New Survey Reveals that Scientists and the Public Disagree about GM Food and Climate Change

When it comes to science-related issues, it turns out that scientists and the public may disagree. Researchers have received the results of a new pair of surveys and have found that there are significant differences in views on 13 science-related issues.

The new surveys by the Pew Research Center in collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) examine how both the public and scientists view several issues.  These issues included the safety of eating GM food, using animals in research, eating food grown with pesticides, whether climate change is caused by human activity, and whether humans have evolved over time.

"Science is a huge, sprawling cluster of subjects," said Cary Funk, lead author of the new report, in a news release. "We knew from the 2009 Pew Research Center study that there could be differences between the public and scientists on at least some issues. But we were surprised by the size of those differences and how often they occur."

In this case, there was a 51 percentage point gap on the issue of GM food; 88 percent of scientists think it's safe, while only 37 percent of the public believes the same. There was a 42 percentage point gap on using animals for research with 89 percent of scientists for it with only 47 percent of the public for it. There was also a 40 percentage point gap on the issue of whether it's safe to eat foods grown with pesticides, and there was a 37 percentage point gap over whether climate change is mostly caused by human activity; 87 percent of scientists believe it is, while 50 percent of the public does.

"While the public is still broadly positive about the contributions of science to society, there has been a slight rise in negative views across a number of measures, suggesting some softening in the perceived value of science to society," said Funk. "These patterns will be important to watch over time."

The findings are published in the journal Science.

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