Last week, the Pew Research Center released a report on public trust in scientists–overall and, specifically, their roles in policymaking. Pew surveyed 9,593 U.S. adults and found that about three-quarters (76%) said they have either “a great deal” or “a fair amount” (51%) of confidence in scientists to act in the best interests of the public. These percentages suggest that trust in scientists has increased slightly since October 2023 (up from 73%), yet trust remains lower than in early 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic, when 87% expressed at least a fair amount of confidence. Scientists are trusted more than other groups of professionals, like elected officials, journalists, and religious and business leaders. However, only about half of the people surveyed thought that scientists should take an active role in public policy debates about scientific issues. Culture, values, practices, relationships, expected behaviors, and how people interact with each other all shape belief structures and inform our trust in science and scientists.
But who are scientists? Whenever I have had the opportunity to teach little kids about science and scientists, I tell them that all of us do science every day. When any of us think, “It’s cold outside and I should wear a coat today,” then go outside and see how cold or warm the air temperature is on our skin—or look at a thermometer to get a numeric measurement—that’s a small form of scientific inquiry. This is what scientists do: they develop a hypothesis statement, like “It is cold enough to wear a coat,” and then they test their hypothesis. Scientists look like everybody, and they work all over the place from labs to laptops to glaciers.
Despite the high levels of trust, opinions are more mixed on having scientists in the room during policymaking. Only 51% of those surveyed said scientists should take an active role in public policy debates about scientific issues. By contrast, nearly as many (48%) said that scientists should focus on establishing sound scientific facts and stay out of public policy debates. That’s troubling—because scientists should be a part of public discourse on policy, connecting the best available evidence and possible outcomes. There is evidence that decreased trust in science, and the politicization of science, harms public health.
How can scientists influence policy?
A lot of what we at the Union of Concerned Scientists do is describe, explain, and teach other scientists how to engage in talking about politics and policy. We do what’s called “translational science,” which means we turn observations from the laboratory or community into practical actions. Many factors inform policymaking, including value systems, precedence, laws, and politics. Scientists cannot tell people what to value, but they do have skillsets that can inform policy: understanding and dealing with uncertainty, evaluating risks and consequences, and changing course when the evidence supports such a change. At UCS, we advocate for all kinds of expertise and experiences to be a part of policymaking, because that’s how democracy works.
Science and scientists can inform policy in a variety of ways. For example, scientists can and do provide information on how to conduct fair elections to strengthen participatory democracy, such as using evidence from different ballots designs. Scientists can collaborate with community organizers and grassroots organizations to develop materials that bridge the gap between the science and policy language to support development of more holistic and health-protective environmental policies, like this Community Guide to Cumulative Impacts. Scientists also provide hard evidence that can counter misinformation about policies and technologies like on electric vehicles. The facts don’t just speak for themselves; scientists have a role in making sure that their work gets an audience.
Scientists, at their best, can do work that stands in the way of self-serving officials and corporate polluters who put power and profits over people. That’s a big reason why the incoming Trump administration has threatened to fire scientists and dismantle agencies. Despite the Pew study’s finding that the public largely trusts scientists, President-elect Trump and his allies have made federal scientists a target for political interference, harassment, and intimidation. The Union of Concerned Scientists documented more than 200 attacks on science in the last Trump administration. (Attacks on science are actions that undermine scientific findings to further a political goal, or actions that exclude, interfere with, falsify, obstruct or restrict science and the way it is carried out or communicated.)
Protecting science protects us all
Science is a big part of how the federal government carries out its responsibilities to the public. Efforts to undermine trust in scientists, especially federal science and scientists, can in turn weaken evidence-based decision making. This is why scientific integrity is so important. Scientists follow the data, and with solid scientific integrity policies, scientists have the freedom to make their results public and describe their findings rather than having their work derailed by profit or political forces. That way, it can work for all of us and help keep people safe and healthy. Protecting scientific integrity shouldn’t be a partisan issue. The Scientific Integrity Act is common sense, bipartisan legislation that will allow scientists to do their work without political interference. The act would help ensure that policymaking is informed by the findings of scientific research free of political interference by requiring federal agencies that fund, conduct, or oversee scientific research to establish and maintain clear and enforceable scientific integrity policies.
But when you appoint hardline ideological extremists and self-interested industry leaders to oversee the agencies that protect our health with clean air, water, food, and medicines, the risk is that science will get pushed out of the process when it’s politically inconvenient. And with the overturning of the judicial norm called Chevron deference—which means that courts have much more leeway to overturn federal rules, regardless of their scientific basis or the extensive public comment periods they went through—we must be on even greater guard against corporate-friendly science conducted with protecting profit in mind. The failure to follow the science in policymaking has particularly damaging impacts on low income and communities of color. These communities are already overburdened disproportionately by pollution, and further regress of clean air and water through policies favoring economic and political incentives over our safety will make the existing divides in the American public even greater.
Despite the efforts of bad actors to attack science and spread disinformation, scientists still hold the trust of much of the public. That public trust will be important as we fight back against the attacks on science we’re sure to see in the years ahead.