Shades of preference in storytelling

Humans seem to have a strong bias toward narratives. We like stories. This is obvious when you read sports columns. Most of the time there's really no substantive value-add. If you want substance, just check box scores. But we want a story. So sports columnists give us a story. Usually something mildly counter-intuitive, general platitudes and conventional wisdom with just a twist. It doesn't matter if you're wrong, no one cares. How many people remember Bill Walton talking about how Shawn Bradley was a better basketball player than Shaquille O'Neil? Much the same applies to political punditry. There was no point in speculating whether Rick Perry would, or wouldn't, do well as an aspirant nominee of the Republican party for the presidency. We'd know sooner or later. I really got tired of Texas pundits like Eric Greider going on about how we shouldn't underestimate him. Aside from the fact that ...