This is a notice of a recent paper that may be of interest here, "The storytelling arms race: origin of human intelligence and the scientific mind" by Enrico Coen. It is a more specific working out of the Machiavellian Intelligence hypothesis, taking storytelling as the means through which the deception arms race operated, and which (it suggests) also raised up language alongside intelligence. It also discusses the relationship between storytelling (where, as in war, truth is the first casualty) and science (where truth is the goal).

Disclosure: I work closely with the author, although not on the subject of this paper.