Via Prof. J. P. Sheerin.
First, participants were asked to estimate what percentage of the federal budget was spent on scientific research. Once they’d guessed, half of the participants were told the actual amount that the federal government allocates for nondefense spending on research and development. In 2014, that figure was 1.6 percent of the budget, or about $67 billion. Finally, all the participants were asked if federal spending on science should be increased, decreased or kept the same.
The majority of participants had no idea how much money the government spends on science, and wildly overestimated the actual amount. About half of the respondents estimated federal spending for research at somewhere between 5 and 20 percent of the budget. A quarter of participants estimated that figure was 20 percent of the budget — one very hefty chunk of change. The last 25 percent of respondents estimated that 1 to 2 percent of federal spending went to science.
When participants received no information about how much the United States spent on research, only about 40 percent of them supported more funding. But when they were confronted with the real numbers, support for more funding leapt from 40 to 60 percent.
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/scicurious/most-americans-science-and-are-willing-pay-it
Up here in rural Wisconsin, where the wolf has returned to pretty much full strength, after more than a century of ignorant extirpation, the elk has made a curious comeback. Every time I hear a certain species of Liberal making Ignorant Noises about the Country Bumpkin Pickup Truck Driver and his Gun Nuttery, I quietly respond: "It's those guys with the gun racks in their pickup trucks who saved the wolf and a good many of the migratory bird species. They're hunters. They care about the land because they know it. And I'm not sure you understand them quite as well as you think you do."
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