Did the disaster change the public attitudes for science and technology?: evidence from Japan

This paper aims to explain public attitudes for science & technology (S&T) using data from original survey designed rigorously. Confidence in S&T largely was shaken after great earthquake and nuclear accident in Japan on March 11, 2011. It is a significant topic to explore public attitudes for S&T “based on evidences” for redesigning what S&T should become. Therefore, we conducted original survey in Japan in September 2011. Final sample was 2,703. We asked them how they think about S&T through some questions. Based on this data, we empirically approach public attitudes for S&T. Surprisingly, many people are interested in S&T (62.6%) and also expect that S&T improve nation's life (65.7%) regardless of such earthquake and nuclear accident. In addition, we could find that differences for these responses depend on nation's background (age, sex, income, experience of science course, residence in stricken area) by simple linear regression analysis.