Abstract: According to the 13th Sample Survey Report on Chinese Citizens’ Scientific Literacy released by the China Association for Science and Technology, in 2023, 14.14% of Chinese citizens possessed scientific literacy. This is over 4.3 times higher than the 3.27% recorded in 2010. Based solely on this data, Chinese citizens’ scientific literacy appears to have improved rapidly with optimized structure. More citizens are paying attention to science, learning science, and participating in technological innovation activities. Additionally, with the development of digital environments, public online discussions about science and technology issues have become more active and diverse. However, although China’s overall scientific literacy rate has increased yearly at a considerable pace, it remains unclear whether their online scientific discussions reflect this improvement. Many studies hold completely opposite viewpoints. Therefore, we address this core research question: from a long-term perspective, are Chinese netizens’ discussions about science and technology topics becoming more “scientific”? That is, do their online science and technology discussions increasingly demonstrate essential components of scientific literacy (scientific knowledge, methods, capabilities, and spirit)? Are these discussions focusing more on science-related dimensions (e.g., scientific knowledge or methods) rather than non-scientific dimensions? Here, we define “scientization” of online discussions as: (1) a greater tendency to discuss topics from scientific perspectives (e.g., scientific knowledge, methods, evidence, and data), and (2) a greater tendency to use scientific thinking and expression in online discourse. For answering the above questions, this study selected three mainstream controversial science and technology topics: “GMOs”, “climate change”, and “artificial intelligence (AI)”. Using the Python MediaCrawler project, we collected related Weibo posts from 2018 to 2022. After filtering irrelevant, duplicate, and textually meaningless data, we obtained 197,998 posts (GMOs), 358,045 posts (climate change), and 461,793 posts (AI). Then this study conducted diachronic semantic network analysis and sentiment analysis on these posts. The results show: the rapidly growing scientific literacy has not directly manifested in netizens’ online discussions about technology topics. For “GMOs” and “climate change”, scientific dimensions in discussions are gradually being replaced by economic, commercial, political (especially international political) dimensions. For “AI”, while surface-level scientific discussions have increased, conspiracy theories have also risen. The apparent “scientization” may reflect increased attention to superficial scientific frameworks rather than deeper internalization of advanced scientific cognition. Chinese netizens showed no clear trend of “increasing scientization” across all three topics. Either, scientific dimensions decreased, scientific frameworks were overshadowed by “political-economic” perspectives, or scientific frameworks coexisted with “anti-scientific” frameworks like conspiracy theories. Improved public scientific literacy is expected to show a "competitive" pattern where scientific perspectives rise, and non-scientific perspectives decline. Instead, our findings reveal an inverse pattern: declining scientific perspectives alongside rising non-scientific perspectives, plus a “collaborative” pattern between scientific perspectives and conspiracy theories. This indicates that when discussing controversial topics, Chinese netizens’ online behavior does not align with their rapidly improving scientific literacy. Furthermore, no direct correlation exists between scientific dimensions in discussions and netizens’ attitudes toward these technologies. This suggests scientific discussion hasn’t been internalized as genuine scientific cognition or informed attitudes. Individual scientific literacy has not played its expected positive role in online technology discussions. Overall, Chinese netizens’ online science and technology discussions continue to exhibit chaotic and unscientific characteristics.

摘要： 近十余年来，中国公民的科学素质指标提升了4倍有余。但网民的科技议题讨论是否随着其科学素质的增长而变得更加科学化？这一问题尚不清晰。通过对“转基因”、“气候变化”、“人工智能”三大争议性科技议题2018-2022五年间的微博讨论数据的历时性计算传播分析发现，在“转基因”与“气候变化”议题中，“科学”维度讨论逐渐被公众放弃，并被经济、商业、政治等维度所替代；在“人工智能”议题中，表层的“科学”讨论与“阴谋论”讨论并行增加。且中国网民对于争议性科技议题讨论中的“科学”维度数量与其对于相应科技议题的态度之间并不呈现直接的相关关系。“科学”维度的讨论或许并没有深入内化为其科学认知并进一步影响其科学态度。网民对科技议题的整体认知与讨论依旧呈现出混沌的、非科学化倾向的态势。