One of the key trends in public opinion over the past few decades has been a growing divide among Republicans and Democrats into ideologically uniform “silos.” A larger share of the American public expresses issue positions that are either consistently liberal or conservative today than did so two decades ago, and there is more alignment between ideological orientation and party leanings.1

Against this broader backdrop, some have come to worry that many – if not all – the issues connected to science are viewed by the public through a political lens. However, the Pew Research Center finds in a new analysis of public opinion on a broad set of science-related topics that the role of party and ideological differences is not uniform. Americans’ political leanings are a strong factor in their views about issues such as climate change and energy policy, but much less of a factor when it comes to issues such as food safety, space travel and biomedicine. At the same time, there are factors other than political party and ideology that shape the public’s often-complex views on science matters. For instance there are notable issues on which racial and generational differences are pronounced, separate and apart from politics.