Public Perceptions of Who Counts as a Scientist for Controversial Science

Published In

Public Understanding Of Science

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-2019

Subjects

Climatic changes, Women in science -- Social aspects, Sex discrimination in science, Stereotypes

Abstract

In an era where expertise is increasingly critiqued, this study draws from the research on expertise and scientist stereotyping to explore who the public considers to be a scientist in the context of media coverage about climate change and genetically modified organisms. Using survey data from the United States, we find that political ideology and science knowledge affect who the US public believes is a scientist in these domains. Our results suggest important differences in the role of science media attention and science media selection in the publics "scientist" labeling. In addition, we replicate previous work and find that compared to other people who work in science, those with PhDs in Biology and Chemistry are most commonly seen as scientists.

Rights

© The Author(s) 2019

DOI

10.1177/0963662519856768

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/29554

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