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Abstract

Abstract We are a story telling species. We make sense of the world by looking for order and patterns. So we often see a signal—and build explanatory edifice around it—where there is just noise; and we often see noise where there may well be a signal. This habit of shaping reality into an easy to follow narrative affects even one of the most structured and systematic human activities: science. One of two things tends to happen next. We either ignore the evidence that does not fit our story, or we bend and mould it until it does.