Little Gender Bias in Academic Science

Katherine Knott at Inside Higher Ed:

Claims of widespread gender bias in tenure-track hiring, grant funding and journal acceptances in the academic sciences are not supported by the data, a new study finds.

The paper published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest looked at two decades of research regarding biases that tenure-track women have faced since 2000. In the end, the authors determined tenure-track women in science, technology, engineering or math were at parity with men in tenure-track positions in the same fields when it comes to grant funding, journal acceptances and recommendation letters.

Women did have an advantage in the hiring process for the tenure-track jobs, though the evidence did show a bias against women in teaching evaluations and salaries. The salary gap, according to the report, was concerning but smaller than the oft-quoted statistic that women in STEM fields make 82 cents for every dollar that men earn. On average, the gap was 9 cents on the dollar.

“We’re getting really close to an equitable landscape,” said Wendy Williams, a professor in the department of human development at Cornell University and an author of the paper. “We’ve come 90 percent of the way, and so what stands between us and that is not an insurmountable task anymore. It’s really important for young women in college who are considering going to grad school and women in grad school who are considering becoming professors.”

Williams said the discourse about sexism in higher education can discourage some women from choosing a career in the academy.

Williams co-wrote the paper with Stephen Ceci, a professor of developmental psychology at Cornell, and Shulamit Kahn, an associate professor of economics at Boston University. The paper was “an adversarial collaboration,” bringing together researchers with different viewpoints. Williams and Ceci have written often to rebut frequent talking points on gender bias in STEM, while Kahn has a history of revealing gender inequities in her field.

Citizen Science and the Great Backyard Bird Count

Many posts have discussed volunteering and civic virtue.

Julia Rubin at AP:

It’s a given that when the Great Backyard Bird Count begins Friday, Steve and Janet Kistler of Hart County, Kentucky, will be joining in. They’ve done so every year since the now-global tradition began 25 years ago.

For Moira Dalibor, a middle-school math teacher a couple hours away in Lexington, this will be the first count. She’s leading a group of students and parents to an arboretum for an exercise in data-gathering.

They’re expected to be among hundreds of thousands of people around the world counting and recording over four days. Last year, about 385,000 people from 192 countries took part in the Great Backyard Bird Count, or GBBC.

In India, which had the highest participation outside the U.S. last year, tens of thousands of people submitted bird checklists — a 28% increase from 2021.

This global data goes into the eBird database used by scientists for research on bird populations, which have declined sharply overall in past decades. It’s part of a rise in “citizen science” projects in which volunteers collect data about the natural world for use by researchers.

Origins of COVID

Michael Worobey and colleagues have an article in Science titled: "The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic." The abstract:

Understanding how severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in 2019 is critical to preventing zoonotic outbreaks before they become the next pandemic. The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, was identified as a likely source of cases in early reports but later this conclusion became controversial. We show the earliest known COVID-19 cases from December 2019, including those without reported direct links, were geographically centered on this market. We report that live SARS-CoV-2 susceptible mammals were sold at the market in late 2019 and, within the market, SARS-CoV-2-positive environmental samples were spatially associated with vendors selling live mammals. While there is insufficient evidence to define upstream events, and exact circumstances remain obscure, our analyses indicate that the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 occurred via the live wildlife trade in China, and show that the Huanan market was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Declining Trust in Scientists

From Pew:

Americans’ confidence in groups and institutions has turned downward compared with just a year ago. Trust in scientists and medical scientists, once seemingly buoyed by their central role in addressing the coronavirus outbreak, is now below pre-pandemic levels.

Overall, 29% of U.S. adults say they have a great deal of confidence in medical scientists to act in the best interests of the public, down from 40% who said this in November 2020. Similarly, the share with a great deal of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests is down by 10 percentage points (from 39% to 29%), according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

The new findings represent a shift in the recent trajectory of attitudes toward medical scientists and scientists. Public confidence in both groups had increased shortly after the start of the coronavirus outbreak, according to an April 2020 survey. Current ratings of medical scientists and scientists have now fallen below where they were in January 2019, before the emergence of the coronavirus.

