Can a day make a difference?

Despite mounting scientific evidence, a 2018 Gallup poll reveals that Americans are almost uniformly divided on whether global warming is happening. Can improved science-fluency change the opinions of the naysayers?

This week India will celebrate National Science Day. It will be the 32nd year of this event. In an effort to popularize science and celebrate scientific achievement, in 1987 the government of India chose February 28 as National Science Day. The date also marks Indian scientist Sir C.V. Raman’s 1928 discovery of the Raman effect. Raman showed that when light of a particular wavelength falls on a molecule, the light deflected by that molecule now has a different wavelength. This property is exploited globally in applications as diverse as identifying counterfeit drugs, to detecting explosives.

In the last couple of years, the world has seen enormous leaps in scientific achievement that include treating old diseases with new drugs and even nanoscale robots, while sending a car towards Mars. All this while collecting massive amounts of all conceivable data that can be used to all matter of ends. In fact, by some estimates 90% of the data we have today was generated in the last two years. To fully benefit from the scientific achievements, and understand and apply all the data we’ve generated, fluency in science is going to be an asset.