Making Sense of Science and the Ethics of Storytelling: Q&A with Story Collider’s Liz Neeley

By Kristen Syme (@kristensyme)
Edited by Simon Bakke

We live through others and others live through us by way of storytelling. At some point on the evolutionary timescale, humans or human ancestors began telling stories huddled around the warmth of a campfire. Stories of success in warfare, failure in love, origin myths, and local gossip are ubiquitous genres. Cultural critic Walter Benjamin wrote, “The storyteller takes what he tells from experience—his own or that reported by others. And he in turn makes it the experience of those who are listening to his tale.”

One hypothesis for why humans have a propensity to tell and listen to stories proposes that stories are a platform for simulation learning. In listening to your kinsmen describe a successful rabbit hunt or a skillful escape from an attacker, you acquire valuable information about survival. A complementary hypothesis frames storytelling as a transaction in which the benefit to the listener is information that helps her navigate her environment, and the benefit to the storyteller is sharing information that benefits, well, the storyteller.

Liz Neeley, Executive Director of Story Collider

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