• Email Bluesky Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Whatsapp X Children are taught about the conduction of electricity at a science festival in China.Credit: Costfoto/NurPhoto via Getty Around the world, the scientific community is confronting challenges to its cultural authority.Funding is under pressure, expertise issubject to political attack, andvaccine scepticismanddisputes over climate policyare rife1. • This is often interpreted as a problem of the public - a result of limited scientific literacy, declining trust in experts and misinformation - rather than of science itself. • Yet, working with limited assessment tools, it is striking how little knowledge researchers have about the extent to which the public understands science2. • Science’s big problem is a loss of influence, not a loss of trust Science’s big problem is a loss of influence, not a loss of trust Scientists and researchers who study public understanding should reckon with their own role in this cultural disconnect. • In particular, they need to reimagine the ways in which scientific literacy and trust have long been conceptualized and measured. • For decades, researchers have relied mainly on surveys - asking what people know or how much confidence they have in scientists and experts.
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