{"id":6597,"date":"2009-08-15T09:51:34","date_gmt":"2009-08-15T14:51:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=6597"},"modified":"2009-08-15T09:51:34","modified_gmt":"2009-08-15T14:51:34","slug":"stephen-jay-gould-on-jim-bowie-bill-buckner-and-storytelling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/08\/stephen-jay-gould-on-jim-bowie-bill-buckner-and-storytelling\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Jay Gould on Jim Bowie, Bill Buckner, and Storytelling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Alamo\"Stephen Jay Gould, the eminent scientist and Harvard professor, was interested in human pattern recognition in stories.\u00a0 He referred to the patterns that human minds want to create as \u201ccanonical stories.\u201d His essay entitled \u201cJim Bowie\u2019s Letter and Bill Buckner\u2019s Legs\u201d, which appears in I Have Landed:\u00a0 The End of a Beginning in Natural History<\/em>, describes two famous stories \u2014 one of Jim Bowie at the Alamo and the other of Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gould explains how both of these stories have often been patterned into the form of a canonical story.\u00a0 In the Alamo story, the canon focuses on the Alamo defenders\u2019 valor and honorable death.\u00a0 William B. Travis, a young commander at the Alamo, wrote a letter describing the siege, which ends with the phrase \u201cVICTORY OR DEATH.\u201d\u00a0 (60)\u00a0 This famous letter is often cited in Alamo legend, but Gould points out that Bowie also wrote a letter, which fails to get mentioned because it does not fit with the canon.\u00a0 (60)\u00a0 He goes so far as to say Bowie\u2019s letter is \u201chidden in plain\u201d sight, ignored in a glass case at the Alamo museum.\u00a0 (60-61)\u00a0 Bowie thought that Santa Anna was willing to negotiate, and he wrote in Spanish to Santa Anna asking whether Santa Anna had called for a parley.\u00a0 (61-62)\u00a0 Santa Anna responded that he would have no mercy without unconditional surrender.\u00a0 (62)<\/p>\n

Gould then surmises that even with this response, had Bowie been less ill, \u201csome honorable solution would eventually have emerged through private negotiations\u201d because Santa Anna and Bowie were seasoned battle veterans.\u00a0 (62-63)\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Gould thinks this letter gets ignored because it reflects Bowie\u2019s attempt to find a sensible alternate solution with less bloodshed, instead of promoting the canon of the defenders\u2019 valor and honorable death.\u00a0 (63)<\/p>\n

In the Bill Buckner story, the stage is set with \u201cthe curse of the Bambino.\u201d\u00a0 (63)\u00a0 The Red Sox had been losing World Series championships throughout the decades.\u00a0 (64)\u00a0 In 1986, however, it seemed like luck was changing for the Red Sox.\u00a0 They were up three games to two going into game six \u2014 which meant that if they won game six, they would win the series.\u00a0 The Red Sox led by two going into the last inning.\u00a0 (64)\u00a0 With the Mets at bat and two outs, the Mets managed to tie up the game.\u00a0 (64)\u00a0 At the fateful moment for Bill Buckner, Mookie Wilson from the Mets hit a ground ball that bounced through Buckner\u2019s legs, bringing in the winning run.\u00a0 (64-65)\u00a0 The Mets went on to win game seven, continuing the curse of the Bambino.\u00a0 (65)\u00a0 The canon generally pins the World Series loss on Bill Buckner as a \u201cbut for\u201d situation:\u00a0 but for Bill Buckner\u2019s mistake, the Red Sox would have won the series.\u00a0 (66)\u00a0 However, the Red Sox had other opportunities \u2014 after all, they could have won game seven.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gould uses these stories to illustrate how canonical stories can ignore or misstate key facts.\u00a0 Adherence to canonical stories in science can cause problems because scientists may try to fit evidence into a preferred storyline, instead of allowing the evidence to speak for itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This same point applies in legal advocacy.\u00a0 On one hand, it\u2019s crucial to create a strong theory of the case and to create a compelling story.\u00a0 But one has to be cautious at all points in the litigation process of creating a canonical story that fails to incorporate or address key pieces of evidence.\u00a0 One place where this pitfall can happen is in discovery.\u00a0 An engaged lawyer should constantly be sorting through the evidence, trying to create a cohesive story.\u00a0 If a fact does not seem to fit, however, it is important to keep that fact in the forefront, not to forget about it.\u00a0 A lawyer also has to obey the ethics rules regarding the representation of facts.\u00a0 As the story officially emerges in the pretrial and trial stages of the case, a lawyer needs to be mindful that the other side will always be ready to point out the adverse facts.\u00a0 It\u2019s best to have a strategy to deal with adverse facts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen Jay Gould, the eminent scientist and Harvard professor, was interested in human pattern recognition in stories.\u00a0 He referred to the patterns that human minds want to create as \u201ccanonical stories.\u201d His essay entitled \u201cJim Bowie\u2019s Letter and Bill Buckner\u2019s Legs\u201d, which appears in I Have Landed:\u00a0 The End of a Beginning in Natural History, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-practice","category-legal-writing","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}