Exactly. The point that Taleb is making is that we are hard-wired for storytelling or rather, interpreting the world through stories. And to employ as unbiased reason in order to make truly rational decisions , one has separate our innnate desire for the narrative explanation i.e. don’t get fooled by randomness.

http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Bullet-Points-PowerPoint®-Presentations/dp/0735623872/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212559939&sr=8-1

“He guides you, step by step, as you discover how to combine the tenets of classic storytelling with the power of projected media to create a rich, engaging experience.”

Edward Tufte’s background is in statistics, which is not usually associated with effective storytelling. You might be interested in John Allen Paulos’s thoughts on this in Chapter 1, “Between Stories and Statistics” of his book Once Upon a Number (1998).

@ Varangy: But in The Black Swan, Taleb says we may have to denarrate in order to rise above the “animal form of life”.

I think NNT wrote about this in The Black Swan as well.

Incidentally, I bought the book and keep meaning to write about it on The Story’s Story, as the essays are a) interesting, b) tell stories and c) offer a rich load of metaphors for other fields of endeavor. And if he manages to produce another volume, I’ll be sure to read that too — not because I’m particularly interested in software, but because the pieces are so compelling. And why are they compelling? Most tell stories, as you say.