I just read the above-titled book by Jonathan Gottschall. It was really interesting–he convincingly argues that (a) stories are a central part of lives and always will be, and (b) stories are dangerous and we’re living in a world of dangerous stories. The book isn’t perfect–the author is a bit too credulous for my taste in citing dubious social-psychology studies–but no book is perfect, and I got a lot out of it, and now that I’ve read it, I feel pretty much in agreement with its arguments.
Some ideas in the book reminded me of things we’ve discussed before, so I thought I’d share them with you.
On p.56, Gottschall writes, “persuasion isn’t the same as instruction–as taking a blank slate and filling it up. You have to move a mind from one place to another, which means overcoming inertia with some kind of force.”
This reminds me of the idea that Thomas Basbøll and I have raised, that good stories are anomalous and immutable. The “immutable” bit refers to true stories, and it’s the idea that they present some facts, some things that really happened. “Anomalous” refers to the twist in the story, the idea that any good story contains a surprise. That’s why I think of storytelling as predictive model checking (see also here). Gottschall’s “overcoming inertia” sounds to me like what we do in statistics when we encounter data that contradicts our existing model of the world. The existing model is the inertia, and a key insight is that this existing model–this inertia–is always there. It’s central to the story. To the extent that the story is surprising–and I’d argue that every good story has surprises–these are relative to some expectations. A good way to understand a story is to consider the (often implicit) assumptions it’s working against. It’s the revelation that the assumptions are wrong that is the force that persuades.
p.84: “conspiracy theories, in all their endless flavors, aren’t about reason run amok; they’re about powerful stories causing reason to run amok. So let’s call these paranoid fantasies what they actually are: conspiracy stories.” Well put. Also well put: “Conspiratorial fiction can be perfectly crafted to besot our imaginations, whereas true stories are always shackled by facts.”
In 1971, psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman published a now-classic paper, “Belief in the law of small numbers,” reporting that people “regard a sample randomly drawn from a population as highly representative, I.e., similar to the population in all essential characteristics.” I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea lately when coming across discussions of evidence. The (false) small-numbers heuristic leads people to expect that all, or almost all, the empirical evidence in some controversy will go in the same direction. Individual pieces of evidence can be analogized to samples from a larger population of potential evidence. Presumably the entire population of evidence, if it could be seen at once, would confirm the truth or at least strongly favor the correct hypothesis. (Here I’m thinking of a simple case in which there are two models of the world, one of which is essentially false and one essentially true.)
Now let’s get back to stories. True stories will contain a mix of confirming and disconfirming evidence; that’s just the way the world works, or, to put it another way, that’s the statistics of small samples. But, in a fictional story, all the evidence can go in the same direction, and that can feel right, in that it fits our false intuition.
The question then arises, where does the incorrect heuristic of the law of small numbers come from? It could come from all the stories we hear!
I discussed an amusing example of the belief in the law of small numbers–or, as I put it, the inclination to deny all variation–in the context of a silly research project from a plagiarizing Yale law school professor (although, to be fair, he wasn’t plagiarizing on that particular project).
p.93-94: “a leading theory explaining humanity’s sluggish response to global warming is that climate change happens to make a really bad story. . . . But the “bad story” theory of our feckless response to climate change overlooks the fact that people love tales of catastrophe and apocalypse. . . . We love stories of humanity up against the greatest threats conceivable. And not only does global warming fit this bill, the topic has featured in a number of popular films . . .” Gottschall continues: “The problem with messaging climate change isn’t that it makes an inherently bad story so much as an inherently deactivating one. Despite endless obfuscation by deniers, most people now accept the dire prophecies of climate science, and they can be engrossed by tales about it. But the scale of the problem is so fast and the obstacles thrown up by different governments, industries, and skeptics are so enormous that it’s hard to see how we can ever come together as a human family to solve it.” Again, good point, that the political impact of a story comes not just from its strength as a story but also from how it activates its listeners.
p.137: “Here’s a hard but important thing to try to wrap one’s mind around: No story ever really happened. Life happened. Shit happened as people tried to get by. But no story has ever happened in the present tense. A story is always an artificial, post-hoc fabrication with dubious correspondence to the past.”
This reminds me of the idea that our consciousness is just our executive function “telling stories” or interpreting what we observe. This is obviously true of dreams, but it’s arguably also true in our waking lives. Our stories and cultural myths are various consensus reassessments of stuff that happened.
