Thank you it is great to see a robust crowd and energetic crowd. I have been a fan of zow calla and it is my anniversary and i did it on Climate Change and great to be back. I would like to introduce erik conway, historian of science and technology and coauthor of a book merchants of doubt. Nd next is kerry funk from washington, d. C. , director of science and Society Research at the Pugh Research center and reports on the public trust in science. Views from energy and climate nd vaccines and we have ucla a sociologyist Whose Research how the life works. Why people care about what they care about and how moral concerns relates to science and religion. Im going to jump right in. We are gathered this week during the anniversary of humankinds scientific achievements, you cant escape, the apollo moon landing to discuss this issue of whether and why americans are turning against science. I would like to start with the panelist by asking is this new or something long been with us . Has americas relationship with science been changing over time . I would like to ask erik to start . I asked for this start. People seem to think this idea that americans are turning against science is kind of new. But social Science Surveys that have been done for decades and one study from the 2012 dug into this idea of whether this is a new idea. Using the general sciences, social Science Survey data from 1974 to 2012. And in the works, it was founded that back in 1974, people were skeptical of science and people who defined themselves as political moderates. Which opened my eyes, im like, i would have never thought. People, were selfdefined conservatives and liberals thought about the same. And what has happened, the rules maintained the same level of trust and science. Moderates had the same distrust but just plummeted. O its far well below now what the moderate distrust is. Why does it happen and thinking about it has been the root of my work. During the actual apollo years of the 1960s, the general public opposed it. And didnt reach the majority approval and sixmonth window of that within that mission. We have rebranded it a Great Success but it was not appreciated by most of the public. It was an enormous amount of money. We dont think hard about this. But what apollo costs in todays dollars, 200 billion and another 250 billion on the missile program. People thought that was an enormous amount of money. There were race riots in the United States throughout the 1960s right around apollo and people said shouldnt we solve these problems on earth. Your organization has studied science and peoples relationships through numerous polls through issues. Can you talk about any trends you have seen or things you have noticed . The Pugh Research center, we do Public Opinion surveys. I want to step back in terms of the bigpicture things we see. Number one, most americans say when you ask them do they see positive benefits coming from science on the whole. Number two, you see this idea of continued optimism for technological investments, the Space Investments might be one of those. People anticipate continued change. But when it comes to trust, often we see more of a mixed pattern. On the whole, people have at least a fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the best interests of the public. But it is a minority, certainly less than half that might have what you have strong trust and great deal of confidence. A large every glupe has a fair amount of confidence. You might think of that as a soft positive. And we have only one independent kind of survey that looked at trust over time from the 1970s to today. And what is surprising there is what they find is that confidence in scientists and leaders of the Scientific Community has been stable over time. And thats striking because we are living in an area of lower trust in institutions and lower trust in government today. That is striking. Gives some people a relief in the Scientific Community but stable doesnt necessarily mean high. There is still room to grow. When you look at different issues, vaccines, modified food, Climate Change, are those lumped together . Im against science, im against all those things . It is important to remember that science is a vast enterprise and we study the pieces of science that is connecting with ethical, policy issues. It is not surprising that they collect with our political divides and religious divides. But one of the Key Takeaways is how people think about these sciencerelated issues, whether climate issues or vaccines, there is no single group in society that kind of takes what you might think of as a position that against the Scientific Consensus or skeptical of the position. It various. Climate issues are highly politically polarized. So thats what is interesting. We are living in a time where we do have a lot of uncertainty in the future. Looking at global Climate Change. And have the powerful tools. People are editing the gee noem and human embryos and some of them have politicalreligious overtones. Is it politics and religion that is polarizing people further against science. You studied with muslims and their beliefs. Do you see the simple, you know legend versus access science in your work . That is a great question. Thank you for coming out tonight. m used to teaching ucla undergraduates. He fact this is a full crowd means im doing something differently. [laughter] this is a great question and dovetails what kerry was talking about. We find that there is not really a desire from any american that we interviewed equal tatetively or quantitatively who dont like science. Science won the game. Science is extremely popular in erica and thats part of the problem. Historianscientists will tell you we dont know what science is. If you talk to a historian of science and there is a thing called science, their head will explode because science is so chaotic and wont say there isnt a thing called biology. Et i found in my work in two high schools, people are comfortable talking about a thing called science and they were convinced that science proved evolution wrong. I dont think thats true. But