The Conversation: The New Zealand Government Trusts Scientists The Most, The United States Government The Least

COMMENTARY:

In mid-November, South Dakota emergency room nurse Jodi Doering tweeted her experience caring for dying patients.

Many, he said, were denying the existence of COVID-19 until their last breath.

His last words when he died are “this can’t be happening, it’s not real.” And when they should be… FaceTiming with their families, they are filled with anger and hatred

Five months earlier, a 30-year-old man died of COVID-19 at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. His last words to his nurse:

I think I made a mistake. I thought this was a hoax, but it is not.

The medical director of the hospital reported that the patient became infected at a party with other skeptics, all thinking that the virus was “fake news.”

Trust varies by location

That Texas party was undoubtedly hosted by cell phone, and friends drove their cars there. Both pieces of technology have far more computer processing and storage capacity than the Apollo 11 lunar landing in 1969 had.

Ironically, recent advances in science and technology helped people come together to express their doubts about scientific advice.

But it’s not just people who have downplayed the scientific advice and warnings about the virus.

Scientists around the world often feel that governments do not pay enough attention to scientific advice. That was the opinion of about half of the 25,307 researchers surveyed by Frontiers, a Swiss publisher of scientific journals, in May and June.

New Zealand accepts advice, USA not so much

The survey asked international scientists whether lawmakers in their country had used scientific advice to inform their COVID strategy.

In general, scientists divided 50:50 into how much, or how little, their government had considered scientific advice.

Opinions varied widely between countries. In New Zealand, almost 80% were satisfied with the attention their government paid to scientific advice. In the United States, less than 20% of scientists thought the same about their government.

Where policy makers take scientific advice into account

An obvious factor in the attitudes of scientists is the inclination that some politicians in various parts of the world have to denigrate experts.

Outgoing US President Donald Trump often dismisses anything he disagrees with as “fake news.”

In Britain, in the 2016 Brexit referendum, a number of economists argued that Brexit would damage the UK economy. Noted Brexit supporter and conservative politician Michael Gove ignored them, saying, “People in this country are fed up with experts.”

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And recently in Australia, the Grattan Institute, an independent think tank, issued a Flame Out report, arguing that there is a limited future need for natural gas.

A spokesman for Energy Minister Angus Taylor dismissed the report, saying its findings on the manufacturing sector did not reflect the views of the industry itself.

Who needs experts when they can trust the industry?

Less equitable societies trust less

But there are other, less obvious factors that underlie the attention that countries and governments have paid to expert advice.

A significant one is the level of inequality in the country. This graph maps the Frontiers survey results to levels of income inequality.

Inequality is measured by the standard Gini coefficient, which ranges from 0.0 (everyone has the same income) to 1.0 (one person has all the income in a country).

Proportion of scientists who say the government accepted scientific advice on COVID

The line through the diamonds is a trend line. It shows that, on average, trust in science decreases as inequality increases.

On average, a one percentage point increase in inequality is associated with a 1.5 percentage point decrease in listening to scientists.

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett hint at why this might be the case in their 2009 book The Spirit Level, noting that

inequality affects the way you view those around you … people from less egalitarian societies are less likely to trust each other. “

In such countries, beliefs that it is a “dog eat dog” world, or that “everyone cares for themselves” seems to be more prevalent.

New York Times columnist David Brooks believes that collapsing levels of trust are devastating America. In your opinion

an anti-institutional bias has manifested itself as hatred for the government; unwillingness to give in to experience, authority, and basic science; and the reluctance to fund the civic infrastructure of society, such as a decent public health system.

Global efforts to combat the coronavirus have been hampered by communities questioning the severity, or even the existence, of the virus.

Australia is still quite confident. Announcing the restrictions earlier this year, Victorian Prime Minister Dan Andrews said “everyone will pay a price” if Victorians fail to do their part and act on the advice of experts.

So far we have, impressively; and in Sydney too. But trust is fragile.

Inequality is a corrosive solvent.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.