ABSTRACT
In our culture the idea of story has been debased: it has become something for children which adults have grown out of, or something known not to be true, as in the remark ‘You’re telling me a story.’ Not surprisingly, children and sometimes adults persist in asking ‘Is the story true?’ when they really mean ‘Is the story literally true?’ Ironically, we tell stories all the time. ‘A funny thing happened to me at school today’ is rarely recounted as pure history! And the soaps of TV and radio provide endless storying from what is purported to be everyday life, from The Archers to Neighbours and the school-based soaps such as Grange Hill. Interestingly these soaps are often publicly rubbished by commentators and parodied by satirists yet many intelligent people watch them, even if a little guiltily. Is this perhaps a sign that we as adults are losing our ability to handle story? Arguably we need story just as much as humans have always done, yet in a literal and technological society we perhaps feel a need to scoff at it. It is ironic that the role of story in science is currently being acknowledged as a legitimate and vital means of communication. Story has a role in helping scientific enquiry, beginning with imaginative explanatory conjecture which then requires scrupulous analysis and testing.
