8 Comments
User's avatar
Gym+Fritz's avatar

Unlike medicine and science, politics is a direct reflection / distillation of human nature. The same tactics that work in the field of medicine will not make politicians trustworthy. If we really want to clean up politics, we need to take a hard look at political parties, what they do and how they operate - and then either change or eliminate them. The parties, for the most part, represent the worst elements of human nature (greed, self-interest, the lust for power, ends justify means, duplicity). To say that they are a necessary evil is a cop-out. You can’t fix politics without fixing parties. When it comes to government and politics, less is more.

Tim's avatar

Accountability. Responsibility. Consequences. All severely lacking in politics and government especially; but in general throughout.

Arturo Macias's avatar

Polítics, as Law is an adversarial job. There is no “win win”, and zero sum games lead to low trust.

Matthew Citriglia FKA MS's avatar

When was this survey taken? Pre or post COVID? Post COVID the medical and science community have taken a huge hit to their credibility. They still might be more credible than politicians, but should not be at the top.

They traded science and the Hippocratic oath for political activism and SM likes. They have a lot of work to do to earn that credibility back. This begins with the admission that they were so very wrong, which they are refusing to acknowledge.

John Halpin's avatar

Trust went up in 2021 down a bit in 2022 and has been pretty steady since. Trust in doctors is actually higher than it was pre-COVID. There’s a time series chart in their report. But yes every profession takes a reputation hit when politics enters the fray. Politics kills everything.

helieo's avatar

Doctors and researchers are humans and they are prone to the same weaknesses as everybody else. Of course, their actions should be aided and guided by the scientific method, but, alas, it is often not. Read Dr Vinay Prasad and Research translation on Substack. It is eye opening.

Matt Heath's avatar

Pollsters have lost significant credibility during the Age of Trump. For that group to be positive and Lawyers to be break even bring the poll results into question.

I'm not sure the general expert class (including doctors and scientists after Covid exposed them) creditability can recover.

John Halpin's avatar

This is across 31 countries—not all have the same crazy politics as the U.S.