Knowledge, context, and public trust in scientists and scientific research in the United States, 2006-2018

Past studies establish that general education and scientific knowledge foster more favorable public attitudes toward scientists and scientific research. They also highlight important attitudinal impacts of group identities, in particular, political ideology, party affiliation, religion, and race. The primary purpose of this paper is to determine whether and how these identities might moderate the effects of general education and scientific knowledge on public attitudes toward scientists and scientific research. Main findings include effects of education and scientific knowledge remain significant to varying degrees but are not uniformly generalizable across different group identities; attitudes toward scientists and scientific research have remained fairly stable since 2006; and to love science and hate scientists is not confined to political conservatives.