Democratic, Republican Confidence in Science Diverges

Sixty-four percent of U.S. adults say they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in science, compared with 70% when Gallup last measured it more than four decades ago. The modest decline overall obscures more significant changes among political partisans. Republicans today are much less likely than […] Read more »

How White Evangelicals’ Vaccine Refusal Could Prolong the Pandemic

… The deeply held spiritual convictions or counterfactual arguments may vary. But across white evangelical America, reasons not to get vaccinated have spread as quickly as the virus that public health officials are hoping to overcome through herd immunity. The opposition is rooted in a mix of religious faith and […] Read more »

Trump Voters Want COVID Vaccine Information from Doctors, Not Politicians

When deciding whether to get a COVID vaccine, Republicans who voted for President Trump will be far more influenced by their doctors and family members than any politician, including Trump, according to a new national poll released today by the de Beaumont Foundation. When asked if they’d be more likely […] Read more »

How to Debunk Misinformation about COVID, Vaccines and Masks

I have spent much of my career studying ways to blunt the effects of disinformation and help the public make sense of the complexities of politics and science. When my colleagues and I probed the relation between the consumption of misinformation and the embrace, or dismissal, of protective behaviors that […] Read more »