The Institute of Contemporary Media (MOMRI) and the Nauka TV channel present the results of the annual survey. Since 2016, we have been monitoring what scares Russians about scientific progress, what scientific discoveries cause a feeling of alarm.
Over the past two years, the number of those who are afraid of scientific discoveries in the field of genetic engineering has doubled: in December 2018, 12% of respondents already expressed their anxiety in connection with experiments on cloning living beings and, in particular, humans, interference with human and animal DNA, genetic modification of food products, the development of genetic engineering in general. In 2016, such responses were 6%.
The first place is still occupied by fears related to weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical, biological) - the development of science in this area scares 14% of respondents. The respondents are afraid of the invention and use of new types of weapons, their use for military purposes. However, every year the responses related to weapons of mass destruction are decreasing: 19% in 2016, 17% in 2017.
The number of those who are worried about the development of artificial intelligence, neural networks, computerization and robotization of everyday life remained unchanged over the year: 11% of respondents in both 2017 and 2018.
Fear of experiments with the hadron collider is experienced by 2% of the respondents (more often men); this number also remained unchanged from the previous year.
There were slightly fewer responses about threats from space (in 2017, there were more than 2% of such responses - fear of extraterrestrial civilizations, asteroids, discoveries of new celestial bodies). For this position, the indicator is the highest in the group "60+": it is the elderly who are most worried about space threats.
In two years, the number of those who do not care about any scientific discoveries decreased by 3 percentage points - from 40% in December 2016 to 37% in December 2018. At the same time, more and more respondents find it difficult to specify their fears, cannot name what exactly worries them (in 2016, 13% of respondents found it difficult to answer, in 2018 - 19%). The percentage of those who named specific fears and concerns has slightly decreased in two years - from 47 to 44%.
Fears depend on age. With increasing age, there is an increase in the number of respondents who have fears of scientific discoveries. At the same time, among young people such fears are more experienced by men, while in the older age group the share of women is increasing.
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Young people are most frightened by experiments with artificial intelligence, the development of information technology, and the replacement of human resources with robots.
In older age groups, fears of the development of genetic engineering (in the 45-59 age group) and weapons of mass destruction (in the 60+ group) are leading.
The research was carried out by the Modern Media Research Institute (MOMRI) together with the Nauka TV channel on December 17-22, 2018 among residents of Russia aged 18 and over. For comparison, the data of a similar survey conducted in 2017 from December 20 to 26, as well as in the same period in 2016 are given. Residents of Russian cities with a population of over 100 thousand people took part in the polls. The survey was conducted by the telephone interview method (CATI) on a random stratified sample. 1600 people were interviewed every year. The sampling error does not exceed 2.5%.
