Misunderstanding and hubris have broken public trust in governments’ use of science, but it can be restored, write Michael Kenny and Diane Coyle for Nature. They propose recommendations for action on how to renew political support for science.
In a new comment piece for Nature, Michael Kenny and Diane Coyle discuss how public trust in science has eroded due to political attacks, technocratic overreach, and widening social divides that make evidence-based policymaking seem unresponsive to many citizens.
They report distrust is fuelled by politicised misuse of science and by scientists’ own failure to acknowledge uncertainty, values, and lived experience in policy debates.
To gain renewed political support for science, the authors propose recommendations for the scientific community: two concerning research practice and two to do with institutional reform.
Read the full article published by Nature.
Image: Madeline Lancaster, Group Leader at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. Credit: Lloyd Mann.
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