Global poll shows only 18 per cent have high trust in scientists

The survey was conducted by a foundation that has "usefulness" of science as one of its prime objectives, in particular its applicability in the medical field. It is however dangerous in my opinion to link usefulness to trust, the way it seems to be implied in Jeremy Farrar’s statement: “No matter how great your idea, how exciting your new treatment, how robust your science, it must be accepted by the people who stand to benefit from it”. It is not usefulness, e.g. the occasional new cure or technology, which creates trust. On the contrary: the permanent emphasis on usefulness in the end causes a lack of trust. Scientists feel pressured to make promises they don’t really believe in themselves and that must almost by necessity be disappointed in the majority of cases. Scientists can hardly escape that pressure in the rat race for funding, as even public funding agencies look for some “usefulness”. The demand to deliver is certainly one of the reasons for the current reproducibility crisis in the sciences, not to talk about outright fabrication of results, exacerbating the lack of trust. As an aside: Although the Wellcome study is about the sciences, we should not forget that the “usefulness” perspective further marginalizes any scholarly research that has no “cure” or “technology” to promise: See current developments in Australia, Denmark, Hungary and so on. To create trust, it is necessary but also fully sufficient to perform careful, self-critical and responsible research, which is reliable and ethical, and which is openly communicated to the public according to Einstein’s dictum to do so a simple as possible but not simpler than that. Should a new cure for Malaria or some form of cancer come as a side effect, that is all the better. Stephan Schröder-Köhne, Würzburg, Germany

I wonder how this compares to the respondents' trust in politicians? Or for that matter in actual medics, rather than science as a whole? Too much of what passes as 'research' from the medical profession is a bunch of (sometimes dodgy) statistics, 'likelihoods' of being affected by a given disease and discussion of 'risk factors' without any understanding of underlying causal relationships. That ain't science!