The survey was conducted on 119,000 people in 113 countries, and ran from August 2020 to February 2021. A similar survey was conducted in 2018, conducted by the polling company Gallup and funded by the UK health research donor Wellcome Trust. The pollsters say that the ubiquitous spread of scientific information in the media and in the public arena in general over the past 23 months has necessarily played a role.

About 80% of those surveyed said they had “high” or “little” confidence in science. Les niveaux de confiance semblent plus élevés qu’en 2018 parmi ceux qui ont par ailleurs déclaré qu’ils ne connaissaient « pas grand-chose » à la science, voire « rien du tout », ainsi que chez ceux en quina ont dit « Little “.

37% said they trusted “a lot” (compared to 29% in 2018), and 47%, that the scientists’ work was useful to the “majority” of people in their country (compared to 41% in 2018).

Even in the United States, which is often described as divided in the face of the pandemic along their ideological lines, 54% said they had “a great deal” of confidence, up from 45% in 2018. It should be noted, however, that surveys for this Country split confirmed In question: Gallup Poll carried out in july Thus the question of confidence in science was asked, on the same terms as it had been asked in 1975: on the part of the Republicans, this confidence would have decreased by 27%, while on the part of the Democrats, it would have increased by 12%.