Humans Are Hardwired to Tell History in Stories. Neuroscience Tells Us Why We Get Them Wrong

We love stories. We’d like to have all our knowledge packaged in stories — narratives with plots that involve people (and animals) with reasons and motives, carrying out their aims and designs, in cooperation or conflict, succeeding or being thwarted.

Science comes hard to most of us because it can’t really take that form. Instead it’s equations, models, theories and the data that support them. But ironically, science offers an explanation of why we love stories.