Scientists and medical scientists are not the only groups and institutions to see their confidence ratings decline in the last year. The share of Americans who say they have a great deal of confidence in the military to act in the public’s best interests has fallen 14 points, from 39% in November 2020 to 25% in the current survey. And the shares of Americans with a great deal of confidence in K-12 public school principals and police officers have also decreased (by 7 and 6 points, respectively).

...

Confidence in medical scientists and scientists across racial and ethnic groups plays out differently for Democrats and Republicans.

White Democrats (52%) are more likely than Hispanic (36%) and Black (30%) Democrats to say they have a great deal of confidence in medical scientists to act in the public’s best interests. However, large majorities of all three groups say they have at least a fair amount of confidence in medical scientists.

Among Republicans and Republican leaners, 14% of White adults say they have a great deal of confidence in medical scientists, while 52% say they have a fair amount of confidence. Views among Hispanic Republicans are very similar to those of White Republicans, in contrast to differences seen among Democrats.

There are similar patterns in confidence in scientists. (However, the sample size for Black Republicans in the survey is too small to analyze on these measures.) See the Appendix for more.

Accepting COVID Misinformation, Rejecting Science

From the COVID States Project:

We asked respondents to mark four popular vaccine misinformation claims as true or false. When in doubt, they could also select “Not sure.” Here are some of the patterns we found:

• While we observe a decline in believing misinformation since the early days of COVID-19 vaccination efforts in 2021, 16% of Americans still hold vaccine misperceptions. Close to half (46%) are uncertain about the veracity of at least one vaccine misinformation statement.

• People aged 25 to 44, parents with children under 18, Americans who did not go to college, and Republicans are most likely to hold vaccine misperceptions, with over 20% of the respondents in each group marking at least one misinformation statement as true.

• Early in the pandemic, people with high socioeconomic status were amongst the most likely to hold vaccine misperceptions. Over time,people with graduate degrees and those with high income made large shifts towards rejecting misinformation. The groups least likely to espouse false claims now include graduate degree holders, Democrats, Asian Americans, and those over 65 years of age.

•  A third of the people who believe vaccine misinformation statements are aware that scientific and medical experts reject those claims as false.  Additionally, over a fifth of Americans (21%) are aware that science considers a particular claim to be false, but still say they are not sure whether to believe it or not. 

• People who think they know a lot about COVID-19 vaccines are more likely to hold vaccine misperceptions. Among those who claimed to have expert knowledge, 48% believed false claims compared to only 16% of those who said they knew almost nothing about vaccines. 

• Compared to those with no vaccine misperceptions, Americans who believe misinformation claims are less likely to trust the government, news media, science, and medicine. That pattern is reversed with regard to trust in Fox News and Donald Trump.

• Vaccine misinformation beliefs, uncertainty about false claims, trust in government and science remain among the most important predictors of getting vaccinated, even after accounting for demographic and other factors

people with

graduate degrees and those with high income made large shifts towards

rejecting misinformation. The groups least likely to espouse false claims now

include graduate degree holders, Democrats, Asian Americans, and those

over 65 years of age.

The War on Dr. Fauci

Fact check: A quote tweeted by a Republican congressman to criticize Dr. Fauci came from a neo-Nazi convicted for child pornography, not Voltaire https://t.co/ASOP7JzjIy

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) January 31, 2022

Sheryl Gay Stolberg at NYT:

“Populism is essentially anti: anti-establishment, anti-expertise, anti-intellectual and anti-media,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist, adding that Dr. Fauci “is an establishment expert intellectual who is in the media.”

For the 81-year-old immunologist, a venerated figure in the world of science, it is a jarring last chapter of a government career that has spanned half a century. As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a post he has held since 1984, he has helped lead the response to various public health crises, including AIDS and Ebola, and advised eight presidents. He has never revealed a party affiliation. President George H.W. Bush once cited him as a hero.

Now, though, some voters are parroting right-wing commentators who compare Dr. Fauci to the brutal Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. Candidates in hotly contested Republican primaries like Ohio’s are trying to out-Trump one another by supplanting Speaker Nancy Pelosi with Dr. Fauci as a political boogeyman.

