{"id":1216510,"date":"2025-02-18T09:35:53","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T14:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1216510"},"modified":"2025-02-18T09:35:53","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T14:35:53","slug":"can-public-trust-in-science-survive-a-second-battering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1216510","title":{"rendered":"Can public trust in science survive a second battering?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Public trust in science has been in the spotlight in recent years: After the US presidential election in November, one Wall Street Journal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/health\/healthcare\/kennedy-trump-vaccines-covid-skeptics-cfdef1bd\">headline<\/a> declared that &#8220;Science Lost America\u2019s Trust.\u201d Another publication called 2024 \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/theweek.com\/science\/distrust-science-politics-2024-public-trust-vaccines-milk-pandemic\">the year of distrust in science<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some of that may be due to legitimate concerns: Public health officials have been <a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/jpubhealth\/article\/43\/2\/e307\/6130872\">criticized<\/a> for their lack of transparency during critical moments, including the COVID-19 pandemic. And experts have noted the influence of political factors. For instance, the first Trump administration repeatedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/12\/28\/climate\/trump-administration-war-on-science.html\">undermined<\/a> scientists\u2014a trend repeating in his <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.ucsusa.org\/jules-barbati-dajches\/how-science-has-fared-in-the-first-two-weeks-of-trump-2-0\/\">second term<\/a> so far.<\/p>\n<p>But what does the research say about where public trust in science, doctors, and health care institutions actually stands? In recent years, researchers have been increasingly looking into quantifying these sentiments. And indeed, <a href=\"https:\/\/apnorc.org\/projects\/major-declines-in-the-publics-confidence-in-science-in-the-wake-of-the-pandemic\/\">multiple<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/science\/2022\/02\/15\/americans-trust-in-scientists-other-groups-declines\/\">surveys<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/doi\/10.1073\/pnas.2319488121\">studies<\/a> have reported the COVID-19 pandemic correlated with a <a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jamanetworkopen\/fullarticle\/2821693\">decline<\/a> in trust in the years following the initial outbreak. This decrease, though, seems to be waning as new research shows a clearer picture of trust across time. One 2024 study suggests Trump\u2019s attacks on science during his first term did not have the significant impact many experts feared\u2014and may have even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/survey-suggests-trump-s-attacks-boosted-public-trust-science\">boosted<\/a> confidence among certain segments of the population.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/science\/2025\/02\/can-public-trust-in-science-survive-a-second-battering\/\">Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/science\/2025\/02\/can-public-trust-in-science-survive-a-second-battering\/#comments\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Public trust in science has been in the spotlight in recent years: After the US presidential election in November, one Wall Street Journal headline declared that &#8220;Science Lost America\u2019s Trust.\u201d Another publication called 2024 \u201cthe year of distrust in science.\u201d &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1216510\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1216510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ars-technica","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1216510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216510\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1216510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1216510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1216510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}