its interesting, right. It is the need to use science to make their case. A universe, this is what the bible says and thats it. But they dont. So its interesting when people hear that word, the thing that they hear is what you need to hear is science. They think science is necessary and superinteresting to me as a sollingsist. To answer your question, you know, we really think those of us who study this stuff has to do with identity. Basically, there is a lot of complicated jargon. If something is important for your identity, you dont want to change your mindf something is not important, you will get new data, sure, i guess ill go there. If it is relevant to your identity, you are unwilling to change and will think lots of complicated ways around to keep thinking what you wanted to think to maintain that piece of your identity. When people dislike science, its not they are more or less committed to science but those elements of science conflict with their identity. It is about identity stuff and not about rational thinking or capacity to understand ordeal with science. Tons of studies and in my own work, these kids did very well on the ap science test. They knew the right answers but just thought they were wrong. [laughter] what would you do with that, right . Its a complicated problem. An interesting point you raised, what do people mean by science and there is a bigmon legitimateic structure trusted or not trusted. You i recommend, a nation ruled by science is a terrible idea. Can you talk about your these cyst in there and what do we mean by science . If you want to have a nice day on twitter do not pick a fight. That is a poor life choice. [laughter] i just started my job and i got a letter from the chancellor myself ad and not call real scientist. It is a whole separate conversation. There is a huge debate that goes all the way back and goes further back than him, one of the most famous is what ume, what is and ought to be. Can you derive what we should do based on what we can see. There are a lot of different thoughts but im pretty much in the school, which is a substantial school that you cant. And so, if we have 1,000 as a city council, hopefully we get some more money. What are we going to do . Are we going to build a library, park or tax cut. Science cant tell us what what to do there. Kids will have a better life outcome. Science can help us know there will be more jobs. Thats all great. But whether or not the beauty of a park is better than the joy of a library is not a scientific question and thats ok, right . Callhat is something of us nonscience, but the idea that science will solve all of our problems and its frankly antiintellectual. It refuses to recognize the importance of philosophy and recognize poetry and art and all the literature and the ways to think about life that science can give us access to. Science has a specific role to play and its not all the roles. It refuses to see that science can be manipulated for a lot of reasons. And i want to look at our Climate Change and that aspect. It seems to be a clear issue where paid critics are upending the debate on what is happening to our planet and how quickly is it happening. Erik, your wonderful book discusses this and can you talk a little bit about what you and with your coauthor the Climate Science and the fobe science that are book came about because, my day job as a nasa historian let me to look into a director. And i was looking to see what his recommendations had been to nasa in the early 1980s as to what the science programs should be in the future. I had some free time and i noticed im sorry, i have something stuck in my throat. I hope that works. Mars and i sat there are gasping before i could get going again. Lets hope that doesnt happen. And i just happened to notice that he had filed correspondence der the george d. Marshall institute and it is engaged in science. Rt to cast the guy, one of the major climate researchers, has to do with these clowns. He is one of the founders. That are actually was a toxic moment for me because i could watch and see his records historians, you see 20 years of a persons life go by in an afternoon. The science of climate went one way and he went the other. And i met him a few months later in a meeting in germany. And she was working on kind of the flip side. Another physicist was very involved, early adopter of Climate Change science and he went to his grave rejecting technocs. What causes some scientists tom accept the conclusion of their pierce and what causes others to reject . It depends very much owe individuals upbringing and motivation and so forth. But then we got talking about this issue for climate and one of us we cant agree anymore and which of us agreed on this tobacco connection. We agreed to disagree and we started. And then we had something new because it is the same guy and our argument is what drew them ogether was we call market fundamentalism. The idea that only unregulated markets can protect freedom. Who tracked the the evolution thinking on Climate Change or have they been muddied still by political thinking on the topic . Yes, there is Public Opinion surveys about Climate Change, energy and environmental issues. No surprise that there is a very wide political divide on these issues. So what you see are that republicans and democrats in particular just take totally different positions, including things like the likelihood of effects on wildlife, on other kinds of things. So pretty much any question that you ask related to climate, energy, environmental issues, you tend to see this kind of divide and seen a divide like this for a long time. This is not the only political divide in society. Remember that we are living in an air aa of political poll raiseation and what we saw around 2004 i think you started to see it where you really saw the divisions in society across a whole range of social and political issues just wideend up. And that is what they call the political polarization. E typical democrats grew opposition to the typical republican and we are more polarized and not just ideological positions but there is a sense