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The Human Zoo

Factual: Science & Nature

Series 4

Exploring the foibles, quirks and behaviour of that most fascinating of species - us

The Human Zoo explores the foibles, quirks and behaviour of that most fascinating of species - us

The Human Zoo: Series 3

The Human Zoo: Series 3: Episode 2: The stories we use

Episode 2

Episode 2: The stories we use

Series 3

The stories we use

BBC Radio 4 - The Human Zoo, Series 3, The stories we use

Michael Blastland explores the stories we use to explain our world to ourselves.

Random things happen to us all the time, yet we can't resist finding a narrative in the chaos. This week, Michael Blastland reveals the storyteller lurking inside all of us.

Cast an objective eye back over our lives, and, if we are brutally honest, it's a whole set of random events that brought us to where we are today. Yet if you ask someone, or even yourself, about that life we get a coherent story of cause and effect - the holiday that led to a career as a ski instructor, the missed train that got you talking to your future spouse or the serendipitous meeting outside a pub that kick started your career as a radio journalist. 

We need to tell stories to survive, the argument goes, to make sense of the terrifying confusion that is our existence. So how deeply is this embedded in our psychology - can we design experiments to explore and explain our ability to make sense out of chaos? 

In this week's Human Zoo, Michael Blastland delves into our storytelling brains - the story of our stories.

Producer: Toby Murcott
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Michael Blastland presents the series that explores the foibles, quirks and behaviour of that most fascinating of species - us

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The Human Zoo

Series 3

Episode 2: The stories we use

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