I was curious as to how trust in science related to questions like human evolution or the danger of nuclear power. So I looked at the variables NUKEGEN, SCITEST4 and TRUSTSCI in the GSS, which ask questions about the danger of nuclear power, the truth of human evolution and our trust in science, respectively. Below I report those who:
1) Agree or strongly agree that we trust too much in science
2) Definitely accept, or believe it is probable, that humans evolved from animals
3) Believe that nuclear power is not very dangerous, or not dangerous at all
I combined the weak and strong opinions and checked the frequencies across various demographic groups. I combined here and there to increase the sample size; i.e., liberals include those who are very and slightly liberal, atheists & agnostics are a category which includes those who do not believe, or are skeptical of the existence of god. Below are the raw data in a table, and also some charts which show how the opinions in these various groups relate to each other.
| We Trust Too Much In Science | Humans Evolved From Animals | Nuclear Power Not Danger To Environment | |
| White | 26.8 | 49.6 | 19.3 |
| Black | 54.8 | 39 | 8.3 |
| Male | 29.4 | 52.7 | 26.3 |
| Female | 32.4 | 44.1 | 9.6 |
| Less Than High School | 44 | 42.3 | 15.3 |
| High School | 33 | 42 | 20 |
| University | 22.3 | 63.1 | 23.9 |
| Graduate | 10.3 | 74.4 | 27.2 |
| New England | 26.4 | 69.7 | 19.3 |
| Middle Atlantic | 28.7 | 59.4 | 14 |
| East North Central | 27.1 | 44.3 | 16.1 |
| West North Central | 31.3 | 48.2 | 22 |
| South Atlantic | 35.9 | 41.7 | 18.1 |
| East South Central | 46.2 | 31.7 | 16.5 |
| West South Central | 33.6 | 41 | 14.9 |
| Mountain | 21.3 | 50.7 | 20.1 |
| Pacific | 28.5 | 54.3 | 18.5 |
| Atheists & Agnostics | 7.2 | 80.8 | 26.6 |
| Know God Exists | 43.1 | 34.3 | 16.5 |
| Liberals | 21.2 | 63 | 11.7 |
| Moderates | 29.5 | 47.2 | 12.6 |
| Conservatives | 38.3 | 38.6 | 26.5 |
Now, how does distrust in science predict acceptance of human evolution?
This probably doesn’t surprise. There’s a very close relationship between distrust in science, and rejection of the hypothesis that humans evolved from animals.
How about skepticism of nuclear power?
The relationship here is much weaker. You can tell just be looking at the increase in scatter about the trend line. Nevertheless, a few groups still exhibit consistency. Atheists & agnostics, and those with graduate degrees, and blacks, are similar in their positions at oppose ends of the trend lines.
Finally, how does acceptance of human evolution relate to distrust of nuclear power? Here there isn’t really a plausible causal relationship, rather, both are opinions which derive from upstream positions about the power of science and a particular normative framework.
The relationship is even weaker than the previous chart. Conservatives and liberals form an axis orthogonal to the main trend line. But those with graduate degrees and atheists & agnostics still cluster together.
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