Trump arrived after two generations of American conservatives losing trust in science. Here’s the percent expressing a “great deal” of confidence in the scientific community, by political views: 1974-2016 (with
three-survey averages), from the General Social Survey /1
three-survey averages), from the General Social Survey /1
Here that is by decade, with controls for age, sex, race, class, education, and religious practice. Conservatives used to have the highest confidence in science, now lowest /2
Same result if you look by political party identification /3
And by religious attendance. People who attend regularly have grown less and less trusting of science /4
Finally, education level does not predict confidence in science for conservatives. Until they have advanced degrees there’s almost no association. Impervious. This is for 2012-2016. /5
I wrote this up as a working paper, with code, on @socarxiv: “The widening political divide over science.” osf.io/preprints/soca… 6/6
