Roundworld priests, politicians, scientists, teachers and journalists have learned to use the power of story to get their messages across to the public, and to manipulate or persuade people to behave in particular ways. The 'scientific method' is a defense mechanism against that kind of manipulation. It tells you not to believe things because you want them to be true. The proper scientific response to any new discovery or theory, especially your own, is to look for ways to disprove it. That is, to try to find a different story that explains the same things.

The anthropologists got it wrong when they named our species Homo sapiens ('wise man'). In any case it's an arrogant and bigheaded thin to say, wisdom being one of our least evident features. In reality, w are Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee.

At this point, the structure of The Science of Discworld 2: The Globe becomes very self- referential. You will need to bear that in mind as we proceed. The book is itself a story - no - two intertwined stories One, the odd-numbered chapters, is a Discworld fantasy. The other -the even-numbered chapters, is a story of the science of the Mind (metaphysical again). The two are closely related, designed to fit together like foot and glove;10 the science story is presented as a series of Very Large Footnotes to the fantasy story.

So far, so good ... but it gets more complicated. When you read a Discworld story, you play a curious mental game. You react as if the story is true, as if Discworld actually exists, as if Rincewind and the Luggage are real, and Roundworld is but a fragment of a long-forgotten dream. (Please stop interrupting, Rincewind, we know it's different from your point of view. Yes, of course we're the ones that don't exist, we're bundles of rules whose consequences take place only inside a small globe on a dusty shelf in Unseen University. Yes, we do appreciate that, and will you please shut up?) Sorry about that.