--- title: American's Confidence in Scientists Is Actually Rising description: Confidence in scientists has actually risen since 2016, according to new Pew Research. 86% of Americans have confidence in scientists. canonical: https://time.com/5641358/confidence-in-scientists-pew/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-08-02T14:00:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:56:48.096Z article:section: Health og:title: Confidence in Scientists Has Actually Risen Since 2016, New Research Says og:description: Despite what it may feel like og:url: https://time.com/5641358/confidence-in-scientists-pew/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt40b5996f536f73a4/698a00bf656a3f3832bd8ab7/confidence-in-scientists.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2041 og:image:height: 1148 og:image:alt: Scientist's gloves and lab coat og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Confidence in Scientists Has Actually Risen Since 2016, New Research Says twitter:description: Despite what it may feel like twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt40b5996f536f73a4/698a00bf656a3f3832bd8ab7/confidence-in-scientists.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Confidence in Scientists Has Actually Risen Since 2016 in the U.S., According to New Research > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Aug 2, 2019 2:00 PM UTC  Protective gloves tossed over chair with lab coat in a biomedical research laboratory Protective gloves tossed over chair with lab coat in a biomedical research laboratoryGetty Images  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Aug 2, 2019 2:00 PM UTC It can often feel like trust in science is a casualty of the “fake news” era. Skepticism of well-established concepts like [vaccine safety](https://time.com/5175704/andrew-wakefield-vaccine-autism/) and [climate change](https://time.com/4712153/climate-change-deniers-donald-trump-epa-global-warming/) is widespread today, with consequences including an [unprecedented measles outbreak in the U.S.](https://time.com/5598462/measles-cases-uptick-cdc/) and an [ever-warming environment](https://time.com/5627355/climate-change-heat-waves/). It may be surprising, then, that a new, nationally representative survey of 4,500 adults from the Pew Research Center shows that confidence in scientists is on the upswing. In 2019, 86% of Americans said they had at least a fair amount of confidence that scientists are acting in the public’s best interests. That’s up from 76% in 2016, and beats out reported confidence in elected officials, religious leaders and the media, according to Pew.  “It’s striking to see these findings,” says Cary Funk, Pew’s director of science and society research. “Generally, we would have expected stability.” [Prior Pew research](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/03/22/public-confidence-in-scientists-has-remained-stable-for-decades/) that was based on a slightly different survey question—do you have “a great deal of confidence in the people running” various institutions, including scientific institutions—showed that trust has been more or less steady since the 1970s. Despite the gains, Funk notes that only 35% of respondents reported a “great deal” of confidence in scientists in 2019\. Even still, that’s second only to the military in terms of full support, and up from 21% in 2016, the new data show. Democrats were more likely than Republicans to report confidence in both scientists and their objectivity, and to say that scientists should be involved in policy matters. Americans also reported more trust in the types of scientists with whom they interact regularly—such as dietitians and medical doctors—than in research scientists. People who said they had a good amount of scientific knowledge also tended to report higher trust in scientists. “Science is a vast enterprise, and what we had seen before is that people’s views about science and scientists can vary,” Funk says. The report also dug into sources of mistrust in the scientific community. Many respondents expressed concerns about scientists’ conflicts of interest, misconduct, transparency and accountability for mistakes. Better access to original data, independent review of findings and separation between industry and research could boost the public’s trust in science, according to survey responses. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5641358/confidence-in-scientists-pew/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5641358/confidence-in-scientists-pew/"},"headline":"Confidence in Scientists Has Actually Risen Since 2016 in the U.S., According to New Research","datePublished":"2019-08-02T14:00:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:56:48.096Z","description":"Despite what it may feel like","url":"https://time.com/5641358/confidence-in-scientists-pew/","keywords":["Research","embargoed study"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt40b5996f536f73a4/698a00bf656a3f3832bd8ab7/confidence-in-scientists.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jamie Ducharme","jobTitle":"Ducharme is a contributor to TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt40b5996f536f73a4/698a00bf656a3f3832bd8ab7/confidence-in-scientists.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Scientist's gloves and lab coat","caption":"Scientist's gloves and lab coat","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5641358/confidence-in-scientists-pew/","name":"Confidence in Scientists Has Actually Risen Since 2016 in the U.S., According to New Research"}}]}] ```