That said, people and organizations do make plans, and sometimes these plans get carried out. Aki and the rest of us made the plan to write a book on Bayesian workflow, and, guess what? It’s almost finished. The story of the book, roughly according to plan, is what happened. OK, not exactly, the plan changed in light of events, but that’s part of the story. So I think the statement, No story ever really happened, is a bit too strong. But Gottschall does have a point there, in most cases.
p.144: Gottschall quotes his dad as saying, “I just have the luxury of virtue.” Well put. I remember my friend Tom explaining this point to me, back when we were in grad school. Virtue is virtue and it’s a good in itself, but virtue can come easier to the rich than the poor. It’s easy for me to be virtuous in the sense of openly criticizing bad research, but that virtue comes easier because I have a secure job and I’m not afraid of various knaves and fools getting me fired. This is not to say that all or even most rich people are virtuous–there’s this thing called greed, also the fear that the masses will take everything away from you–; it’s just that, yeah, there are settings where virtue is a luxury.
p.172: “The way it looks now, either [Donald Trump] will be the 2024 Republican nominee or he will choose the person best suited to rule in his image.” Gottschall got that right–and he was writing in early 2021, when Trump was at one of his lowest points.
To get back to the main theme, Gottschall treats stories not just as a medium of communication but as important entities in themselves in forming our understanding of the world. I think this is really important. Lots of time I see discussions of “narrative medicine,” or how scientists should learn the principles of storytelling, and it often seems to be presented in a unidirectional way, as if the doctor or scientist already knows the answer and then just needs to formulate in story form to communicate it to ordinary people. But that’s not right! We (scientists, doctors, citizens, all of us) understand the world through stories. I’ve argued that stories function as counterexamples, refutations of received models of the world. Gottschall focuses more on the emotional effects of stories. But, either way, we’re talking about stories as active ingredients–living, pulsating things–not just passive receptacles of information or simple translations of concepts and facts into narrative.
P.S. The funny thing is that I only learned of this book because it was discussed–negatively–by Lyta Gold in her recent book, Dangerous Fictions. I liked Gold’s book too, but she didn’t like “The Story Paradox” at all! But she kept bringing up Gottschall’s book, so I looked it up. It wasn’t at the Columbia library but I did find it at the NYPL. I’m not quite sure why Gottschall’s book annoyed Gold so much–perhaps it was the “uncanny valley” thing, where he made arguments that were similar to Gold’s, but enough different to be grating. As an outsider, I was able to enjoy both books–although maybe “enjoy” isn’t the right term, given that both books, although written in lively tones, are deeply pessimistic, Gold for economic reasons (it’s becoming really hard to make money, which limits the social range of the storytellers we’ll be hearing from) and Gottschall for political reasons (bye bye social consensus, hello baseless conspiracy stories).
P.P.S. I also read this New York Times review of “The Story Paradox” which did not seem accurate at all. As the saying goes, the reviewer seems to have read a different book than I did.
I haven’t read the book, so my comment may not really be pertinent to the book. But I have a reaction to the post and that concerns the definition of “story.” It is unclear to me what a story is – must it be written, spoken, recorded, or is it simply communication. All communication can be thought of as storytelling, and if that is what we mean then is the thesis that communication is both essential to humans and dangerous? I could buy that idea but it seems a strange way to approach such issues. All species use communication (as far as I know, though perhaps not plants) and it is essential to their survival. Perhaps humans are the only species that uses communication in ways that endanger ourselves. That would be an interesting idea.
So I find the definition of “story” elusive. Then distinguishing between “true” stories and “fictional” ones seem equally ambiguous. Virtually no story can be absolutely “true” in the way that no map can be absolutely accurate. Then, if all stories are fictional, there are certainly different degrees of fiction and some stories will be closer to the truth than others. I don’t think we can communicate without stories, so I’m back to where I started. All this has little to do with the book which may have plenty of interesting insights. But I think the idea of “story” seems like too malleable a way to discuss dangers to humanity and the world.
Dale:
I’ll don’t recall if Gottschall gives a definition of what he means by “story,” but I will say that his treatment of the topic is more clearly specified than how I write about in the above post. He’s talking about emotionally-engaging narratives, which he says are never really true (“No story ever really happened”) and the way that such stories are central to our lives and also politically and socially harmful. I’m connecting some of his ideas to a more vague idea of a story as a set of events with some logical connection. Indeed, in my paper with Basbøll about the importance of stories to scientific thinking, we use the term “story” to refer to true or evidence-based stories, as distinguished from what we call “parables,” where the teller is allowed to make things up. So I admit to a terrible confusion of terminology!
