User:Laurenchmara/sandbox

The General Social Survey (GSS) of 1974 recorded that conservatives had the highest rates of trust in science between the three major political demographics; conservatives, liberals, and moderates. This study was repeated annually between 1972 through 1994, and biannually from 1994 until 2010. In 2010 when the same study was repeated, conservatives trust rates had decreased from 49% to 38%, moderates from 45% to 40%, and liberals staying relatively stable, rising slightly from 48% to 50%.

The study by Gordon Gauchat, which investigates time trends in the public trust of science in the United States, suggests that the increase of distrust of conservatives can be attributed to the two cultural shifts. The first was during the post-Reagan era when the NR emerged, and the second during the G.W. Bush era when the NR intensified and conservatives supposedly commenced the “war on science”.

Barack Obama and other politicians, since Bush’s Presidency, have expressed their concerns with the politicization of science in both the public and government sphere. In 2011, during his State of the Union speech, Obama discussed his dissatisfaction of the relationships between organized science, private economic interests, and the government.

The data collected in this study reveals the Public Trust in Science, the Public Confidence in Science, and the Predicted Probabilities between Liberals and Conservatives. The survey examines variables including gender, ethnicity, level of education, income, religion, age, political party preference, political demographics, and changes over time. Conclusively, the empirical findings of this study have shown that that although the distrust of conservatives has increased over time, the overall public trust in science has not changed since the 1970s. Below are several images of the data collected.