In Pennsylvania, Dr. Oz recently ran a Twitter ad calling for a debate — not between candidates, but between him and Dr. Fauci. In Wisconsin, Kevin Nicholson, a onetime Democrat running for governor as a conservative outsider, says Dr. Fauci “should be fired and referred to prosecutors.”

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis has released an advertisement last month telling Dr. Fauci to “pound sand” via the beach sandals the governor’s re-election campaign is now selling: “Freedom Over Fauci Flip-Flops.” Mr. DeSantis has coined a new term: “Faucism.” In Washington, lawmakers are taking aim at Dr. Fauci’s salary, finances and influence.

“I didn’t make myself a polarizing figure,” Dr. Fauci declared in an interview. “I’ve been demonized by people who are running away from the truth.”

The anti-Fauci fervor has taken its toll on his personal life; he has received death threats, his family has been harassed and his home in Washington is guarded by a security detail. His standing with the public has also suffered. In a recent NBC News Poll, just 40 percent of respondents said they trusted Dr. Fauci, down from 60 percent in April 2020.

Still, Mr. Ayres said, Dr. Fauci remains for many Americans “one of the most trusted voices regarding the pandemic.” In a Gallup poll at the end of 2021, his job approval rating was 52 percent. On a list of 10 officials, including Mr. Biden and congressional leaders, only two scored higher: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Jerome H. Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Gene Editing and Deliberative Polling

Many posts have discussed deliberation, argument, and the value of viewpoint diversity.

A release from the Hastings Center:

- A new report released by The Hastings Center, a leading ethics research institute, finds that the complex issues raised by releasing gene-edited species into the wild demand deep and broad public engagement. The report, Gene Editing in the Wild: Shaping Decisions Through Broad Public Deliberation, provides a path forward to move decision-making from the realm of experts to a more inclusive, values-based approach using the technique of public deliberation – or deliberative democracy.

The goals of gene editing in the wild efforts are wide-ranging, and the benefits potentially transformative--such as preventing mosquitoes from spreading disease. But this work poses major trade-offs that require the public’s consideration.

The report’s twelve essays take up fundamental questions: how should public deliberation be designed? Who should participate? How should deliberation be linked to policy?

The introductory essay, “Public Deliberation About Gene Editing in the Wild,” summarizes the key design elements that can improve broad public deliberations about gene editing in the wild: Framing the question and deciding when to hold broad public deliberation, choosing participants, addressing power, and accounting for and capturing perspectives that are hard to express. The introduction was written by the special report editors: Michael K. Gusmano, Gregory E. Kaebnick, Karen J. Maschke, Carolyn P. Neuhaus, and Ben Curran Wills.

“Regulating Gene Editing in the Wild: Building Regulatory Capacity to Incorporate Deliberative Democracy,” by Karen J. Maschke and Michael K. Gusmano, says that there has not been enough attention to how we should connect public deliberation to the existing regulatory process. The authors argue that, while federal agencies may have capacity to undertake public deliberative activities, there may not be sufficient political support for them to do so.

“Deliberative Public Consultation via Deliberative Polling: Criteria and Methods,” by James S. Fishkin, makes the case that Deliberative Polling, an approach developed by the author, can be usefully employed to engage representative samples to deliberate in depth in controlled experiments so as to yield a picture of the public’s considered judgments. Another it can be cost-effectively conducted online.

“The Decision Phases Framework for Public Engagement: Engaging Stakeholders about Gene Editing in the Wild,” by S. Kathleen Barnhill-Dilling, Adam Kokotovich, and Jason A. Delborne, puts forth a framework for shaping public engagement that tackles when and whom to engage on genetic engineering questions.

“Empowering Indigenous Knowledge in Deliberations on Gene Editing in the Wild,” by Riley Taitingfong and Anika Ullah, identifies Indigenous peoples as key stakeholders in decisions about gene-editing in the wild and argues that engagement activities need not only include Indigenous peoples but also should be designed, conducted, and analyzed in ways that confront longstanding power imbalances that dismiss Indigenous expertise.

The special report grew out of a Hastings Center project funded by the National Science Foundation, The complete report is available for download here.

