Reacción a "Reactions to the new edition of the Social Perception Survey on Science and Technology"

The presentation of the results of the 2022 edition of the FECYT Social Perception Survey is very good news, as it reflects the continuation of the series started in 2002. As far as I know, only the US General Social Survey maintains a similar periodicity. There are other surveys on the perception of science, such as the Eurobarometers at the European Union level, or the PAS (Public Attitudes to Science) in the United Kingdom, but they are not carried out on a regular basis. On the other hand, given the increasing difficulties in conducting surveys in face-to-face format, the fact that the sample includes more than 6,000 household interviews is highly positive. 

There is so much information available that it is difficult to focus on any one aspect. Nevertheless, I believe that interest deserves some attention. It is a motivational construct that is always directed towards something (the object of interest) and reflects a desire to know more about it. It is one of the elements that is always included in surveys of the social perception of science. And the most common way to measure it is with the general question: to what extent are you interested in science? The results are always positive. In the 2022 edition, 47% of the sample say they are very or fairly interested in science and technology when asked directly about this question and 22% say they are not very or not at all interested. This is also an increasing and sustained trend since 2004. However, answering this question in the affirmative, once the topic comes to the forefront of the respondent's mind, is straightforward. And socially desirable. On the other hand, FECYT has long included a question to measure information interest. It is an open-ended question, in which no topic is specified beforehand and the option of mentioning three topics is given. 12.3% of respondents mentioned science and technology in one of the three options. In contrast to general interest, news interest grew in each of the editions until it reached a peak in 2018. From that year onwards, a decreasing trend can be observed. To put the general question data in context, we cannot ignore the indications that there is a low engagement with science and technology in the population. One of the reasons for not engaging in science and technology related activities, mentioned by 31.8%, is precisely lack of interest. There are also 13.4% who say that "It's not for me". On the other hand, 40 % say that they are not interested in getting involved in decision-making on scientific matters. 18.7% say they would like to get citizens involved, but do not want to do so personally. 

In the literature on survey research it has been repeatedly found that the answers obtained depend very much on what questions are asked and how they are asked. Social perception surveys have a positive view of science in their questions, so they get a positive view of science in their responses. In the research we carry out at CIEMAT's Research Unit on Science, Technology and Society (UICTS), we have found a different picture. In 2019 we conducted a study in which we recruited participants through a Facebook advertising campaign that allowed us to identify a small but very consistent group of people with a very negative attitude towards science. We also saw, through the comments generated by the study, that people with negative attitudes went out of their way to make their views known.  

In a study conducted in 2022, we found that the prevalence of a negative attitude towards science was low (around 3%), but we also found that more than half of the sample had a low positive attitude towards science, strongly influenced by a rejection of an instrumentalised view of science. We also found that the perception that science is an economic and political instrument negatively affects the perception of science as a source of knowledge. We hypothesise that this result is due, at least in part, to the public discourse on science, in which two opposing but equally counterproductive frames of reference predominate: one centred on science as a source of growth and economic progress (instrumental vision) and the other centred on the legend that it is infallible. The former translates into the image that science is manipulated. The second generates unrealistic expectations, which can damage the image of science when they cannot be fulfilled. At the same time, little space is devoted to talking about the nature of science, what its processes are. As a result, phrases such as "Science is wrong" or "Science's answers are provisional", which we designed to reflect a view of science as a source of knowledge, actually act as negative attitude indicators. 

In this context, it is interesting to note that 60.5% of respondents to the FECYT survey consider the scientific information they receive to be superficial and 76.7% consider it to be insufficient. This figure is somewhat contradictory if we think again about the people who say that they are interested in science information. This is an issue that needs to be studied in more detail, as well as trying to identify what lies behind the answers to the general question on interest in science. In the analyses we have carried out at UICTS, we have found that it has no explanatory power, i.e. we do not know what people are thinking about when they answer. Probably very different things.