A story told by Roberto Kolter, emeritus professor of microbiology, Harvard:
“.. The future is always uncertain, but one thing is clear to me: the human population will not double again. In that regard, pretty much like an E. coli culture in LB [Lysogeny Broth, i.e. nutritionally complete medium] when it reaches 8 billion cells per ml, humans are entering stationary phase. Things are going to be uniquely interesting for humans (and consequently for planet Earth) over the next few centuries. …”
https://schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2025/08/the-great-deceleration.html
R:
We discussed that issue last year in a post, Fewer kids in our future: How historical experience has distorted our sense of demographic norms.
I find the questions of epistemology, evidence, statistics, and storytelling deeply entwined – so it’s nice to see them intersect here.
I’m much less suspicious of story as a representation of truth – stories are generally true, but they have different relationships to other
kinds of public and private truth.
“stories are generally true, but they have different relationships to other kinds of public and private truth”
It would take me a lifetime to unravel that statement. The first part seems just wrong to me – I’m not aware of any database of stories, but I suspect there are far more that are not true (aside from the semantic issue that they must all be untrue to an extent). But the second part of your statement seems to contradict the first. Are you saying that all stories have elements of truth, most of which are complexly related to various conceptions of truth? I don’t disagree with that, although it certainly undermines the idea that they are “generally” true.
Stories in relation to evidence is an interesting idea. In science a hypothesis is essentially a story that we construct as a provisional explanation of something that we don’t fully understand. Whether on not these stories are “true” remains to be seen in any particular case. Sometimes the stories are constrained by a robust evidence base and sometimes not.
In the latter case hominid archaeology used to amuse me in the way that entire pre human histories would be revised based on the discovery of some hominid skull or fossilised molar – along with usually a very readable book. That doesn’t seem to happen so much now so maybe the storytelling has settled down in the light of a more robust evidence base.
This caught my eye even though the word “fast” seems to be a possible misprint for “vast”:
“The problem with messaging climate change isn’t that it makes an inherently bad story so much as an inherently deactivating one. Despite endless obfuscation by deniers, most people now accept the dire prophecies of climate science, and they can be engrossed by tales about it. But the scale of the problem is so fast and the obstacles thrown up by different governments, industries, and skeptics are so enormous that it’s hard to see how we can ever come together as a human family to solve it.”
Instead of climate change and climate science, substitute tobacco use. We have come a long way in this battle, albeit not enough for many of us. Recall the days when making a reservation for a seat on a plane, the first question was “Smoking or Nonsmoking?” The change was slow and incremental–MSP to PIT, due to prevailing winds was under 2 hours, so did not allow smoking, while PIT to MSP, just over 2 hours, did.
Ultimately, success came about because there are strong financial reasons for airlines to eliminate smoking on planes as long as all airlines do so. Therefore, it took a few years and generated a bunch of tales of passengers who could not or would not comply.
Of course flight attendants’ lawsuits were rather important in ending smoking on planes:
https://famri.org/flight-attendants-and-the-fight-to-end-smoking-aloft/
https://famri.org/broin-and-engle-trial-history-and-footage/
California did pass a law in 1987 that ended smoking on in-state flights:
https://no-smoke.org/30-years-ago-we-did-the-impossible/
I’m surprised no one has mentioned George Box.
“All models are wrong”
“No story ever really happened”
I was familiar with Box’s “All models are wrong, some are useful.” But I have never heard of “No story ever really happened.” Any references as to where and when? I tried AI and got this:
——————————————————————————-
It appears that the phrase “No story ever really happened” is not a famous or documented quotation from George E. P. Box. Instead, this wording seems to originate from a commentary by the writer John Horgan, referencing the work of Jonathan Gottschall, rather than anything Box himself wrote.
“No story ever really happened.” – Not a George Box quotation. Instead, it appears in Gelman’s blog reflecting ideas from Jonathan Gottschall
Yes, I was just putting the well-known Box quote right next to the Gottschall quote. Sorry.
Someone is bound to bring this up, might as well be me: the idea that you need to overcome inertia is analogous to having a strong (but wrong) prior distribution. You’re going to need some strong evidence to shift it very far.
I love story-telling in song lyrics. It’s an art in and of itself I think, or not as easy to do as one might think, I think. I think Johnny Cash has a few songs that I think are great examples of great story-telling in a song (“A Boy Named Sue”, “One Piece At A Time”), and I also really like the song “Fancy” by Bobbie Gentry in this regard. I also tried to write such story-telling song lyrics myself in light of some song-lyric writing attempts, and really enjoyed the result of that.