For more information, contact:

Susan Gilbert or Mark Cardwell
communications@thehastingscenter.org
845-424-4040, ext. 244

 

Science, Policy, and Deliberation

M. Anthony Mills at AEI:

Scientific evidence is indeed vital to public policy. The pandemic has made this undeniable, if it was not already obvious enough. But science does not offer a repository of neutral evidence that arrives, ready-made, onto the political scene. On the contrary, scientific knowledge is an achievement, the result of a complex process in which the judgment of scientific experts — call it expert judgment — plays a decisive role. Utilizing such knowledge to make policy decisions is even more complex, requiring not only expert judgment but also the judgment of those non-experts — call it non-expert judgment — whose experience, knowledge, or know-how is also needed to deliberate well about the best course of action. It follows that judgment and deliberation are not secondary, lesser processes, that we must rely on when integrating scientific evidence into the policymaking process. Rather, judgment and deliberation are essential to this process, in part because they are essential to science itself. Failure to appreciate this fact risks engendering unrealistic expectations about what scientific knowledge can accomplish in practical decision-making, thus inviting not only disappointment, distrust, and skepticism, but also bad policy.

In what follows, I will make a case for this alternative account of scientific knowledge by examining the role that expert judgment plays in scientific reasoning. I will then consider what implications this account has for how we understand practical decision-making informed by scientific knowledge. I conclude by suggesting that integrating scientific evidence into public policy is by nature deliberative, a reciprocal process in which both expert and non-expert judgments must play roles, and which requires that both experts and non-experts act with prudence.

 Full paper here: "The Role of Judgment and Deliberation in Science-Based Policy," by M. Anthony Mills CSAS Working Paper 21-16

Trust in Science and Institutions During the Pandemic

 Reid Wilson at The Hill:

The American public is beginning to lose trust in political leaders and scientific institutions as the coronavirus pandemic drags into its sixth month, troubling signs that raise the prospect that millions of Americans may not take advice or get a vaccine once one becomes available.

Two new surveys show most Americans still trust leading scientists and institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but that those levels of trust are beginning to erode.

Nearly 8 in 10 Americans trust the CDC, according to a survey conducted by the COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public’s Policy Preferences Across States, a group of researchers at Northeastern University, Harvard, Rutgers and Northwestern University. That figure is down from 87 percent who said they trusted the Atlanta-based CDC in April.

A poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found 67 percent of Americans have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the CDC to provide reliable information about the coronavirus. That number has dropped 16 percentage points since April. Trust in the CDC among Republicans has dropped a whopping 30 percentage points.

Patriotism and Pandemic

At WP, William Booth interviews Lancet editor Richard Horton:

Q: In your book, you write, “The story of covid-19 in the United States is one of the strangest paradoxes of the whole pandemic. No other country in the world has the concentration of scientific skill, technical knowledge and productive capacity possessed by the U.S. It is the world’s scientific superpower bar none. And yet this colossus of science utterly failed to bring its expertise successfully to bear on the policy and politics of the nation’s response.”

A: That’s true.

Q: What happened?

A: This is hard. I love America. But it can be very parochial. I think the fact that America sees itself as the greatest country in the world means that it sees itself as impregnable. That view informs not just a response to a pandemic, but attitudes to climate change and other threats.

I don’t think many American public health scientists and government advisers read those papers we published. If they did, I don’t think that they took them seriously. I think there was a very serious miscalculation of the risk by American public health scientists.

I know Tony Fauci well, and his entire career has been forged on the fight against AIDS. He’s a brilliant scientist. He is a brave man. But something went wrong here. I wish I could give you a clear answer as to why, but I can’t. I really can’t explain it.

Polarization and Confidence in Medical Scientists

Cary Funk, Brian Kennedy and Courtney Johnson at Pew:

Among Democrats and those leaning to the Democratic Party, 53% have a great deal of confidence in medical scientists to act in the public interest, up from 37% in January 2019. But among Republicans and those who lean Republican, 31% express a great deal of confidence in medical scientists, roughly the same as in 2019 (32%). As a result, there is now a 22 percentage point difference between partisan groups when it comes to trust in medical scientists.

