While American scientific literacy has grown over the past few decades, the number of Americans who are deemed scientifically literate is still a dismally small number — only 28 percent. Scientific literacy is often important, even if it’s unrelated to your career, because of scientific issues that become politicized — evolution, global warming and stem cell research, to name a few. And when issues that are exceptionally uncontroversial in the scientific community become politicized, especially without understanding by many, it can get ugly.

In recent months, a researcher at MIT found himself receiving hate mail and even threats against his wife after appearing in a video showing Republicans that disagreed with the party’s anti-science position. This echoed threats of death and sexual assault toward Australian climate scientists (and their family members) in 2011.

This problem is not limited to climate change by any means. Any issue that is deemed “controversial” by the public allows an opportunity for threats to be made against those investigating or even teaching the subject. Professors at the University of Colorado received death threats a few years ago for teaching evolutionary biology. Even something as seemingly non-polarizing as research into chronic fatigue syndrome has been met with threats and harassment.

This isn’t a trend limited to simply the United States, but certainly points to a trend in global attitudes toward science. The message being sent by those who intimidate scientists is that if you don’t like the results, or if you don’t like the facts that are found, you can always resort to threats and bullying to attempt to silence the truth.

Even more subtle indications of America’s attitude toward science are seen in the latest film by the makers of Wallace and Gromit. Based off the book “The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists,” (the U.K. film holds the same name), it was rebranded in the United States to “The Pirates: Band of Misfits.” Scientists become misfits, and we fall back to the stereotype of strange, eccentric, socially awkward individuals rather than purveyors of knowledge.

The career of a scientist or researcher of any kind has a simple goal — to find answers to questions and to discover knowledge. This goal relies upon peer review of results, but ultimately on the public acceptance of their methods.

Scientific results often have applications that benefit the general populace — medical advancements, maximizing resources, discovering that certain things may be harmful to us. The problem arises when those who either do not understand or refuse to understand turn to persecuting scientists for simply doing their job.

One wonders what would have happened if Louis Pasteur, Isaac Newton or Iowa State’s own Dan Shechtman had been publicly opposed and threatened to such an extent. Some of the world’s greatest discoveries may have gone undiscovered and we might still be in the dark.