Narrative and models

Models and narratives are often found together in the sciences, not always, but more often than one might expect, and where they come together, they generally function as ‘good companions’. Two main forms of collaboration are outlined. In one, narratives are constitutive in the models in a field. This is most evident in the models of the natural historical sciences, which tend to rely on a narrative structure in their core accounts, both theoretical and empirical. Narrative-making is also found in certain fields of science in motivating the content of new models, or providing closure in construction, or opening up new possibilities for an existing model. These uses rely on the quality of narratives as ‘sense-makers’, that is, they are used to make sense of problems by bringing disparate elements together and exploring how they relate. Perhaps more surprisingly, the qualities of narratives as sense-makers fit them for use in a variety of evaluative roles for models in providing qualitative tests and extending the ways in which model validity is understood and practised.