Aja Watkins once believed she was “allergic” to the sciences. Today, as an assistant professor of philosophy, she embraces the subject — spending her days researching the ways in which scientists think.
“There’s really nothing that seriously differentiates philosophical questions from scientific questions,” Watkins says.
In her research, Watkins breaks down scientific reasoning behind contemporary issues such as climate change. Her ultimate goal is to improve how scientists investigate the world around them.
But this practice isn’t novel.
“Three hundred years ago, the people who were practicing philosophy were the same people who were studying science,” she says. “Many ostensibly scientific questions are questions that a philosopher might be able to help answer.”
For Watkins, the sciences provide a concrete connection between contemporary scientific issues and the abstract insights philosophy can provide. That’s why she explores the reliability of scientific theories and methods to improve best practices.
“I try to do stuff that has real-world implications,” Watkins says. “I work on topics that are on the front lines of what people think are major issues today.”
Tackling climate change comparisons
One of Watkins’ main research areas is how scientists make predictions about climate change. In her dissertation, completed at Boston University under the supervision of Professor Alisa Bokulich, Watkins interrogated the use of “paleoclimate analogues.” These are episodes of climate change in Earth’s deep past that scientists use to help predict the trajectory of contemporary climate change.
Watkins hopes to examine this scientific practice through a philosophical lens — sometimes answering questions about what works and what doesn’t when comparing climate events.
“A lot of climate scientists, policymakers, advocates and even regular people on the street make claims that contemporary climate change is ‘unprecedented,’” Watkins says. “However, on the scale of geologic time, that really is not the case.”
What makes contemporary climate change unique is that it is caused by humans, Watkins says. But humans have not been around for that long in the world’s timeline, and she remains suspicious of claims that certain features of contemporary climate change, such as the rate of change, is unprecedented.
She has argued that scientists need to process their data accordingly, such as implementing more precise measures to properly scale the timing of different climate events, in order to make comparisons between past and present rates of climate change meaningful. Watkins offers up some recommendations for scientists to make accurate comparisons, such as considering the purpose of these analogues in the first place and implementing better measures to scrutinize each duration. She has argued that there is an intimate relationship between how we should process data about past climates and how that data is used in refining our predictions about contemporary climate change.
Zooming in at UW–Madison
Questions about how to prevent, mitigate and adapt to climate change are big and can be overwhelming — and even seem impossible to tackle, Watkins says. But as she delves into her professorship, which began in the fall of 2023, she hopes to focus on more localized concerns in the climate sciences.
“Many people, including myself, feel more optimistic about what’s happening locally,” she says.
Watkins is just starting a new project about how science informs policies regulating forest management and wildfire prevention.
“Managing forests well isn’t something that depends on global-scale social or political change,” she says. “Doing so might just involve changing little things about how people in specific administrative positions do their jobs or how specific scientists study and evaluate forest management policies.”
In Watkins’ view, fire scientists and forest fire managers have been particularly proactive in their approaches to rethinking forest management and wildfire management, hopefully making them more receptive to input from a philosopher.
“Insights from philosophy can improve scientific practice,” Watkins says.
Watkins even hopes to one day partner with departments including limnology, soil sciences and agricultural sciences at UW to improve best scientific practices and methodologies.
“Many scientists’ works involves figuring out how to cope with or change in response to climate change,” she says. “Having a humanistic perspective on their work may be just what they need.”