While a majority of U.S. adults (59%) believe social distancing measures are helping a lot to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Democrats are more likely to say this than Republicans (69% vs. 49%). And, when asked about possible reasons for the ongoing presence of new infections in the U.S., partisans diverge, particularly when it comes to the role of testing. Three-quarters of Democrats (75%) consider too little testing a major factor behind new disease cases in the U.S. compared with 37% of Republicans.

Most people believe that evidence from public health experts is influencing government policies related to the coronavirus at least a fair amount, but more think such evidence has a great deal of influence on their state’s policies (43%) than on federal policy (26%).

As with views on government handling of the coronavirus, partisans see the intersection of public health and policy through a different lens. For example, about twice as many Republicans (38%) as Democrats (17%) think federal policies to control the spread of the coronavirus are influenced a great deal by evidence from public health experts.

NIH Director Wins Templeton Prize

A release from the John Templeton Foundation:

Geneticist and physician Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, who led the Human Genome Project to its successful completion in 2003 and throughout his career has advocated for the integration of faith and reason, was announced today as the 2020 Templeton Prize Laureate.

In his scientific leadership, public speaking, and popular writing, including his bestselling 2006 book, The Language of God, Collins has demonstrated how religious faith can motivate and inspire rigorous scientific research. “This book argues that belief in God can be an entirely rational choice,” he writes in the introduction, “and that the principles of faith are, in fact, complementary with the principles of science.” In the book, he endeavors to encourage religious communities to embrace the latest discoveries of genetics and the biomedical sciences as insights to enrich and enlarge their faith.

Collins, 70, was selected as the 2020 Laureate by the Prize judges late last year, but the announcement was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

From 1993 to 2008, Collins directed the National Human Genome Research Institute, guiding the Human Genome Project in its mapping and sequencing of the three billion DNA letters that make up the human genetic instruction book.

Before joining the NIH, Collins served as professor of internal medicine and human genetics at the University of Michigan, where he was known as the “gene hunter” for his pioneering technique of “positional cloning” to pinpoint disease-related genes. His research groups have been responsible for the discovery of the genes responsible for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington’s disease, and Hutchinson-Guilford progeria syndrome, a rare form of premature aging.

These and other genetic breakthroughs have helped launch a new era of precision medicine in which researchers and providers can customize treatment programs for individual patients, and have shed new light on human well-being and the nature and possibilities of the human species.

The announcement was made online at www.templetonprize.org today by the Templeton philanthropies: the John Templeton Foundation, based in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, and by the Templeton World Charity Foundation and Templeton Religion Trust, based in Nassau, The Bahamas.

The Templeton Prize, valued at 1.1 million British pounds, is one of the world's largest annual individual awards, and honors individuals whose exemplary achievements advance Sir John Templeton’s philanthropic vision: harnessing the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind’s place and purpose within it.

In a statement prepared for the announcement, at www.templetonprize.org, Dr. Collins said: “As I write this, almost my every waking moment is consumed by the effort to find treatments and a vaccine for COVID-19. The elegant complexity of human biology constantly creates in me a sense of awe. Yet I grieve at the suffering and death I see all around, and at times I confess I am assailed by doubts about how a loving God would permit such tragedies. But then I remember that the God who hung on the cross is intimately familiar with suffering. I learn and re-learn that God never promised freedom from suffering – but rather to be “our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46).”

...
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Collins has urged faith communities to trust science while debunking various internet conspiracies, to link inevitable bad news to opportunities for hope, and to remain strong in their faith. In a recent Washington Post interview, he referenced a favorite verse from Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

“That encourages me,” said Collins, “and faith leaders can spread that kind of exaltation around in a way that I think will encourage others.”

Public Health, Federalism, and Fragmentation

Alan Greenblatt at Governing:

To some extent, public health has been a victim of its own success. Over the past century, the focus of American health care has shifted from public health — which is concerned with infectious diseases and the overall well-being of the community — to treating individuals. Nearly all the health policy energy is devoted to debating questions about how many individuals should be covered and who should pay the bill.

As a result, public health is always a low priority, until it’s the highest possible priority. Public health is lucky to receive a penny or two out of every dollar spent on health care. Before the novel coronavirus struck, funding had been cut in half over the past decade for both public health emergency preparedness and response programs at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the federal hospital preparedness program.

