3 defense must provide the better or best narrative of what actually occurred. The better or best narrative will be the most believable, the most persuasive, the most compelling, the most acceptable, even the most entertaining. Storytelling is basic to human understanding of both simple and complex situations. "Most scientists do storytelling and model building." "Once Upon a Time There Was a Theory," Donald N. McCloskey, Scientific American, Vol. 272, No. 2, February 1995, p. 25. "Even when economists rely on models, decisions about what to include or what conclusions to draw turn on some principle of storytelling." Id. "The same issues of narrative aesthetics appear in paleontology. Classic Darwinian evolution proceeds like a film in dignified slow motion: punctuated equilibrium interleaves still photographs with bursts of silent movies." Id. "Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg wrote a paper in 1983 called 'Beautiful Theories' to make the point that aesthetic principles are at the heart of good physics." Id. According to Harvard theologian Harvey Cox, "the next century will be shaped by the people who can tell the best stories." Law Practice Magazine, Vol. 23, No. 4 (May/June 1997), p. 20. The reality is that human beings, whether resolving the mundane issues of everyday life or using science to alter radically the human situation, resort to storytelling as the method of understanding and solving problems. Storytelling is the universal means of communicating and persuading.
Return to 2002 DP Start 
Return to Agenda for Conference

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next Page