Survey: Most people don’t understand science, want their kids to do it
Enlarge / Is robotics science? A lot of people would apparently say no. (credit: Ariel Skelley / Getty Images)
Recently, we had a look at a global survey of the state of science, which tracked the efforts different countries are putting into training scientists and pursuing research. That set of "science indicators" included a bit of information on how the public viewed science, even though that wasn't the primary purpose of the report.
So we were happy to find out that someone had done a thorough job of looking into the global attitudes toward science. 3M, a company that views itself as research-driven, commissioned surveys in 14 different countries with a mix of developed and developing economies, and the results are pretty encouraging. Despite the many cultural differences, people consistently feel that science has an overall positive impact on global society, and they're excited by what we learn.
But buried in the positives are a few areas of concern. Most people don't recognize the impact that science has had on their daily lives and view it as something that their kids might be involved with. Yet younger people are more likely to view themselves as skeptical of science and not trusting of what scientists have discovered.
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