How People Decide to Trust in Science - Incite at Columbia University

Surveys purporting to document increasing mistrust in research are oversimplifying complex phenomena.

In September 2021, the National Academies’ Committee on Science, Technology, and Law convened a panel that asked the question: “Is there public mistrust of science?” Panelists, including one of us (Eyal), were asked to respond to the sense among pundits, commentators, and many scientists that a large swath of the public is skeptical, if not downright dismissive, of scientific findings on issues ranging from vaccination to masks to climate change.