If you’ve ever dipped a toe into the toxic water of a comments section, these numbers aren’t particularly surprising. For every science article published online, there’s someone ready to jump in and call it pseudoscience. (Michael Shermer in Scientific American has written that “the term ‘pseudoscience’ is subject to adjectival abuse against any claim one happens to dislike for any reason.”) But the numbers also show that most people trust and value science in a general sense, they just aren’t aligned with it so much on these specific issues.

There’s certainly room for debate in science, and the process of answering a question almost always extends beyond the scope of a single study. The problem is that evidence can’t be refuted by just saying “no,” but facts often have little bearing on how someone feels. That climate change is real (and caused by humans), and that vaccines are safe, are two of the most evidence-heavy, backed-up statements we have in modern science. Whether people believe them may have nothing to do with whether they trust scientists or not.

“There is this really strong conventional wisdom that the U.S. is experiencing some kind of creeping anti-science sensibility in the public, and this explains why we have conflicts over things like climate change or evolution,” says Dan Kahan, a law and psychology professor at Yale Law School. “It’s a mistake to think that has to do with disagreement about the authority and value of science in our society.”

The Pew numbers show the public’s support for science, he says, even though the commentary in the report emphasizes that the percentage of people who think science has a positive effect on society decreased slightly from the last time Pew did this survey in 2009. Kahan thinks that focus is playing into the narrative of distrust.

“It’s almost as if they don’t want to pop the conventional wisdom balloon with the needle of their own data,” he says, adding, “If we’re going to get really anxious that 4 percent less of the public thinks science is the greatest thing since sliced bread, what are we doing with the fact that [13 percent of scientists don’t think humans are responsible for climate change]?”

If not distrust, then what accounts for the gaps? Some people might not be aware of what scientists think. In the Pew report, 37 percent of people said they didn’t think scientists agreed on climate change, and 67 percent thought scientists don’t have a clear understanding of GMOs’ health effects. Or, they think the scientists actually support their beliefs. This is particularly true of climate change, Kahan says.

“People on both sides of the issue think science is on their side. It’s like when nations at war each think God is on their side, and they think the other side is godless.”

In the time of the Internet, someone can find evidence (real or not) to support almost any belief he wants. There’s an understandable bias toward valuing evidence that reinforces already-held beliefs: Kahan’s research has shown that people tend to ascribe more legitimacy to the experts who agree with them.