Traditionally, people have turned to science for certainty and confirmation. But in a sea of social media and allegations of fake news, it has become increasingly harder for people to distinguish fact from fiction. As a result, science’s authoritative place in society is being questioned more and more. This has the ability to erode the value and importance of science and technology in general.

One way to tackle this is to monitor people’s understanding of the scientific areas that are trending to establish what their understanding of science is.

We set out to measure South Africa’s understanding of science by conducting a survey looking at how much people know about different areas of science, what their attitudes are, what interests them and how they get their information.

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