Confidence in Science: Perceptions of Harmful Consequences, Scientific Uncertainty, and the Pursuit of Self-Interest in Scientific Research

Abstract

The author uses risk society theory to develop hypotheses about sources of confidence in science. The focus is on perceptions that science creates harms, scientific knowledge is uncertain, and scientists pursue self-interests. Controls are included for political and religious identity and ideology, science knowledge, and other variables. Data are from two cross-sectional waves of the General Social Survey. Analyses using additional cross-sectional and panel samples from the General Social Survey are used to evaluate the robustness of the findings and to test the direction of causality; these are presented in the Appendix. The results indicate that perceptions of harmful consequences, scientific uncertainty, and self-interested scientists are associated with lower confidence. The results are robust across a variety of topics and types of scientists. The findings suggest that some strategies intended to increase public confidence in science, such as greater transparency or political mobilization in defense of science, might have the opposite effect.