and were “now better equipped to inform how the data changes and evolves.” Another report claims so scientists need to be more humble about their ability to produce accurate scientific statements.

All of these responses reflect a long-standing belief among scientists that lack of public support is the result of the public’s inadequate understanding of science. This is what is known as the “knowledge deficit” model of science communication widely rejected as a factor in favor of science.

It has long been clear that claims to scientific fact are not the problem. Consider the conflict between religion and science in the United States as depicted in the 1925s.Scopes Monkey Trial” and 2005 “intelligent design” court case. Scientists largely believe that this conflict stems from the fact that religions use sacred texts to make claims about the natural world, while science uses reason and observation. While this was probably true before the 20th century, today it is only the case for a minority of religious people in the US, such as those who follow the traditions of conservative Protestantism; and also only in disagreement about very specific areas, such as human origins. This was the situation in the Scopes trial.

in reality, sociological research shows that contemporary conflict between science and religion it is above morality, not above facts. For example, in discussions about human embryo research, there are no religious opponents who claim that scientists do not understand how embryos develop. On the contrary, they give embryos a different moral status than scientists do.

Moreover, even the expressed opposition to scientific claims often raises moral concerns. For example, fundamentalist William Jennings BryanA defender of the creationist position in the Scopes Trial, he opposed scientific claims about human evolution because he wanted to. “Defend the Bible.” But, he also opposed evolution because he believed that Darwinist theory had corrupted the morals of young Germans and was partly responsible for the outbreak of the First World War. The moral conflict between the public and science did not begin with the first Trump administration.

We can also see episodes Pew study which remained unexamined in the news. In the survey, 36% of citizens agree that scientists do not pay attention to the moral values ​​of society. When choosing between the idea that “scientists should focus on establishing solid scientific facts and stay out of policy debates” and “take an active role in public policy debates on scientific issues,” the country is essentially split 50-50. That is, half of the public does not want scientists to go beyond establishing facts, I would say, because they perceive that scientists will inject their moral values ​​into the policy debate, and the public does not believe that they share those values.

But why would the public think that scientists do not share their moral values? The idea that scientists are morally inferior goes back centuries, and is reinforced by fictional accounts of scientists to this day. It remains a “mad scientist” trope. Dr. Frankenstein is probably the most famous scientist. The villagers didn’t get angry with him because he got his facts wrong to create a monster, but because he defied the moral values ​​of the villagers to create the monster.

So I think scientists took the wrong lesson from COVID. The decline in trust was not primarily the result of public misunderstanding of science, but rather because scientists were bound by some politicized moral choices about prioritizing public health over commerce, education, and individual liberty. Perhaps the association with these options was inevitable or necessary, but we should not think that the loss of confidence arose from a lack of understanding of how vaccines work.

A solution in fact, building trust is for scientists to be trained to talk about their moral valuesbecause silence makes it easier for scientists to project bad values. The moral values ​​of scientists will not completely coincide with those of the public, but I believe that the shared values ​​will outweigh the differences. To take an obvious example, the scientists working on COVID were motivated by the moral value of reducing human suffering, which is the closest we can get to a universal value in the US.

I understand why the scientific community is reluctant to talk about its moral values. Part of the rules of science is to be “value-free,” and part of what produces legitimate results is to scrutinize data passionately. Scientists generally lack training in academic debates about morals, values, and ethics. But pretending that scientists are just about the facts—and above any moral question—doesn’t work.

This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author(s) are not necessarily their own. American scientific.