Throughout American history, public health has been fragmented, with first local governments and later states playing a more active role than the federal government. After nearly every modern epidemic, panels of experts have called for Washington to play a more robust role. Those recommendations typically go nowhere.

The problem during the coronavirus crisis is not so much that the federal government hasn’t taken full charge, says John Auerbach, president of the Trust for America’s Health, a nonprofit that advocates for public health. There’s always been a “division of labor” between the levels of government in responding to public health emergencies. The problem is communication between those levels.

Typically, the federal government takes the lead role in setting the medical and scientific strategy, leaving its plans largely to states and localities to carry out, each offering consistent messages. Federal, state and local responses were well-coordinated following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, the H1N1 virus, Ebola and Zika, Auerbach says.

In response to COVID-19, however, the CDC has been virtually sidelined. Its daily briefings were canceled back in March. More recently, the White House vetoed a set of detailed guidelines that the CDC prepared for states, localities and businesses to follow in opening back up. In prior crises, you didn't have states competing against each other for resources.

International Ph.D. Students in STEM

From the Congressional Research Service:

According to the National Science Foundation’s 2017 survey of STEM doctorate recipients from U.S. IHEs, 72% of foreign doctorate recipients were still in the United States 10 years after receiving their degrees. This percentage varied by country of origin; for example, STEM graduates from China (90%) and India (83%) stayed at higher rates than European students (69%). There are several avenues—both temporary and permanent—by which foreign students may remain in the United States after graduation (see “Selected Options” in the text box), but some categories have annual numerical limits (“caps”). Practical training programs that give U.S. work authorization to students to be employed in their field while enrolled in school or after graduation do not have caps and have seen a steady increase (see Figure 4). These programs also allow foreign students to remain in the United States legally while they pursue longer-term options, such as H-1B or LPR status

Science, Engineering, America, and China

Elizabeth Redden at Inside Higher Ed:

The U.S. share of global science and technology activity has shrunk in some areas even as absolute activity has continued to grow, as China and other Asian countries have invested in science and engineering education and increased their research spending.

That’s one of the main takeaways of the "State of U.S. Science and Engineering" 2020 report, published by the National Science Board Wednesday. The report has historically been published every other year, but starting with this year's edition, the NSB is transitioning its format from a single report published every two years to a series of shorter reports issued more frequently.
...
The report found that employment in science and engineering has increased more rapidly than for the workforce overall, and now accounts for 5 percent of U.S. jobs.

Women accounted for just 29 percent of the science and engineering workforce in 2017, up from 26 percent in 2003. Underrepresented minorities made up just 13 percent of the scientific workforce in 2017, up from 9 percent in 2003 but below their share of the college-educated workforce.

Foreign-born workers account for 30 percent of all individuals employed in science and engineering-related occupations.
...
Global research and development expenditures have more than tripled since 2000, growing from $722 billion in 2000 to $2.2 trillion in 2017, fueled largely by growth in China. The U.S. and China together accounted for nearly half of all research and development spending -- 25 and 23 percent, respectively -- in 2017.

In the U.S., federal spending for research and development has increased since 2000, but the share of research and development funded by the federal government -- as opposed to businesses or other entities -- declined, from 25 percent in 2000 to 22 percent in 2017. Among higher education institutions -- which perform the largest amount of basic research, of which the federal government is the primary funder -- the share of research and development funded by federal sources declined from 57 percent in 2000 to 51 percent in 2017

Replication and Studies of Ideology

Kevin Arceneaux and colleagues at Slate:

Our story starts in 2008, when a group of researchers published an article (here it is without a paywall) that found political conservatives have stronger physiological reactions to threatening images than liberals do. The article was published in Science, which is one of the most prestigious general science journals around. It’s the kind of journal that can make a career in academia.

The article was extremely influential. Arceneaux and colleagues tried to replicate the study, and could not.

We drafted a paper that reported the failed replication studies along with a more nuanced discussion about the ways in which physiology might matter for politics and sent it to Science. We did not expect Science to immediately publish the paper, but because our findings cast doubt on an influential study published in its pages, we thought the editorial team would at least send it out for peer review.

