There is an urgent need to take stories seriously in order to improve public reasoning.

The challenges of using scientific evidence, of distinguishing news from fake news, and of acting well in anticipation of highly uncertain futures, are more visible now than ever before. Across all these areas of public reasoning, stories create profound new knowledge and so deserve to be taken seriously.

The two authors, Claire Craig, Provost of The Queen’s College, and Sarah Dillon, Professor of Literature and the Public Humanities at the University of Cambridge, talk to Charles Godfray, Director of the Oxford Martin School, about their theory and practice of listening to narratives where decisions are strongly influenced by contentious knowledge and powerful imaginings in areas such as climate change, artificial intelligence, the economy, and nuclear weapons and power.