(We Don ’ t) Trust The Science
By KIM BELLARD
I know the A.I. community is eagerly waiting for me to weigh in on the Sam Altman/OpenAI dramedy (), but I’m not convinced this isn’t all a ploy by ChatGPT, so I’m staying away from it. A.I. may, indeed, be an existential issue for our age, but it’s one of many such issues that I fear we’re not, as a society, going to be equipped to handle.
Last week the Pew Research Center issued an alarming report Americans’ Trust in Scientists, Positive Views of Science Continue to Decline. Now, a glass half-full kind of person might look at it and say – no, it’s good news! Fifty-seven percent of Americans agree science has a mostly positive impact on society, and 73% have a great deal or a fair amount in confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests. For medical scientists it was 77%. Only the military (74%) also scored above 70%. That’s good news, right?
The glass half-empty person would point to the downward trend in just the past few years: at the beginning of the pandemic (April 2020) the respective percentages were 87% (scientists), 89% (Medical scientists), and 83% military. The faith in them has continued to drop since. Things are trending in the wrong direction, quickly.
If the glass was half full, it’s spilling now.
About a third (34%) of the public thinks that the impact of science on society has had an equally positive and negative impact, while 8% think science has had a mostly n...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy Creationism Education Kim Bellard Science STEM Source Type: blogs
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