Uncertainty and Science

When I tell people that one of my core values is uncertainty, they usually pause. Then comes the response: “Okay, I think I can agree, but why?” For me, valuing uncertainty means resisting the urge to become too comfortable with what I think I know. It means staying curious, open-minded, and willing to follow ideas into places and futures that feel unfamiliar. When we can embrace uncertainty instead of rushing to close it off, creativity stays alive. So does humility. And in science, both are essential if we hope to move closer to truth.

That is one reason the first six months of the Natural Resource Workforce Development Fellowship have felt meaningful to me. The work has been full of uncertainty, but the kind that stretches a person and asks something more of them. Much of that has come from the way our team began: not with a fully formed project and predefined roles, but with a group of people trying to decide what question and problem was worth pursuing and how we might engage with it together. That has made this experience feel less like stepping into a set track and more like learning how to build one as we go.

I have found that process both challenging and clarifying. When a team of scientists begins with the question still open, people are not limited quite so quickly by the roles, expectations, and specialties that often come attached to an existing project. There is more room for each person to bring their strongest habits of mind, their own ways of seeing, and their own instincts for what might matter. I do not mean that expertise becomes less important. If anything, it becomes more important, but also more porous. It becomes something you bring into conversation rather than something that sets the limits of the conversation from the start.

That has certainly been true for me. My own background is in biogeochemistry, fire ecology, and the boreal forests of Alaska. Through this fellowship, I now find myself helping lead work on a social science survey connected to water governance, freshwater ecology, and state policy in Utah. In another context, I might have taken that shift as a sign that I was outside my lane. Instead, it has reminded me that meaningful work and real learning often begin before you feel fully prepared. Sometimes that is exactly how growth begins.

In an even broader sense, this experience has also sharpened the way I think about science itself. To me, science is a tool for shedding light on parts of our world that we struggle to perceive clearly with our human senses. It is a way of asking better questions, noticing patterns that would otherwise remain hidden to us, and informing action with something more robust than instinct alone. Expertise matters deeply, but science does not have to remain siloed within narrow specialties to be rigorous. I am starting to see that at its best, science as a tool can help people think more clearly, act more thoughtfully, and respond more honestly to change.

That feels especially true in climate adaptation science, where the questions that matter most rarely stay within the boundaries of a single discipline. They ask us to connect ecology, climate science, agriculture, policy, and human behavior, and to learn from people with very different forms of knowledge and experience. As someone still learning the craft of science, I have found that both humbling and exciting. More than anything, the work we are doing as NRWD Fellows has reinforced for me that uncertainty is not a problem to solve as quickly as possible. Sometimes it is the condition that makes real learning, better collaboration, and more useful science possible.

"In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind, there are few."

 – Shunryu Suzuki