I think there is and/or has been some story-telling contest where the story is supposed to be told in one or a few sentences, or something like that. I think I remember reading a few examples of those, but I am not sure. I think, at least some of those, needed some interpretation by the reader beyond what was written for it to “work”. I am not sure if I am correct in this all though, but in light of some comments in the blog post perhaps this process can be compared to “extrapolation” (?)
Quote from above: “This reminds me of the idea that Thomas Basbøll and I have raised, that good stories are anomalous and immutable. The “immutable” bit refers to true stories, and it’s the idea that they present some facts, some things that really happened. “Anomalous” refers to the twist in the story, the idea that any good story contains a surprise.’
I have been thinking about this, and wonder whether it could (also?) be the case that 1) a good story might also involve things that might happen (and not necessarily happened). In other words, they are plausible. And another thing I wondered about is whether 2) the twist can (also?) be something to think about afterwards, which may be similar to a surprise but sort of a delayed effect in the brain. The surprise is immediate, the pondering and wondering is delayed over time after the story is told or depicted.
In light of this, and my previous comment above about story telling in song lyrics I hope it’s okay to share one of three sets of lyrics I wrote, if I am not mistaken, that tell a story. The following one is titled “This Is What My Dad Said”, and is the most lighthearted of the three. I thought it may provide an example of a (good?) story that did not technically happen (I wrote it not based on actual events that happened, but it could have happened), and does not necessarily involve a surprise but more of a possible delayed pondering. I wrote it with a certain female musician (I had a converstation with her about some other lyrics at the time) as the singer in mind. I thought it might be a nice possible song to sing at a small bar, after most people had about two drinks but not much more.
This Is What My Dad Said
When it was over one day I went to my mother and cried
She was there to listen to me, or at least she tried
But at a certain point my dad stood up from his chair
walked over to us and called me and Mom a silly pair
He said it was stupid of me to buy that expensive dress
to try and impress who knows who in all of this mess
He said some men out there could very well be looking for
attributes and features that you can’t buy in a store
I think I promptly stopped crying due to my surprise
He usually just lets Mom talk and give the advise
But now he came over to us before I could tell more
perhaps he heard the story one too many times before
He stood next to Mom, took off her glasses, and said:
“I liked the way she held these things on the day we met
It’s how she held her fingers when she took them off
To this day, it’s still one of the things she does that I love”
My mom told him to just let me tell the story and cry
And there was no need for his views, for how, what, and why
But that didn’t deter him from sharing his thoughts this time
Maybe he had enough and chose to lay it on the line
He continued to further express, explain, note, and state
and wondered how much makeup Mom wore on their second date
He said there couldn’t have been that much touched and brushed
Because he saw her cheeks turn red that moment she blushed
I asked my dad whether he was drunk and feeling alright
before asking what this all had to do with my plight
Then he told me he was trying to make something clear
and that he hadn’t had a drink, not even a single beer
Dad handed the glasses back to Mom before stating:
“Maybe Mom didn’t know this from when we were dating,
and she could have worn contacts and that would be fine,
but glasses did play a part in wanting to make her mine”
He continued and told my mother how she looks
when he calls her while she is reading one of her books
When looking up from the page to him it sometimes seems
as if mom slowly awakens from one of her dreams
“What I am trying to make you see” Dad further said
“Is that she wouldn’t know this all unless I told her that”
“And that for me such things might very well be
some of the most beautiful things to notice and see”
Apparently that was it, and he went on with his day
I looked at mom whilst she looked at him walking away
She was blushing, and looking at her glance
there might have been something he said that made sense
I love your thoughts about science as storytelling. I remember once at a talk you gave years ago, when you arrived pretty early and told the ones who were already there that we deserved something for being early, too. Then you told us about how Dickens’ novels have all these implausible coincidences that seem so unreal, but that once you think about it, they are just a projection of the vastness of our own social networks onto the limited space of a novel. Probably misrepresented your point, but that’s how I remember it!
I wonder if you’ve read David Deutsch’s “The Beginning of Infinity” and Shiller’s “Narrative Economics”. The first one had a big influence on me, as he made the case that science is about coming up with “good explanations” (or stories). And then elaborates on what makes a good explanation. The other one is about how stories go viral and how many economic phenomena can be traced and studied through the lens of what makes some narratives spread more than others.
Pau:
Yes, definitely it’s a good idea to show up early for my talks! The Dickens bit is on page 25 of this 2017 article, Learning about networks using sampling.
I have not read the Deutsch and Shiller books; I’ll check them out.