Building a Science Worth Appreciating

Or: National Science Appreciation Day, and How We Can Make it More Fun Next Year

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Written by SNAP members Miles J. Arnett and Disha Patel

Disclaimer: Thoughts and views written in this blog reflect those of the writers only, and not necessarily those of every SNAP member or the SNAP coalition as a whole.

Today, March 26th, is National Science Appreciation Day — and what a time to be celebrating.

It will likely not come as a surprise to anyone reading this article that, although there have still been some incredible discoveries made, science hasn’t had a whole lot to appreciate over the last year. Federal research grants have been slashed [1], scientists at executive agencies have been discarded by the thousands [2], and an increasing number of students are considering leaving the STEM workforce or the country altogether [3]. We’re not here today to dwell on these topics, and excellent work has been produced covering them elsewhere [4][5], but they underscore an important point: this year, National Science Appreciation Day comes at arguably the most unstable moment for American science in recent history. So, in this piece, we wanted to do what we might do if things were going similarly sideways in the lab, and return to some fundamental questions: why do we appreciate science? And, just as importantly, how can we make it worth appreciating in the future?

We can start with the most straightforward point: science helps us. For most people, science has become embedded into nearly every aspect of our daily lives. Phones and laptops have connected us with one another and streamlined our daily work. Wastewater management and sanitation efforts give us safe drinking water. Cars, trains, and planes have given us mobility on an unprecedented scale. The screen you’re reading this article on, the food you ate this morning, even the clothes you’re wearing now — science had a hand in creating them all. It was only a few short centuries ago that the kinds of luxuries most of us enjoy today would have been the domain of monarchs and aristocrats alone, and many of them would have been beyond even their imagination. The privilege of comfort, and the amazing degree of freedom that modern technology brings us, is something we shouldn’t forget to appreciate, even in an era where it’s now more commonplace.

Beyond the comforts of everyday life, science saves us. This one can’t be overstated: there are millions of people alive today who would not have made it to their current age had they been born just 100 years ago, and we have science to thank for that. Therapeutics like antibiotics, insulin, and inhalers have saved, and continue to save, countless lives. Vaccines, arguably the most significant medical breakthrough since germ theory, have prevented over 154 million deaths since the 1970s, including over 146 million among children under 5 years old [6]. In fact, National Science Appreciation Day was launched by ScienceSaves, a nonpartisan campaign dedicated to appreciating science, on the anniversary of Dr. Jonas Salk’s announcement of successful clinical trials for the polio vaccine in 1953 [7]. This vaccine alone reduced the number of annual polio cases in the United States from almost 60,000 to exactly zero [8]. Vaccines for measles and whooping cough have been similarly transformative [9, 10]. These numbers, and the loved ones they represent who we can speak and laugh with today, serve as a reminder that science saves lives.

Less tangibly, but just as importantly, science inspires us.

Miles: I remember feeling that inspiration in 4th grade during a career fair; my small public elementary school somehow managed to bring in an engineer from NASA, who spoke to our room of variously excited and distracted 9-year-olds about how dust on the moon contained an unbelievable amount of energy, and how we might one day use it to power a lunar base. He spoke for no more than 15 minutes, but in that time I felt that he had opened my mind to the wonders of the universe all around us, made me believe that the future could be awe-inspiring and limitless, and in that moment I knew I wanted to be a scientist.

Disha: I remember in elementary school each grade would do small science experiments to get us excited and curious about the world around us. In first grade, we cared for caterpillars that grew into butterflies. In third grade, we studied different specimens, like onion skins, under the microscope. In fourth grade, we studied earthworms. And so on. My curiosity and fascination with science started from these small encounters that evolved into approaching science as a school of thought and inquiry driven by curiosity.

Scientific exploration nurtures that innate sense of curiosity and wonder we all have about the complexities of the universe. It makes us believe that through effort, trial, and error, we can create a better world, and that matters in ways that can’t be measured with numbers.

On the subject of things that can’t be measured with numbers, we would add one more: science humbles us. If you’re religious, science may help you feel a greater understanding of the grand plan of our universe. If you aren’t religious, science still serves to remind you that there’s a world out there that is much bigger than yourself, and many things in it are beyond your control (then if you work in a lab for long enough, it reminds you of that again, and again, and again…). Regardless, science shows us that we live alongside and within nature, that there is always more to learn from it, and hopefully that no matter the differences in our cultures and daily lives, we all have a shared role in preserving and understanding it together.

Science has given our world a lot, and for a long time. In that light, it may seem strange to even ask why we appreciate science. Why, then, do we doubt science? Here we have to acknowledge that for as much as science has given us, some of that doubt is unquestionably warranted. For a long time, scientists have relied on the assumption that they would always have the trust of the public without doing much to earn it. That assumption has given us the classic “ivory tower” model of research, in which scientists work on and communicate about science in a silo and are given little reason to form connections with the communities or public officials around them (and are, in many cases, actively discouraged from doing so). The incentive structures for anyone looking to build a career in academic science over the last century have been clear: you’re rewarded for publishing in exclusive journals using jargon-heavy language that only a few other experts in your field will fully understand. You’re not rewarded for spending time on anything else, least of all taking the time to explain your research to the public, even though their tax dollars fund our work and, in many cases, improving their lives gives us the reason to do our work in the first place.

