Tompkins shows, in the conclusion of his essay, the need to "piece the story together...as best I can," because divergent perspectives inhibit a person's ability to find, with confidence , a purely impartial approach made to any situation (9). These types of dilemmas exist in many modern social spheres. Although much more objective, an issue like climate change relies on an individual's research and discovery of facts from various sources, just as Tompkins did. Likewise, the individual must therefore “[believe] this version to a certain extent, that version not at all, another version almost entirely,” in order to advance to a conclusion. If they fail to reach a conclusion, they will remain on the epistemological threshold for too long and fail to effectively address the issue by voting for uninformed politicians or not recycling. Although the environment is based on more objective and easily accessible information, it exists in clear relation to Tompkins' dilemma. Academic uncertainty blocks the important flow of social progress. However, while academic uncertainty appears to be the culprit, without academic uncertainty science and facts would not achieve the adequate rigor to be called facts. And without social progress,