Into the Impossible: Think Like a Nobel Prize Winner: Lessons from Laureates to Stoke Curiosity, Spur Collaboration, and Ignite I by Brian Keating

Author:Brian Keating
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2021-08-12T15:29:56+00:00

Inside a Nobel Mind

Finding the Human in the Genius

Can creativity be taught?

Wieman: I’m not going to talk about creativity in the arts, but I have thought a lot about creativity in science and have talked with people who study this. To be creative in science is basically where people look at some situation or question and simply find a way that’s different than how everybody else has been looking at it. It’s not bringing in something new. It’s realizing things people already knew but did not really understand how to apply.

I would argue the standard educational approach we use in science is not ineffective in teaching creativity; rather, it is anti-effective in teaching creativity. In a normal course, students will learn things and be given tests they are graded on. The fundamental measure is always, “Are you able to produce the one answer the instructor wants to see?” That is completely the opposite of being able to think of ways to look at things or solve problems that nobody else has done before. You are penalized for creativity up through your entire formal schooling. You have to go through this big hurdle that says, “Get the answer all the faculty wants to see”—and that qualifies you to finally go out and do things where there isn’t an answer. Stupid system, right?

To be creative in science seems irrelevant to the creative process in the arts. But actually, they’re very similar, and the similarities extend to any other non-artistic field. You can achieve creative greatness in whatever your field is in the exact same way you would in the arts. Begin by reproducing the “masters.” In so doing, you’re effectively developing the muscle memory that an artist would get from reproducing the Mona Lisa or Monet’s Water Lilies. The muscle developed is not only physical dexterity but the mind as well. Some of your ten-thousand hours can be dedicated to that. You have a problem when all of your ten-thousand hours are dedicated to rote tasks such as memorization. Actually trying to reproduce the work of the giants who came before you instead of just memorizing it is a step toward mastery.

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