A recent poll conducted by HuffPost, in conjunction with YouGov, found that United States citizens do not have much faith in information reported by scientists. In fact, just 36 percent of respondents said that they trust the information presented by scientists is reliable and accurate.
In the same poll, just 51 percent of respondents said that they have trust in the information presented by scientists. Some six percent of respondents in the survey said they do not trust the information given by scientists at all.
In the same poll from the HuffPost and YouGov, just 12 percent of respondents said that they trust scientific journalists to report the correct facts in stories regarding scientific studies. Just 57 percent of respondents said that they have a little trust in scientific journalists. On the flip side of things, 26 percent of respondents said that they have zero trust in scientific journalists to report scientific data from studies accurately.
The same survey found that Americans are also concerned that the findings of scientific studies are influenced by political beliefs and sometimes pressure from the corporate sponsors of the studies.
The results of this portion of the study are as follows:
– 34 percent of Americans feel that information from studies is often influenced by political views
– 44 percent of Americans feel that information from scientific studies is politically influenced sometimes
– 15 percent of Americans feel that political influence happens rarely
– 3 percent think that political influence in the reporting of scientific findings never happens
In the same portion of the poll, 43 percent of respondents said that they believe findings are often aided by the organization or company that sponsors the survey. Thirty-nine percent said they feel that this happens sometimes.