The cases for plural, innovative and novel evidence to inform public reasoning

Abstract

From climate change to badger culling and Covid to AI, governments which seek academic evidence often reach first for the scientific and the quantified. This is better than not reaching for evidence at all but it is far from sufficient and sometimes even counter-productive.  

Advisory systems, behaviours and cultures designed to prioritise scientific evidence consistently miss opportunities to engage with the many other available forms of knowledge, including much of the humanities. A specific category of underused evidence concerns stories. Systematic “storylistening” alongside other forms of evidence can reframe challenges, change the models used to understand and explain the systems under consideration, provide insights into communities within those systems, and create new productive forms of anticipation.     

This seminar will consider what needs to change both in academia and in public reasoning to make rigorous use of narrative evidence inevitable and endemic.  It invites consideration of how all disciplines can collaborate to enable the full range of valuable forms of evidence to be deployed and to be influential in public reasoning. It will also invite speculation on where investment in such approaches might most rapidly gain traction (expect discussion of subterranean living and intergenerational futures, for example). 

Places are limited and so any academic colleagues or students interested in attending in person must register here for a place.