Annual Report – 2024

How can we turn the tide on scientific mistrust

Of all the significant things that happened in 2024, the American research community may very well remember it as the year when America’s trust in science took a beating.

This wasn’t a passing trend or a political anomaly, or something that only came about because of the collective anguish of the COVID 19 pandemic. The numbers tell a different story.

According to the Pew Research Center’s annual surveys of public confidence in science, 87 percent of Americans in the year 2020 expressed either a fair amount or a great deal of confidence that scientists act in the best interests of the public. In 2024, that number fell to 76 percent (a slight improvement after bottoming out in 2023 at 73 percent).

Projecting across the U.S., that’s like losing the confidence of 35 million people in four years.

That shift in sentiment showed at the ballot box and is manifesting itself today in public policy. The narrative has moved from science being a great American success story worthy of bipartisan support, to an enterprise in need of deeper scrutiny and reform.

Brad Schwartz

I would argue that a top priority for science in the years ahead will be regaining that public trust — and it starts with simple, fundamental aspects of human nature. We need to remember that as human beings, we establish trust based mostly upon what we do and observe. We learn when we’re kids which people we can trust and which people we can’t. We also quickly learn it’s easier to lose trust than it is to earn it.

It might be tempting for scientists to be incredulous about this. After all, so much good has come from scientific discovery that has improved the human condition. We wear the white hats, right? But that’s not the way human nature works; it’s not all cold calculus. What we convey through our behaviors can have as big an impact as the end results of our work.

Here are some principles that I consider essential for science to get back on the right track.

Focus on the right metrics.

Universities and big research organizations often use grant dollars, papers published and citations as metrics for their success. It’s in their interest to drive that number as high as possible, and be able to say to the outside world, ‘Look how prestigious we are.’ This can lead us to construct our researcher support mechanisms and even our research aims around maximizing the number of grant dollars we bring in, rather than on optimizing the likelihood that the discoveries we make will be true and impactful.

We have constructed a set of incentives that demands researchers come up with remarkable findings in a short time frame, instead of constructing things in a way that serves finding the truth. Measuring success based on the scale of papers published and grants attained is self-serving and fails to convey why science matters.

Learn from disagreements.

This is something we did poorly during the pandemic. It’s important to recognize that disagreements are normal in science and they are ultimately productive. These disagreements can be very unpleasant, but they’re more likely to help us find the truth than simply “agreeing to disagree” and retreating to our respective corners. Too often our pandemic impulse was to shut down or denigrate those with different assessments of the threat and the best way forward. That arrogance was not earned, and we’re paying for it today.

Show more humility.

Like any other enterprise, science makes mistakes and operates best when in a state of continued self-correction, based on new knowledge. It’s painful to think back on some of those mistakes. Eugenics, for example, was considered on the cutting edge of scientific thinking in early to mid-20th century, before being recognized as a flawed theory that perpetuated racism and caused tremendous human damage. History is littered with similar flawed thinking masquerading as scientific fact.

When we think of the best attributes of science we use words like “honesty” and “integrity,” but I would put “humility” at the same level. The ability to say “Boy, I got that wrong,” rather than doubling down to protect reputations, would help immensely. There’s probably no surer way to guarantee that somebody is going to push back against you than conveying the attitude, “Here’s the truth and you’re a fool to disagree.”

“Believe” in the scientific method, not in science.

It was common to see and hear the phrase, “I believe in science,” throughout the pandemic. But science shouldn’t be treated like a priesthood. Science is a method of understanding how much confidence we should have in our knowledge. It represents a continual state of asking questions, gathering evidence, making conclusions and repeating experiments to prove we know what we think we know. Scientists should work to demystify the scientific process with the general public, showing people that it is a rigorous extension of how all humans learn — through trial and error and experience.

Engage with the society that supports you.

Another remarkable fact from the Pew survey is that while 89 percent of the public says scientists are highly intelligent, only 45 percent say scientists are good communicators. This must change. We need to stop thinking of communicating our work as a nice “extra” if we can find the time, and more as an essential way to continue societal support for our work.

Much like curiosity-driven research, public engagement is a marathon and not a sprint. We are not going to see overnight results. The principles outlined above are things we should try to bake into our professional practices — things we make time for in our lab meetings and research goals, and things that are amply measured in our rewards system.

The topic of trust simply can’t be over-emphasized. But in many respects we’re talking about it now out of a sense of self-preservation. If society was still embracing us as the most trustworthy profession, we may not be paying as much attention.

That would be a mistake. It’s something we can never take for granted.

Sincerely,

Brad Schwartz, M.D.
Carl Gulbrandsen Chair, Chief Executive Officer
Morgridge Institute for Research

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