Tompkins outlines, in the conclusion of his essay, the need to "piece together history... as best I can" because divergent perspectives inhibit a person's ability to find , with complete confidence, a purely impartial opinion. done on any situation (9). These kinds of dilemmas exist in many modern social spheres. Although much more objective, an issue like climate change depends on individual research and discovery of facts from a variety of sources, just as Tompkins did. Likewise, the individual must then “[believe] one version to a certain extent, one version not at all, another version almost entirely”, in order to be able to move towards a conclusion. If they fail to reach a conclusion, they will linger too long at the epistemological gate and fail to effectively solve the problem, voting for uninformed politicians or failing to recycle. Although the environment relies on more objective and easily accessible information, it exists in clear relation to Tompkins' dilemma. Academic uncertainty halts the important flow of social progress. However, even though academic uncertainty appears to be to blame, without this uncertainty, science and facts would not achieve the rigor necessary to qualify as facts. And without social progress,