If I had conducted the interview with Dr. Jill Tarter, I would have asked more about how we might be able to teach science in a way that does not encourage the idea that science is “solved.” Instead, how can we show that science is more about the unknowns than what we actually know? This also connects to Dr. Jill Tarter’s comment that scientists often don’t know what they’re looking for. She also shared the example of how scientists only learned that lightning moves upward when they developed high-resolution cameras. Further, Dr. Jill Tarter suggested that it can be challenging to determine what to look for if the more you know reveals how little you actually know. If scientists don’t know what they’re looking for, then how can they know when they’ve come across something notable? How can scientists decipher the commonplace from the extraordinary and develop tools that will help draw this distinction? I was also interested in Dr. Jill Tarter’s discussion of science fiction. Thus, could the use of science fiction help us teach science in a way that shows it is full of unknowns?
To learn more about Dr. Jill Tarter’s life and work, please see the PredictionX interview here!