Scientists also have to reckon with the fact that the gains of our work have never been evenly distributed, and recent decades have been no different on that score. Ethnic minorities and other disadvantaged groups in American society have in many cases not only been overlooked by the benefits of science, but have been outright victimized by them. Cases like the Tuskegee syphilis experiments [11], PFAS contamination of drinking water across Appalachia and the world [12], and the Dalkon shield remind us that science can fail to live up to its own ideals [13], in large part because of the distance it has created between itself and the very communities it is meant to serve and support.

That combination of distance and harm has slowly but surely corroded the trust between scientists and the public around them. Little wonder, then, that when a true scientific crisis arose in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic, the research world was ready to deal with the virus but profoundly ill-equipped to gain and maintain the trust of the people affected by it. The curtain hiding that corrosion has fallen away in the wake of the pandemic. We now see its consequences as vaccination rates and grant funding plummet alongside each other, and the scientific infrastructure of the United States becomes equally degraded.

So, what does this mean for science going forward? First, we have to accept that the old model of implicit trust in science is fundamentally broken, and has been for a long time. Some doubt in science isn’t a bad thing. Science is, after all, an exercise in doubt: reasoned, measured doubt that leads us to question our assumptions and learn more about the world around us. That doesn’t mean nothing is true or that scientists don’t know what they’re talking about, but it does mean that what we know to be true is constantly evolving. The challenge we now face as a scientific community is to take that same approach to what we “know” to be true about the role of science in society.

Even after the COVID-19 pandemic and the disruptions of recent years, American public trust in science remains high, but public engagement with science is minimal [14]. This is the gap we have to close to rebuild public trust and earn the appreciation of the world beyond the ivory tower. Scientists need to get back in touch with their communities, whether that means writing an op-ed in your local newspaper [15], giving a quick talk at your neighborhood bar, or even just speaking with your friends and family a little more often about what you do and why it’s important. Scientific institutions have a role to play here as well. Universities shouldn’t seek to isolate themselves from the communities that support them, but rather form partnerships with them so that communities can learn the benefits their university’s science has brought to them and scientists can learn from the needs and concerns of their constituents in equal measure. It’s going to take a sincere effort from all parts of the scientific ecosystem to take advantage of the present destabilization and build new structures in which scientists and communities can coexist, work, and thrive alongside one another. That’s what we have to do if we want to create a durable scientific landscape for the century ahead and make next year’s National Science Appreciation Day an occasion truly worth celebrating.

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P.S. Curious about ways you can support science and scientists (even if you aren’t one yourself)? Well, there are numerous ways to contribute! Here are some to begin with:

1. Stay informed! Engage with the news (both national and local) and talk to people you know about science and the latest science news.
2. Contact lawmakers and advocate for them to back science funding or bills that support the scientific ecosystem. You can call your representatives on the phone or send them an email, or sign up for SNAP’s latest initiative, Stance on Science, to get involved in supporting science in the 2026 midterms.
3. Get involved in local science events near you, such as school science fairs or university-based science communication events.
4. Invite a scientist near you into your community, whatever type of community that may be! They’ll likely be much happier to make the connection than you might expect. See programs like Skype a Scientist for good examples.

Click here to learn more about ScienceSaves and how you can get involved.

Recognition:

This post was written by SNAP members Miles J. Arnett and Disha Patel.

Miles J. Arnett is a Bioengineering PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania studying how cells coordinate to regenerate damaged tissues. He is also the President of the Penn Science Policy and Diplomacy Group (PSPDG).

Disha Patel is a biochemist studying protein folding and secretion by leveraging high-throughput methodologies.

Special thanks to fellow SNAP members who provided feedback on this post: Becca Blyn, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Washington studying the immune response to malaria in the liver and ways to improve malaria vaccine efficacy; Cael Dant, a botanist studying carnivorous plant physiology and their ecological interactions with microbes; and Jordan Williams, a pharmacology PhD candidate studying how to alter the lung’s innate immune responses to better treat chronic respiratory diseases.

References:

1. Bhatia, A., Fan, A., Smith, J., & Hwang, I. (2025, December 2). The U.S. Is Funding Fewer Grants in Every Area of Science and Medicine. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/12/02/upshot/trump-science-funding-cuts.html
2. Wadman, M., & Kaiser, J. (2025). Trump hits NIH with “devastating” freezes on meetings, travel, communications, and hiring. AAAS Articles DO Group. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.z7pm10i
3. Scientific Talent in America: Going Abroad or Choosing Not to Come | Association of American Universities (AAU). (2026, January 5). Association of American Universities (AAU). https://www.aau.edu/key-issues/scientific-talent-america-going-abroad-or-choosing-not-come
4. AGU. (2026, January 15). The State of the Science 1 Year On: Academia and Research. Eos. https://eos.org/report/the-state-of-the-science-1-year-on-academia-and-research
5. US science after a year of Trump: what has been lost and what remains. (2026, January 20). Nature.com. https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-026-00088-9/index.html
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9. Mayo Clinic. (n.d.). History of Measles: Outbreaks and Vaccine Timeline. Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/history-disease-outbreaks-vaccine-timeline/measles
10. Mayo Clinic. (2025). History of Whooping Cough: Outbreaks and Vaccine Timeline. Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/history-disease-outbreaks-vaccine-timeline/whooping-cough
11. Brandt A. M. (1978). Racism and research: the case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The Hastings Center report, 8(6), 21–29. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2307/3561468?sid=nlm%3Apubmed
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13. Intrauterine device (IUD). (n.d.). Dittrick Medical History Center. https://artsci.case.edu/dittrick/online-exhibits/history-of-birth-control/contraception-in-america-1950-present-day/intrauterine-device-iud/
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