Afroamerikaner, Frauen, Landbewohner und weniger gebildete Menschen neigen eher dazu, Wissenschaftlern zu misstrauen. Es ist auch weniger wahrscheinlich, dass sie Wissenschaftler sind. Das ist kein Zufall, wie neue Forschungsergebnisse zeigen.
https://news.northeastern.edu/2025/12/09/science-representation-northeastern-survey/
21 Kommentare
That checks out from my experience.
I grew up hearing stories from my grandma about Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Essentially people being yanked off the streets to who knows where. Even if the actual methodology of the study didn’t go down that hyperbolized way, the actual study *did*, and it allowed mistrust of science to fester in the Black community for decades.
Let’s not even get started on all of the ’science‘ such as phrenology that ‚proved‘ racial hierarchies.
I understand all the historical reasons why, but then I also don’t understand why there’s such a high level of trust in the church when there are similar historical reasons to distrust them.
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Studies like this make me wonder whether distrust in science is more about access and representation than personal beliefs.
If people rarely see scientists who reflect their own communities, distrust feels like a structural issue, not an individual one.
I just cannot agree with the idea of women being more likely to trust scientists and less likely to be scientists. It simply doesn’t reflect what I’ve seen.
Nobody expects less-educated people to become scientists, I will guess.
Scientists famously use male labs rats as the default for testing medicines. Ergo, they don’t account for how female genetics interact with those same medicines
POC and black people have been used as live guinea pigs for the worst experiments imaginable.
Rural dwellers are more likely to experience poverty. They don’t get the same level of access or up-to-date medical care that is provided to city dwellers or rich patients.
Viable reasons to distrust science.
I hope they didn’t waste a lot of money on this study. It seems like common sense
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States
It’s not hard to understand why these demographics are less likely to trust scientists, given the history here and their greater odds of being unethically experimented on, as well as a pervasive sense that society and institutions in general don’t care for their well-being or safety.
I see the same trust issue this survey highlights in healthcare. People who experience biased treatment from clinicians are more likely to distrust medical science. That distrust isn’t about facts, it’s about social distance and lack of representation in those professions.
59% of America is white and 63% of STEM workers. This does not seem like an imbalance.
They all have higher poverty rates than the general population.
Cause they test on us! I’m Puerto Rican and they used to test on us and sterilized women. Plus being a woman there’s a lot they don’t know about women’s health still. I have PCOS and a history of fibroids.
&& underserved communities have less access to STEM education.
I wonder the extent to which this applies in other cultures outside of the US. Anecdotally I’d suggest it’s less true here in the UK, but I know of no study to confirm that.
This unfortunately makes complete sense, especially with all of the historical reasons, along with historical and current poor treatment of all of those groups in healthcare. As a research scientist, what can I/we do to help build that trust?
I am a PoC who studies white rural conservative American history and culture and lives near ranches and from personal experiences many of them don’t trust scientists and other members of academia because many of them are from the upper middle class from the coasts or in my place (rural NorCal) are from large cities.
I only managed to gain the trust of some rural folks due to me coming from the hood and therefore can relate with them due to my working class background. There’s a reason Bernie sanders managed to win over some rural folks.
Hell even as a PoC there are quite a handful of white conservatives (mostly white women) who wanted to talk to me about the issues of rural America.
How can you trust what you don’t understand ?
I think lots of these folks also have no interest in science and probably see it as a cult in its self.
Science and critical thinking skills should be pushed more in schools, though in religious areas
they probably hate science, as when you start to look at the world around you, it become clear religion starts to fall apart, especially when it comes to evolution vs god did it.
I can’t wait to tell this to my white, male, suburban city dweller friend.
Why African American and not all black people? Doesn’t both go through the same situation today?
Working as intended. Stupid people are easier to control.
In other words, people with less education in the sciences.