Ellen Prager and Dave Jones Encourage Readers, “Please, Ask Questions!”
From toddlers asking why they can’t eat the yellow snow to an adult inquiring if their coastal home will be underwater in a few years due to sea level rise, asking questions is essential to learning, to science, and to society.
Asking questions is the doorway to understanding and critical thinking about information. Where does the information come from? What is it based on?
For instance, if you told us that dinosaurs and humans once coexisted on Earth, we’d ask: How do you know that? Have you found or know of fossils or bones of humans and dinosaurs discovered in the same geologic formation? Do you have a dinosaur fossil with evidence it fed on humans? How about direct observations or credible video of dinosaurs and humans living together? That would be a big no on all three—dinosaurs went extinct more than sixty million years before humans inhabited the planet. They never coexisted. Never. We might ask a few more questions, such as: Where did you learn that dinosaurs and humans coexisted? What was the source of your information? To be clear, cave paintings, myths, drawings, or written stories don’t count as scientific evidence. Nor does Jurassic Park, The Flintstones, or posts on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.
Asking about information in this way helps to identify misinformation and combat it by uncovering faulty, non-credible sources, and a lack of data or scientific evidence. Blogs based on beliefs, ideology, or opinions are not the same as data-based research or results. Sometimes headlines can be misleading and quotes can be taken out of context, so it is important to find the original study or an expert analysis of the information you come across. And be sure it’s the right expert! We wouldn’t ask an electrician to fix our toilet, so be wary of someone providing their “expert” opinion outside their field of expertise.
Sometimes headlines can be misleading and quotes can be taken out of context, so it is important to find the original study or an expert analysis of the information you come across.
As scientists who give a lot of talks, we love questions. They can make us see new perspectives, challenge us to better explain complicated or highly technical science in easy-to-understand language, and provide fun interaction. People are often nervous or hesitant about asking questions in public settings. But others in the audience may very well be wondering the same thing, and your question might clarify something that was unclear in a talk or lead to a new and interesting discussion.
We like to joke about some of the questions we and our colleagues are asked about the ocean, atmosphere, and climate change. Some are questions we get repeatedly: Are megalodons still swimming in the deep sea? Do sharks hunt people? How come weather forecasts so often seem wrong? Are airplane contrails really chemical-laden mist for mind-control? Other questions are less frequent and sometimes a bit outside-the-box, such as why can’t we just nuke hurricanes and if storms are manufactured by the government to hide UFOs.
We also like to joke about ourselves, as can be seen in the illustrations in our book, Megalodons, Mermaids, and Climate Change: Answers to Your Ocean and Atmosphere Questions. So don’t ever be afraid of asking questions. Questions are too important. They help combat misinformation, determine fact versus fiction, weed out mistakes, lead to new learning and increased knowledge, and help us scientists communicate more effectively.
Marine scientist Dr. Ellen Prager and meteorologist Dave Jones are the co-authors of Megalodons, Mermaids, and Climate Change: Answers to your ocean and atmosphere questions.
