The article argues that slogans like 'trust the science' and lawn‑sign creeds function as in‑group identity markers rather than epistemic guidance. Used to project certainty and moral superiority, they can justify suppressing live hypotheses and backfire by deepening public distrust when claims later shift.
— Seeing science slogans as status signals reframes misinformation policy toward rebuilding open inquiry norms and away from performative consensus.
Reem Nadeem
2026.01.15
90% relevant
The appendix provides the survey methodology and topline items that underlie Pew’s measures of public confidence in scientists and views on science’s social effects—data that directly inform the existing claim that slogans like 'trust the science' operate as partisan/tribal identity markers rather than purely epistemic guidance (the appendix contains the questionnaire, sampling and subgroup breakdowns that make that assertion testable).
Reem Nadeem
2026.01.15
92% relevant
This article is the ATP Wave 182 methodology behind Pew’s Trust‑in‑Science reporting; the existing idea argues that slogans like 'trust the science' function as tribal markers—raw poll numbers about that sentiment rest on the exact methods reported here (sampling frame, oversamples, weighting, field dates), so the methodology is directly relevant to interpreting claims about science‑trust as partisan signaling.
Reem Nadeem
2026.01.15
72% relevant
Pew’s finding that confidence rose in 2020 and then fell and polarized supports the claim that appeals to 'trust the science' function as an identity marker; the article’s time series (April 2020 → Dec 2021 → 2026) makes the tribal signalling dynamic empirically legible.
Reem Nadeem
2026.01.15
90% relevant
The article supplies fresh, nationally representative polling evidence that 'trust in scientists' has become highly partisan: Democrats and Republicans both want U.S. scientific leadership but differ sharply on whether the U.S. is gaining or losing ground and on confidence in scientists—directly exemplifying the claim that 'trust the science' functions as a tribal marker.
Yascha Mounk
2026.01.13
64% relevant
Goldstein argues liberals avoid moral language and therefore cede emotional allegiance to illiberal rivals; this maps to the existing idea that epistemic slogans (e.g., 'trust the science') often operate as tribal identity markers rather than neutral epistemology. The conversation gives a philosophical explanation for that dynamic (actors: liberal intellectuals; mechanism: moral‑language avoidance).
2026.01.04
66% relevant
The Foreword’s call to 'limit spread' and its moral framing interact with the idea that science‑proclamations can function as tribal identity signals; the Surgeon General’s advisory both tries to restore epistemic authority and must negotiate the risk that such appeals become identity markers rather than corrective evidence.
2026.01.04
75% relevant
Gioia highlights how public trust in experts has become partisan and symbolic rather than evidentiary; this echoes the point that slogans like 'trust the science' function as tribal identity markers, and that such signaling intensifies the collapse of trans‑partisan epistemic authority.
2025.10.07
100% relevant
The authors highlight 2020–2021 dismissal of lab‑leak as 'racist' and a 'conspiracy theory,' and note 'trust the science' signage as a substitute for scientific process.