Public trust in science

It is widely recognized that the public benefits from well-placed trust in science. While expert advice may be wrong at times, nonexperts, on balance, benefit from following scientific experts rather than ignoring them. In short, the public needs science. Numerous professional codes such as the 2017 European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, scientific reports (e.g., American Association of Arts and Science. 2014. Public Trust in Vaccines: Defining a Research Agenda. https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/publication/downloads/publicTrustVaccines.pdf) and academic scholarship emphasize the importance of public trust in science and recommend a variety of ways to promote it.1 Less attention, however, is given to the converse relation between science and the public, namely how much science needs the public. This article examines this two-way relationship by considering the role of trust in science, both within scientific communities and between science and the public, where and how public mistrust arises, and what can be done to improve public trust in science.