Alternative energy is weighing heavily on voters’ minds. Fifty-three percent of all likely US voters rank developing alternative energy as a top US spending priority, second only to paying down the federal deficit. This is about twice the number of voters that think the government is not spending enough on national defense or space exploration. Funding science and math education came in fourth, just behind investing in roads and bridges, and scientific research was fifth.
The survey reveals deep concerns among Americans about their country’s ability to maintain leadership in science. Just forty-two percent of likely voters believe the United States will remain the world leader in science just eight years from now, and eighty-five percent are concerned that an uncertain future for science funding in the US will cause scientists to leave their jobs or move to other countries.
The poll was conducted online by JZ Analytics (John Zogby, Senior Analyst) in partnership with Research!America and ScienceDebate.org. There were 1005 respondents for a margin of error of +/- 3.2%.
Interestingly, the second graph shows that it is Republican voters that are most vehemently against the corruption of uncomfortable scientific messages – yet it is the party that is most guilty of doing exactly that, regarding climate change.
A couple of reasons could be that the Party is not listening to grass roots voters’ opinions in deference to the FF lobby, or it is mass subconscious hypocrisy!
Why subconcious?
I was being generous – never attribute to malice that which can be explained by ignorance…
Malice? Ignorance? I have a horrible thought that part of that difference could come from the conspiracy types.
They really believe that there are all sorts of things that”we’re not being told the whole story” about. So being in favour of not holding back or altering reports would fit right in with that mindset.
“The survey reveals deep concerns among Americans about their country’s ability to maintain leadership in science.”
Such deep concerns can be addressed by promoting theKhan Academy.