These findings do not support the conclusion of a crisis of public trust in science. However, available data do support the conclusion of a crisis of conservative trust in science. Reaction to scientific findings is highly polarized, with Republican voters and self-identified conservatives far more likely than Democrats and self-identified liberals to reject consensus scientific findings, particularly in the areas of climate change and COVID-19 response. In 2020, 88 percent of Democrats agreed with scientific findings that climate change was a major threat to the well-being of the United States, but only 31 percent of Republicans thought so.6 Similarly, 94 percent of Democrats believe that the documented increase in global temperature is due to human activities (again, consistent with the scientific consensus), but only 69 percent of Republicans do. When it comes to the question of whether the globe is warming at all, the proportion of Republicans accepting that conclusion has decreased since 2000, from about 75 percent to only about 55 percent, even as scientists have declared the fact of global warming to be “unequivocal.”7 These patterns cannot be linked in any obvious way to who holds the presidency. Democratic acceptance of climate science and concern about climate change increased during both the Obama and Trump administrations, but Republican views were largely unchanged until 2019, when extreme weather events-including the largest fire in California history-may have shifted some people's views.8
There is a similar pattern in reactions to COVID-19. Most Democrats support mask-wearing; most Republicans do not.9 Almost all Democrats are or plan to be vaccinated; many Republicans are not vaccinated and do not plan to be. In counties that Joe Biden won in the 2020 presidential election, 52.8 percent of people were fully vaccinated by September 2021, but in counties that went to Donald Trump, the rate was 39.9 percent.10 At that time, nearly half of all unvaccinated people identified as Republicans or Republican-leaning. Republican confidence in science dropped during the Trump administration: a 2021 Pew survey found a striking decline in Republican confidence that “science has largely had a positive effect on society,” from 70 percent in January 2019 to 54 percent in March 2021, with no similar decline among Democrats.11
These patterns cannot be attributed to scientific illiteracy. Researchers have found that scientific literacy and educational attainment do not predict attitudes related to specific science controversies. In general, higher education correlates with positive perceptions of science, yet highly educated Republicans are more likely than less educated ones to reject climate science or think that scientists
I think that trying to convince Twiz that climate change is a result of human activity is like trying to convince a Trump supporter that Trump is a mentally ill, corrupt person with obvious symptoms of dementia and psychopathy. He certainly seems to have a lot in common with a Trump supporter. Did anyone notice that Trump kept mixing up Pelosi with Haley at his recent rally? Yeah. No symptoms of cognitive decline there, not at all. 
