To be "interdisciplinary" has been a catchword for well over a decade in the academic world; grants are based upon it, jobs increasingly rely upon it, and, who knows, perhaps the future of the university will be based upon it. It can lead to provocative (yet unlikely and perhaps silly) proposals , but also genuine collaboration. Sometimes "interdisciplinary" isn't very much so: it is often the confluence of people in different departments on their own side of the humanities/sciences divide. The question remains how sciences and humanities can learn from one another in a mutually beneficial dialogue? E.O. Wilson suggests that we have a common basis in story --whether you are a novelist or a physicist, you are essentially telling a story. You may use a different set of vocabulary, different degrees of metaphor (although Lakoff and Johnson might say that all our language is essentially metaphoric), but we want to tell a story. The best scholars t...