of animosity as well. And then do you see that are liberals are less likery to vaccinate . We dont. Beliefs about childhood vaccines those are not associated with politics. So thats one of the thats one of the examples. If we are going to go into caveats, you can find political divides particularly if you raise more policyoriented issues, because at the end of the day there is a different policy orientation, role about the role of government that drives these. If you are framing something in terms of should vaccines be required or not, that kind of raises the notion of government involvement and more likely to see a political divide over that. Are vaccines safe, what are the risks and benefits, you dont see any political divide. We have seen these huge Measles Outbreak in california and it seems to me people are putting others at risk. Its very, the refusal to vaccinate is a strong opinion among some. Are there religious reasons but has it come up in your research . Certainly, there are communities that have been more oppose todd vaccination. I would say that this is not i mean we were talking about 1970s, but this is a very old story. This is a bit of a nerd joke. But im going to do one of the st biblical things that an academic and cite tokeville. This goes back to him. And theres this real success michiganon of authority in the United States. And one of the things that led to the secondgrade awakening in american religious history which is the most historical moment hat led to the i study in this book, the second grade awakening came out of suspicions of ministers. Who are necessary elite east coasters. I can read it fine on my own and dont need anyone else tell me how to do it. Historians said it wasnt about ministers but lawyers and government officials and medical doctors. There was a general suspicion of elites and this real sense that you think you are better than me . This is what he described when he talked about democracy in america. Democracy in america has this underbelly to it where there is obsession with equality and has this lovely effect and dangerous effect in that it assists on intellectual equality such that expertise is suspicious. I know whats good for my baby. That is not just a religious thing. Its a very old sense biment. And in some ways present dates the era but was very important. The issue of authority is very important. I know i have seen polls where trusted officials and scientists are not below them. On one hand they are trusted is a good authority. I think about a study i heard where third grade teachers were asked to draw a scientists and they were men in white coats and stick figures with einstein and not women. There is a view like charles darwin. He had his ideas when he was 23. Ut its this idea of sort of whitegraybearded author tatetive. It seems like a conflict because we are a society doesnt want to be told what to do. We love being told to do but tell so, in my fieldwork, no one dislikes science, but they have strong opinions about scientists. They are so secular, they want to push their secular philosophy on us. It is true about gmos, all sorts of things. Tendsientific consensus to be pretty strong, but people will sort of look and say, you know what, but this works. St here, science i would rather have an appendectomy from a medical doctor from a barber. As a rule, that seems like a safe bet to me. I think that people generally of, they like electricity, bridges that carry a certain amount of where it amount of weight. But, there are things that trigger identity that make people think i am not able to live the way i want to live, and that makes them mad. Science has taken a lot of criticism for hiding under ivory towers and keeping their head down and not speaking in jargon and engaging with the public, and on the other hand, you have these provocateurs, richard orken, richard dokken, taking on the creationists who are taking on the creationists. I guess they are just causing more problems than it is worth, but that is a separate conversation. They are a pain they are not productive. Useless for aly few reasons. One, they are creating needless enemies with all religious people. Conflating them with creationism. I think they misunderstand creationism, they are not reading studies of creationism, s generally, how they frame it. Primarily, it is polemical in a way. Especially for someone like dokkens, like dokkens, there is an incapacity to recognize the specific space that science contributes to a society, which is a very important and clear space. Needse needs defenders, articulate defenders, but defenders or not who are not weirdly hating on philosophy. There is this strange antiintellectualism. Idea this dopey and, this we can create a rational order that would entirely be based on science. Canystopian, this idea we create a rational order that would entirely be based on science. It is creepy. I am not a fan. Want to talk a little bit about the issue of gmos and food science. And maybe use this as a way to talk about the role that media plays in altering peoples views toward science. Peoples views toward science. I am a practitioner of journalism, and i get so tired with a study of the day, coffee is best for you, vitamin d cancer. R it is so episodic and out of context. Front in been a lot of the news, but also some really good people working in science. Gmos, there is so much irrational thinking and things on both sides that seem crazy to me. Do you see this in your polling . Is this an emotional issue . Because fortis something we put in our bodies, forces political . Because food is something we put in our bodies, is it political . We hear a lot of concern, particularly about food science studies. If we ask people, they are aware they are hearing conflicting studies. One day, coffee is safe, the other day begin a safe, then all of a sudden we reverse course. There is a lot of concern in the Scientific Community whether or not that might undermine peoples confidence peoples confidence in science and certainly for science. Thatit seems like is on the whole, it does not seem to shake peoples confidence, but th