Citizen attitudes toward science and technology, 1957–2020: measurement, stability, and the Trump challenge

Abstract

In democratic societies around the world, the number of science policy decisions is increasing. One of the fundamental principles of democracy is that citizens should be able to understand the issues before them. Using a 63-year cross-sectional US data set, we use confirmatory factor analysis to construct and test a two-dimensional measure of attitude to science and technology that has been relatively stable over the last six decades. Previous and current research tells us that only one in three US adults is scientifically literate, meaning that trust in scientific expertise is important to many citizens. We find that trust in scientific expertise polarized during the Trump administration. Using the same data set, we construct two structural equation models to determine the factors that predict positive attitudes toward science and technology. Comparing 2016 and 2020, we find that the Trump attacks on science did not reduce public support for science.