The gap between scientists and the United States public is growing, according to a recently released Pew Research Center report, and the reason for that lies with both parties.
Scientists used to be revered, their discoveries and inventions considered inviolate and causing a feeling of awe in the rest of us who reaped the changes and improvements from their findings.
But today, with a 24-hour, worldwide media, we understand that men and women are human, make mistakes, can be influenced and might be bought.
We've seen spacecrafts explode, cures kill and green energy leave businesses in the red.
We trust less because we see more, not necessarily because we rely on liberal or conservative media.
On the other side, too many of us do rely on what we hear on partisan cable channels instead of reading about and researching a topic for ourselves. We give actors more credence on the subject of childhood vaccines than on years of research. We accept sound bites from comedy news shows as facts. And we're quick to heed the word of politicians who have been bought off by campaign contributions.
Nearly every scientist (98 percent of 3,748) who answered the Pew survey, which was conducted in collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), said it was a problem -- either a major one or minor one -- that the public doesn't know much about science.
Of the four possible reasons they were given that contribute most to the public's limited knowledge, more scientists chose not enough STEM (science/technology/engineering/math) education in grades kindergarten through 12 over lack of public interest in science news, lack of media interest in developments and too few scientists communicating their findings.
Indeed, 97 percent of scientists thought the lack of STEM education was either a major or minor problem.
Whatever the reason, some of the gaps between the opinions of the public and those of scientists are chasm-like.
As in all polls, the gaps might exist because of the lack of information given the respondent, especially the public.
Only 37 percent of the public, for instance, believes it's safe to eat genetically modified food, while 88 percent of scientists believe it's OK. Scientists, of course, create the food and understand it's just altering a food's genetic makeup to make it resistant to certain problems. The public hears "genetically modified" and thinks of cucumbers with arms and legs.
Similarly, only 28 percent of the public believes it's safe to eat foods grown with pesticides, while 68 percent of scientists say it's all right. Again, scientists have done the testing and experimentation. But the public hears "pesticides" and believes Roundup or d-Con has been added directly to its can of diced tomatoes.
The 37-point gap between scientists and the public on whether or not climate change is mostly due to human activity is another matter.
The survey found 87 percent of scientists -- not the nearly 100 percent cited by most advocates -- believe that theory, while only 50 percent of the public accepts it. Of those in the public who don't, 23 percent believe climate change is due to natural patterns, and 25 percent don't believe there is solid evidence of climate change.
We believe public skepticism that climate change is mostly due to human activity is rooted in several things. Among them are that the dire predictions scientists have made on the subject for more than two decades haven't occurred, that some scientists have been exposed for having altered data to promote their beliefs, that money is poured into laboratories and research institutions to achieve a one-sided conclusion, and that world climate has been changing for thousands of years without man's help and is continuing to do so.
The Pew report indicates, in general, there is a less positive view by the public of science and its contribution to society than there was five years ago.
Fewer people (by a whopping 11 percent) see U.S. scientific contributions as the best in the world, more people (by 5 percent) say science has made it more difficult for people, and more people say science has a mostly negative impact on the quality of health care (by 8 percent), food (by 10 percent) and the environment (by 8 percent) than they did five years ago.
Scientists, similarly, are slightly less positive about the state of their field and their specialty than they were five years ago, according to the survey.
The U.S. has a rich heritage of scientific achievements and should perpetuate that by making sure our students have a better STEM education. But we shouldn't lose our healthy dose of skepticism, either. Indeed, scientists should appreciate that skepticism since the scientific method begins with questioning.