It did not. About a week later, we received a summary rejection with the explanation that the Science advisory board of academics and editorial team felt that since the publication of this article the field has moved on and that, while they concluded that we had offered a conclusive replication of the original study, it would be better suited for a less visible subfield journal.

...

Science requires us to have the courage to let our beautiful theories die public deaths at the hands of ugly facts. Indeed, our replication also failed to replicate part of a study published by one of us—Arceneaux and colleagues—which found that physiological reactions to disgusting images correlated with immigration attitudes. Our takeaway is not that the original study’s researchers did anything wrong. To the contrary, members of the original author team—Kevin Smith, John Hibbing, John Alford and Matthew Hibbing—were very supportive of the entire process, a reflection of the understanding that science requires us to go where the facts lead us. If only journals like Science were willing to lead the way.

The problem is not necessarily one of political bias, but rather an academic bias against replication studies.   It is much more exciting to announce finding X than to announce years later that finding X was not really accurate.

Global Trust in Science and Vaccines

A release from Wellcome Global Health Monitor:

The world’s biggest survey into public attitudes to health and science publishes today, revealing high overall global trust in doctors, nurses and scientists, and high confidence in vaccines.

Wellcome Global Monitor also shows, however, that half of the world’s population say they know little – if anything – about science. And almost one in five feel excluded from the benefits of science.

The survey asks more than 140,000 people, aged 15 and older, in over 140 countries, how they think and feel about health and science.

It is the first global survey of its kind and highlights questions that need to be answered to ensure science and health research benefits everyone equally, wherever they are in the world. It also reveals attitudes about science that are important to improving global health, including a complex picture of confidence in vaccines in high-income countries.

...

Key findings from Wellcome Global Monitor

• Three-quarters of the world’s population trust doctors and nurses more than anyone else for health advice.
• Globally, around eight in 10 people agree vaccines are safe, and nine in 10 people worldwide say their children have been vaccinated.
• People living in high-income countries have the lowest confidence in vaccines.
• In most parts of the world, higher confidence in health systems, governments, and scientists is a sign of high trust in vaccines – but the picture is more complicated in Europe.
• In almost every region of the world, men are significantly more likely to say they had a good level of understanding of science, compared to women.

Conducted by Gallup World Poll, the survey explores levels of trust and knowledge across science and health, revealing how this differs across ages, nationalities and genders.

For many countries – including Colombia, Nigeria, Egypt and Vietnam – the survey offers the first insights into what people think about these issues.

Wellcome Global Monitor highlights

Doctors and nurses are most trusted for health advice

• 73% of people worldwide would trust a doctor or nurse more than any other source of health advice, including family, friends, religious leaders or famous people.
• But across the world, people with the lowest household income have less confidence in hospitals and healthcare systems.

What we know about science – and how we think it benefits society

• Overall, 72% of people globally trust scientists.
• But over half (57%) of the world’s population don’t think they know much – if anything – about science.
• Almost one in five (19%) believe that science does not benefit them personally.
• Alongside learning science at school or college, confidence in key national institutions such as the government, the military and the judiciary are among the strongest factors that relate to a person’s trust in science.

...
More than three-quarters of the world’s population agree that vaccines are safe and effective

• Worldwide, 79% of people agree that vaccines are safe and 84% agree that they are effective.
• Trust in vaccines tends to be strongly linked to trust in scientists and medical professionals; people who have strong trust in scientists overall are more trusting of vaccines, and vice versa.
• Bangladesh and Rwanda have the strongest confidence in vaccines – with almost all people in both countries agreeing vaccines are safe, effective and important for children to have. Rwanda also has the highest trust in their healthcare system, at 97% – compared to a global average of 76%.
• However, around a fifth of people in Europe either disagree or are unsure of whether vaccines are safe. This is despite 86% trusting doctors and nurses and 21% showing high trust in scientists.
• The lowest confidence levels in relation to vaccines are in Western Europe where more than one in five (22%) of people disagree that vaccines are safe, and in Eastern Europe where 17% disagree that vaccines are effective.
• France has the lowest levels of trust in vaccines globally: a third (33%) of its inhabitants disagree that vaccines are safe and a tenth (10%) disagree they are important for children to have.

