Wednesday 1 June 2011

BIS/Ipsos MORI: Learning From Public Attitudes to Science 2011

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Transcription here: http://www.slideshare.net/marilyneb/bisipsos-mori-learning-from-public-attitudes-to-science-2011

Slide 32) The Concerned
  • Characteristics
  • Religion tends to play more important role in their lives
  • Have strong views on the limitations of science and less convinced about the economic benefits of investing in it
  • Reservations about the intentions of scientists and whether the Government can control them
  • Around one in four (23%) of the population
  • Tend to be women aged 16-24 , less affluent (C2DEs) and from BME communities
  • Implications
  • Want to hear more about the intentions of scientists, especially those working in controversial areas such as stem cell research or synthetic biology
  • Want to know how individual scientists and scientific professional bodies , as well as Government, are responding to the public’s concerns
Most engaged Least engaged CONFIDENT ENGAGERS DISTRUSTFUL ENGAGERS LATE ADOPTERS CONCERNED DISENGAGED SCEPTICS INDIFFERENT


Slide 38: From the qualitative work… Participants didn’t know the process of doing science – how funding works and how science gets out into the world… … but they loved talking to scientists!


Slide 21: The kind of formalised process people want to see is often in place, but not known about If I knew that the findings had been formally reviewed by other scientists If I heard the same thing from a number of different sources If they had been published in a scientific journal If they fitted in with other things I know already If I could see the original study for myself If I saw them on a TV programme If the research had been done in the UK If I read them in a broadsheet newspaper If I had heard of the place where the research was done If I saw them on the internet Q Which of these, if any, would make you more likely to believe the findings of scientific studies? Base: 2,103 UK adults aged 16+ Fieldwork dates: 11 October-19 December 2010 Top ten mentions


This suggests to me that Process of Peer Review should be better understood by humanists





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