When we heard about World Science Day at Tech Times, my editor Brian turned to me (if emailing from across coasts can be counted as "turning toward me") and said, "Can you write about this? Like, what is World Science Day, and why the heck should I care?"
Of course, Brian was kidding ... mostly. Everyone here loves science, but when you're bombarded with vaguely-named holidays like Loyalty Day, National Explosive Ordinance Disposal Day and National Aviation Day, not to mention more unofficial celebrations like National Hot Dog Month or International Talk Like a Pirate Day, you can get a bit of neglected-holiday fatigue.
So, what is World Science Day? Is it a real thing or something someone made up so they could share pictures of the moon and pretend to be smart?
Here's the definitive answer: World Science Day is a real thing.
It was created in 2001 by UNESCO, an agency of the United Nations that works on connecting countries for the betterment of science and knowledge, among other things. These people are the ones for the job; they formed the Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization on World Science Day in 2002.
The holiday, which occurs on Nov. 10 every year, is an effort to share how science is relevant to our everyday lives; to engage in debate on related issues; to ensure that citizens are kept informed of scientific developments; and to appreciate scientists. The best thing they ever did for science is not being the ones who created this video.
One issue raised by UNESCO this year is the disparity between men and women in the sciences. While women currently make up a slight majority of Americans who complete bachelor's and master's programs in the sciences, this lead drops precipitously at the Ph.D. level, where 43 percent of graduates are male. The real test comes when those students try to get jobs. When all is said and done, only 28 percent of science researchers worldwide are women.
Each year, World Science Day has a theme, and this year's theme is the rather clunkily-named "Science for a Sustainable Future: Celebrating the UNESCO Report."
I know what you're thinking: "God, I love celebrating a 786-page report. I can't wait to sit down with a glass of prosecco and pop that sucker open." However, just in case you don't make it quite to page 786, here are some highlights.
The report is subtitled, "Towards 2030," and sets goals for the international community to reach in the next 15 years. The U.N. sums up the report with, "More research — better development." Key goals raised in the report are eliminating poverty and hunger, improving gender equality in the sciences, achieving clean water and sanitation and taking action on climate change.
Nothing could be more clear that if our species (and other species) are to survive much longer, we need to put much, if not most, of our available resources into researching sustainable solutions to our currently-unsustainable lives. While the report shows that the United States is actually leading the herd on this issue (with 28 percent of global investment in research and development), the developing world struggles to contribute to that conversation.
The good news is that research in other countries is increasing rapidly, especially in Brazil, India and Turkey. This increased focus on science has also boosted the number of scientists worldwide. Right now, 7.8 million scientists are doing work in laboratories, on the field and at computers across the world, which is an incredible 20 percent increase since 2007. The world is waking up to the fact that everyone must take science seriously, if we are to save our own.
"Across the world, we see increasing investments in smart specialization and green technologies," says Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, in a welcome video, adding that there is a "rising focus on science, technology and innovation by countries at all levels of development."
All this increased attention to science has also caused an increase in the number of papers and studies published worldwide. Since 2008, scientific publications have increased by almost a quarter. There are now about 1.27 million publications per month, although at least in the U.S., about half of these are never cited by other researchers, so they may not have been read by anyone except the study's author and editor (when is the last time you read an actual study? Unless you're a scientist or reporter, probably not lately).
"We need to understand more clearly the global landscape of science, and we need better tools to monitor progress," Bokova emphasizes. One of those tools is the measurement of science literacy among citizens of all countries.
Science literacy among the rank-and-file is notoriously low in the United States, where, according to Pew, most people don't know that water boils at a lower temperature at higher altitudes, and only 72 percent know that a light-year is a measurement of distance. However, in countries with low education and literacy, the situation is even worse.
That's why the 2015 report focuses largely on improving infrastructures in the developing world, and working more directly with local and indigenous people to improve basic science concepts, but equally importantly, for researchers and policymakers to learn from locals. Rather than coming in as experts, sure to "fix" the local populations' problems, researchers should be treating indigenous people as experts in their own ecological systems. After all, a woman whose family has been dealing with flooding for generations will have more on-the-ground knowledge of disaster preparation than even the most knowledgeable academic. As UNESCO puts it, we need to "empower people to design the solutions they need."
The report, which was released today, has not yet been subject to critical reception, but it will likely be one of the leading drivers of worldwide policy in science and sustainability. However, one thing is clear: when it comes to sustainability, we're losing the battle against ourselves.
So, there you have it. World Science Day is real, it's different every year, and this year, it involves some 800-page leisure reading.
Or, you can just watch Cosmos and call it a day.
You can read the entire UNESCO report here.
