Notes on attitudes to science – let us investigate the ‘longue durée’ in comparison

In these notes on attitudes to science we consider three questions. Firstly, how did monitoring of public attitudes to science emerge from a malaise of the 1970s?  France and the US were the first to do so. While the French focussed on attitudes, the Americans focussed on science literacy and trust in institutions. Secondly, what does the ‘longue-duree’ picture show? France shows increasing ambivalence about science and technology, and a shift from a binary to a triadic image of science. In the US, the last 50 years bring the polarisation of attitudes along partisan lines. This suggests that we need to drop the Miller-Almond model and go back to Merton: attitudes driving knowledge is now more likely than knowledge driving attitudes. Finally, what is the value of continued monitoring of public opinion about science, and what are the institutional arrangements for doing so? The Eurobarometer series since 1975 is thereby in focus, being itself an indicator of institutional attention to attitudes to science.