Narrative Science
Reasoning, Representing and Knowing since 1800

The first systematic analysis of the ways scientists have used narrative in their research.

Mary S. Morgan (Edited by), Kim M. Hajek (Edited by), Dominic J. Berry (Edited by)

9781316519004, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 October 2022

498 pages
23.4 x 15.7 x 3 cm, 0.84 kg

'Narrative Science eloquently parries dismissive, 'just-so' critiques of story-telling in science by demonstrating that scientists past and present have used narrative as a way of thinking: that is, a tool for making sense of the natural, human, and social worlds they study, and for creating new knowledge.' Anne Vila, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Narrative Science examines the use of narrative in scientific research over the last two centuries. It brings together an international group of scholars who have engaged in intense collaboration to find and develop crucial cases of narrative in science. Motivated and coordinated by the Narrative Science project, funded by the European Research Council, this volume offers integrated and insightful essays examining cases that run the gamut from geology to psychology, chemistry, physics, botany, mathematics, epidemiology, and biological engineering. Taking in shipwrecks, human evolution, military intelligence, and mass extinctions, this landmark study revises our understanding of what science is, and the roles of narrative in scientists' work. This title is also available as Open Access.

List of figures
Authors and affiliations
Foreword Mary S. Morgan, Kim M. Hajek and Dominic J. Berry
Prologues
1. Narrative: A general purpose technology for science Mary S. Morgan
2. What is narrative in narrative science? The narrative science approach Kim M. Hajek
Part I. Matters of Time: When time matters in the sciences, it matters in their narratives, but those narratives rarely use a simple account of time
3. Mass extinctions and narratives of recurrence John E. Huss
4. The narrative nature of geology and the rewriting of the stac fada story Andrew Hopkins
5. Reasoning from narratives and models: reconstructing the tohoku earthquake Teru Miyake
6. Stored and storied time in archaeology Anne Teather
Part II. Accessing Nature's Narratives: When nature is seen as narrating itself, narrative becomes a constituent feature of scientific accounts
7. Great exaptations: On reading Darwin's plant narratives Devin Griffiths
8. From memories to forecasting: Narrating imperial storm science Debjani Bhattacharyya
9. Visual evidence and narrative in botany and war: Two domains, one practice Elizabeth Haines
10. The trees' tale: Filigreed phylogenetic trees and integrated narratives Nina Kranke
11. Process tracing and narrative science Sharon Crasnow
Part III. Research Narratives: When scientists write about their research, their narratives centre on their practices but reveal their beliefs about phenomena
12. Research articles as narratives: Familiarizing communities with an approach Robert Meunier
13. Thick and thin chemical narratives Mat Paskins
14. Reporting on plagues: Epidemiological reasoning in the early twentieth century Lukas Engelmann
15. The politics of representation: Narratives of automation in twentieth century American mathematics Stephanie Dick
16. Chronicle, genealogy, and narrative: Understanding synthetic biology in the image of historiography Berry
Part IV. Narrative Sensibility and Argument: When narrative acts as a site for reasoning
17. Anecdotes: epistemic switching in medical narratives Brian Hurwitz
18. Narrative performance and the 'taboo on causal inference': A case study of conceptual remodelling and implicit causation Elspeth Jajdelska
19. Reading mathematical proofs as narratives Line Edlsev Andersen
20. Narrative solutions to a common evolutionary problem John Beatty
21. Just-so what? Paula Olmos
22. Narrative and natural language M. Norton Wise
Index.

Subject Areas: History of engineering & technology [TBX]