国家地理:为了结束这场流行病 我们必须相信科学(10)（在线收听）

Snow's realization came years before the confirmation of germ theory, which explains the existence of pathogens. He didn't understand how cholera was transmitted in the water, simply that patterns of disease indicated it was. Learning about the step-by-step progression of historical discoveries will, Andrews hopes, put in context the fits and starts of contemporary scientists' attempts to understand COVID-19.

在斯诺提出论点的数年后，解释病原体存在的菌原论才得到证实。斯诺并不清楚霍乱是如何在水中传播的，只是疾病的模式显示如此。安德鲁斯盼望，学习历史发现的逐步进展，可以让人将当代科学家尝试了解COVID-19时进时退的过程，放到这类发现的脉络中来看。

Maybe our unfiltered view will turn out to be a good thing. After all, the best way to build trust in science is by showing all of its hypothesis testing and hypothesis tweaking—maddening to watch while we're anxiously awaiting answers to a global plague, but in the end the only way toward results that will allow us to move on with our lives.

或许我们能直接看到这个过程到头来是一件好事。毕竟，要建立对科学的信任，最好的方式是展示它所有的假设检定和假设调整--在我们焦急等待关于这场全球瘟疫的答案时，这一切看着简直令人发狂，但最终却是唯一的途径，通往能让生活回归正常的结果。

Surveys show the general public is less dismayed by watching scientists in action than I had feared. Since 2015, the Pew Research Center has tracked what Americans think about science, and it has steadily become more positive, including in a poll conducted in April and May 2020 as the coronavirus was cresting and many of those surveyed were under lockdown.

调查显示，一般大众在看着科学家行动时，并不如我所担心的那么沮丧。自2015年起，皮尤研究中心就持续追踪美国人对科学的看法，结果显示有越来越正面的趋势，其中包括今年4、5月做的一项民意调查，当时COVID-19疫情正达到高峰，许多受访者都因封城而待在家里。

In January 2019, the last survey before the pandemic, respondents were already inclined to trust scientists, with 86 percent saying they had a "great deal" or a "fair amount" of confidence that scientists had the public interest at heart. That level of trust inched up to 87 percent amid the pandemic.

2019年1月，在全球大流行开始前的最后一次调查中，受访者已倾向信任科学家，86%的人说他们“非常”或“十分”相信科学家把公共利益放在心上。大流行期间，这个信任程度微幅上升至87%。

But when I called Cary Funk, the director of science and society research at Pew, to talk about these encouraging results, she told me not to get ahead of myself, that the story is a bit more complicated. According to Funk, the surveys show a deep partisan divide in how much scientists are trusted. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents still seem reluctant to embrace science wholeheartedly. They are about half as likely as Democrats to express a "great deal" of trust in scientists—a proportion that has stayed stubbornly low at 27 percent.

但当我打电话给皮尤的科学与社会研究部主任凯丽·冯克，谈谈这些令人鼓舞的调查结果时，她告诉我别高兴得太早，事情要更复杂一些。根据冯克的说法，调查显示不同党派对科学家信任的程度有很大的分歧。共和党似乎仍不愿全心全意接纳科学。他们表达“非常”相信科学家的比例约为民主党支持者的一半--固守在27%的低比例。