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.