Science Issues

Summary of Findings An overwhelming majority of the public supports laws that give patients the right to decide whether they want to be kept alive through medical treatment. And fully 70% say there are circumstances when patients should be allowed to die, while just 22% believe that doctors and nurses should always do everything possible […]

Key West, Florida Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Florida, in December 2005 for the Pew Forum’s biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life. Conference speaker Edward J. Larson, Talmadge Chair of Law and Russell Professor of American History at the University of Georgia, discussed the history of […]

Almost 150 years after Charles Darwin published his groundbreaking theory on the origins of life, Americans are still fighting over evolution. If anything, the controversy is growing in both size and intensity. Recent polls indicate that challenges to Darwinian evolution have substantial support among the American people. According to a July 2005 survey sponsored by […]

Summary of Findings A summer’s worth of bad news, culminating with Hurricane Katrina, has taken a toll on the public’s mood, particularly when it comes to views of the economy and energy costs. The public’s economic expectations, while hardly robust in the spring, have grown much more negative. Nearly four-in-ten (37%) think economic conditions will […]

Many parents go online to get information about their kids' upcoming surgical procedures.

Summary of Findings Abortion has dominated the early skirmishing over President Bush’s nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. But the public takes a more expansive view of the court’s agenda. Indeed, about as many Americans rate the rights of detained terrorist suspects as a very important issue for the Supreme Court as say […]

Millions of Americans will welcome new access to industrial-strength health information -- but they'll miss the articles from one major journal.

Coming on the heels of last week’s announcement that South Korean scientists had cloned a human embryo, the U.S. House is nearing a vote on expanding federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. President Bush has threatened to veto the legislation if it passes. Surveys last year by the Pew Research Center for the People […]

Eight in ten internet users have looked online for information on at least one of 16 health topics, with increased interest since 2002 in diet, fitness, drugs, health insurance, experimental treatments, and particular doctors and hospitals.

The Kansas State Board of Education has begun hearings on whether to change the way that biology is taught in public schools to include the teaching of intelligent design, a contrary theory to that of evolution and natural selection.