The attack on science in the United States has been especially violent in the fields where ideology has been detected. The main climate monitoring agency, NOAA, has banned scientists from working on international reports on global warming and canceled grants to related research projects. In this context in which some elites and interest groups frequently reject the scientific value in this area, in Spain, only 46% of the population believes that science will be able to stop climate change in the next 25 years. This is revealed in the second installment of the from the BBVA Foundation, which is published this Saturday.
The percentage is significantly lower than those who trust in the ability of science to cure serious diseases. According to the foundation, 88% of Spaniards believe that research will make it possible and 89% trust that they will be able to combat it.
Expectations are high when it comes to health and biomedicine, the report highlights. 82% believe it is likely that genetic modification will eliminate severe pathologies and more than half consider it possible 20 years longer than the current average (55%).
However, when asked if science can help reduce poverty, the perspective changes: only 28% of those surveyed consider that the reduction of this social problem depends exclusively on science.
The study is based on two telephone surveys carried out in November 2025 with more than 4,000 people over 18 years of age. This also details that only 12% of Spanish society considers the support of public powers for scientific knowledge to be high and four out of ten believe that left-wing governments are more committed to this cause, compared to two out of ten who point to those on the right.
The technological horizons
Regarding technological innovations, 78% of those surveyed consider that it will be possible to build intelligent machines and programs capable of acting autonomously. That percentage drops to 50% when the complete replacement of people by .
Our future in space has also been part of the conversation. According to the report, the possibility of other places in outer space generates moderate expectations (45%).
Trust in science is high
Science enjoys a solid prestige in Spanish society, the study states, and claims of distrust that were popular in the second half of the 1960s are rejected. Such as its “dehumanizing” effect, promoting the “arrogance or arrogance” of experts, or “destruction of nature.”
On the contrary, 62% agree that science is “the most truthful knowledge we have” and a large majority associate it with positive values such as progress, health, well-being, rationality and objectivity.
