Australians think doctors, scientists and farmers contribute the most to society and believe almost equally that priests, politicians and journalists are a detriment to our wellbeing.
But it's farmers, factory workers and tradies who do the most for us and get the least recognition for their work.
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The Australian National University released the Australian Beliefs and Attitudes Towards Science report earlier this week. It showed Australians have a positive attitude towards science, but we have some interesting conflicts about the benefits scientists bring to our lives.
Most of us recognise that while some professions "contribute a lot to the wellbeing of society" they are not always viewed as prestigious. It's not surprising that while many people view doctors as more respected than tradespeople they also recognise both give a lot to society.
![Scientists, doctors and farmers are believed to contribute the most to society, a survey has found.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170828230226im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/y/4/p/c/6/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gy4pcu.png/1503876510034.jpg)
Where it gets interesting is in the correlations, which measure how likely it is that someone who thinks a profession contributes a lot will also see it as prestigious.
Scientists, tradespeople and farmers had the lowest correlation, so people who think they contribute a lot don't believe they are respected for that contribution.
Conversely, people who think science is a prestigious profession don't necessarily think it does a lot for society.
Priests, military personnel and journalists were at the other end of the scale, so the few people who believe priests and journalists are valuable also think of them as prestigious professions.
People who felt they did not contribute much were more likely to rate them low on prestige as well.
Our attitudes to scientific progress are also conflicted. Almost 90 per cent of Australians think science has made our lives healthier, easier and more comfortable. We are confident science will find a cure for cancer and help us eliminate global poverty. And most of us believe the benefits of science far outweigh any harmful effects it may have.
Despite this, nearly half of us also think scientific advancement is happening too fast and will continue to do so. And this is from a cohort of people who believe they are relatively well informed about science and regularly use some form of science or technology in their everyday work.
Even if we are worried about the pace of change, Australian have more positive attitudes to science than Americans. Some 85 per cent of us think children should be vaccinated, compared with 68 per cent of Americans. And 80 per cent of Australians and only 68 per cent of Americans think there is solid scientific evidence for climate change.
Americans are three times as likely as Australians to support fracking but both populations are split almost evenly on our opposition to using animals in research, support for nuclear energy, and releasing drugs before the completion of clinical trials.
It is worth noting there may be some self-selection bias in the results of the ABATS report. The data comes from a survey of about 1200 people described as "typical Australians". People who responded to the survey, however, were younger and more likely to have a university education in a STEM field than the general population.
While this might skew the results slightly, it reinforces the finding that even young people, highly educated in science, are still concerned about the pace of change and the effect it will have on their lives.
Maybe all this just means we need science to take a break, have a cup of tea and let us all catch our breath. But when the break is over we definitely want it to go back to finding a cure for cancer, fixing climate change and making better dishwashers.