Most parents say their children are vaccinated – and most adults agree they are important

• 92% of parents worldwide say their children have received a vaccine to prevent them from getting childhood diseases.
• 92% of adults globally, including those who do not have children, agree vaccines are important for children to have.
• But worldwide 6% of parents say their children are unvaccinated, representing more than 188 million parents globally.
• The countries with the highest numbers of parents claiming to not vaccinate their children are China (9%), Austria (8%) and Japan (7%).

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Significant gap in what men and women say they know about science

• Men are more likely to claim greater science knowledge than women. This gender gap exists even when men and women report equal levels of science attainment.
• Globally, 49% of men worldwide say they know 'some' or 'a lot' about science, compared to 38% of women.
• The gap is biggest in Northern Europe, where 75% of men claim to know "a lot" or "some" science, compared to just 58% of women.
• It is lowest in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, which had a percentage gap of three points.

Public Opinion on Climate Change: International Perspectives

Oliver Millman and Fiona Harvey at The Guardian

The US is a hotbed of climate science denial when compared with other countries, with international polling finding a significant number of Americans do not believe human-driven climate change is occurring.

A total of 13% of Americans polled in a 23-country survey conducted by the YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project agreed with the statement that the climate is changing “but human activity is not responsible at all”. A further 5% said the climate was not changing.

Only Saudi Arabia (16%) and Indonesia (18%) had a higher proportion of people doubtful of manmade climate change.

Americans were also more likely than any other western country polled to say they did not know whether the climate was changing or people were responsible – a total of 13% said this.

But despite these views, the great majority of US citizens do accept the science of climate change, with nearly four in 10 saying human activity was at least partly responsible, potentially with other factors, and a further third taking the stronger view that human activity is the dominant cause. 

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Americans also appear unusually prone to climate-related conspiracy theories, the YouGov data suggests. A total of 17% of those polled agreed that “the idea of manmade global warming is a hoax that was invented to deceive people”.

Science Knowledge

Brian Kennedy and Meg Hefferon at Pew:

A new Pew Research Center survey finds that many Americans can answer at least some questions about science concepts – most can correctly answer a question about antibiotics overuse or the definition of an “incubation period,” for example. But other concepts are more challenging; fewer Americans can recognize a hypothesis or identify that bases are the main components of antacids.

The survey, conducted Jan. 7 to 21, 2019, takes stock of the degree to which the public shares a common understanding of science facts and processes in an era of easy access to information and sometimes-intense debate over what information is true and false.

Americans’ knowledge of specific facts connected with life sciences and earth and other physical sciences varies, of course. About eight-in-ten (79%) correctly identify that antibiotic resistance is a major concern about the overuse of antibiotics. A similar share (76%) know an incubation period is the time during which someone has an infection but is not showing symptoms.

The most challenging question in the set: What are the main components of antacids that help relieve an overly acidic stomach? About four-in-ten correctly answer bases (39%).

Russia Spread Vaccine Disinformation in the US

Jacqueline Howard at CNN:

Russia's meddling online went beyond the 2016 US presidential election and into public health, amplifying online debates about vaccines, according to a new study.

The recent research project was intended to study how social media and survey data can be used to better understand people's decision-making process around vaccines. It ended up unmasking some unexpected key players in the vaccination debate: Russian trolls.

The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health on Thursday, suggests that what appeared to be Twitter accounts run by automated bots and Russian trolls masqueraded as legitimate users engaging in online vaccine debates. The bots and trolls disseminated both pro- and anti-vaccine messages between 2014 and 2017.

The researchers started examining Russian troll accounts as part of their study after NBC News published its database of more than 200,000 tweets tied to Russian-linked accounts this year. They noticed vaccine-related tweets among the Russian troll accounts, and some tweets even used the hashtag #VaccinateUS.

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"This is consistent with a strategy of promoting discord across a range of controversial topics -- a known tactic employed by Russian troll accounts. Such strategies may undermine the public health: normalizing these debates may lead the public to question long-standing scientific consensus regarding vaccine efficacy," they wrote.