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The Mother Lode of Invention Dan Jones Compares Three Studies on the Origins and Fruits of Human Creativity

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The Mother Lode of Invention Dan Jones Compares Three Studies on the Origins and Fruits of Human Creativity AUTUMN BOOKS NEUROSCIENCE The mother lode of invention Dan Jones compares three studies on the origins and fruits of human creativity. ocating the wellsprings of creativity is The Origins of Creativity relationship between science and the humani- a challenge on a par with teasing apart EDWARD O WILSON ties, and calls for a “third enlightenment” the origins of consciousness. Ecologist Liveright: 2017. that fuses the empirical strengths of the for- LE. O. Wilson, however, has a simple starting mer with the imaginative ways of capturing The Runaway Species: How Human point. In The Origins of Creativity, his 30th Creativity Remakes the World human experience nurtured by the latter. book, he declares that we as a species are DAVID EAGLEMAN AND ANTHONY BRANDT He argues that the humanities, predicated defined by creativity — an “innate quest for Catapult: 2017. as they are on exploring the human condi- originality” driven by an “instinctive love Why?: What Makes Us Curious tion, need to ally with what he calls the Big of novelty”. The idea is echoed in The Runa- MARIO LIVIO Five disciplines: anthropology, evolutionary way Species, by composer Anthony Brandt Simon & Schuster: 2017. biology, neurobiology, palaeontology and and neuroscientist David Eagleman, a lively psychology. The creative impulse, writes exploration of the software our brains run However, a detailed exploration of evolu- Wilson, did not spring into life 10,000 years in search of the mother lode of invention. tionary origins, cognitive neuroscience and ago as some suggest, but dates back more Meanwhile, physicist Mario Livio examines the psychology of creativity is not forthcom- than 100,000 years, to the birth of modern the inquisitive nature of geniuses in Why?. ing. This book, packed with anecdotes and humans. A tripling of brain size over the Wilson’s bald assertion raises obvious personal reminiscences, is more a medita- 3 million years before that had endowed questions. Why do humans alone have such tion on how our genetic and cultural nature Homo sapiens with increased social intelli- creative potential? What happens in the brain shapes our experience of the world, and how gence and empathy, paving the way for sym- and mind during the creative process? Why that in turn influences the form and content bolic language. Indeed, Wilson traces the are some people so astonishingly creative? of our creative output. Wilson considers the origins of the humanities to “the nocturnal 34 | NATURE | VOL 550 | 5 OCTOBER©20 201717 Mac millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. All ri ghts reserved. ©2017 Mac millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. All ri ghts reserved. AUTUMN BOOKS COMMENT features with the acacias of the African savan- contemplate situations and possibilities, and nahs (short trunks, broad canopies and small, “move from the reflexive to the inventive”. divided leaves), which offered protection from The book contains little cognitive neurosci- predators and were useful observation towers. ence to show how any of this happens, and Wilson touches on gene–culture co-evolu- no serious evolutionary account of why the tion, and defends his controversial embrace brain is like this. Thus The Runaway Species, of group selection (M. A. Nowak et al. too, fails to pinpoint the source of creativity, or Nature 466, 1057–1062; 2010). He believes why humans are singularly endowed with it. that the equations of inclusive fitness theory The yen for the new that both books see are flawed, and that there’s no evidence for as key may explain why companies keep kin selection, nor any need to invoke it to churning out smartphones, but does it get to explain social behaviour. It’s a stimulating the bottom of the creative drive? At least as ride, but it fails to pin down the origins of important is curiosity, avers Mario Livio in creativity. Why?, an energetic look at the psychology and The title of Brandt and Eagleman’s book neuroscience of our inquisitiveness. perhaps reflects some of that elusiveness. Geniuses are often relentlessly curious The Runaway Species is beautifully pro- about almost everything, contends Livio. duced, illustrated and written. It sweeps the He traces this through the lives and works reader through examples from engineering, of Renaissance polymath Leonardo Da Vinci science, product design, music and the visual and physicist Richard Feynman, as well as arts to trace the roots of creative thinking to interviews with modern scientists and three key mental skills: bending, breaking crossover figures, from Freeman Dyson to and blending. guitarist-cum-astrophysicist Brian May, of Bending describes the representation of the band Queen. Livio finds that although some element in unusual ways. Architect curiosity can be piqued by novelty, it’s also Frank Gehry warps the lines and planes of sparked by encounters with complex phe- a building into waves and curves; Albert nomena (how does this work?), uncertainty Einstein bent how we look at the fabric of (which choices will lead to desired out- the Universe with his comes?), and conflict theories of relativ- (how does this fit in ity. Breaking involves with what I already fragmentation and CREATIVE PEOPLE know?). re assembly. We see it Sometimes, curios- in Pablo Picasso’s 1937 ity pulls us towards painting Guernica and BEND, BLEND big, abstract questions Johann Sebastian Bach’s about the workings of The Well-Tempered AND BREAK nature — Isaac New- firelight of the earliest human encamp- Clavier (1722–42), THE WORLD’S ton on gravitation, or ments”, around which people gathered to in which part of an Charles Darwin on gossip, establish status and form alliances. established theme is CULTURAL evolution. Or it leads to His view is that until a better picture can cut out and repeated solutions for practical be drawn of prehistory, the humanities — with variations. Blend- ARCHIVE. problems, such as the which lack a full causal explanation of the ing combines sources, methods for protein human condition — will continue to exist exemplified by the and DNA sequencing in an anthropomorphic “bubble of sensory genre-mashing sam- invented by two-time ILLUSTRATIONS BY KOUZOU SAKAI KOUZOU BY ILLUSTRATIONS experience”. pling of beats and melodies in hip hop. Nobel prizewinner Frederick Sanger. Often, Wilson seeks to redress that balance by Creative people constantly find new ways the same person will shift between these exploring how findings in the Big Five can to bend, blend and break the world’s cul- levels: Einstein also worked on designs for enrich our understanding of culture. Clearly a tural archive. They also “proliferate options” refrigerators, cameras and microphones, as cinephile, he uses films to illustrate how literary by making variants of a given work: Ernest well as patenting a blouse (as The Runaway and dramatic narratives cluster into archetypes Hemingway drafted 47 versions of the end- Species taught me). shaped by our evolutionary history and the ing to his 1929 novel A Farewell To Arms; Read together, these three books remind suite of emotions it has bequeathed to us. So Picasso painted 58 works inspired by Diego that, despite the astounding scope and rich- our love of the hero, a protagonist who has to Veláquez’s Las Meninas (1656). Creative peo- ness of human creativity, we still lack a broad overcome great challenges or outwit powerful ple are also bold: innovation, as any entrepre- scientific framework for thinking about its enemies, is the “instinctive product of endless neur knows, is a risky business. cognitive and evolutionary wellsprings. And prehuman and primitive warfare”. Likewise, Brandt and Eagleman also explore how although the development of artificial intel- our penchant for ‘pair bond’ archetypes — creativity might be nurtured from boardroom ligence gathers pace, it’s still too early to say think Ridley Scott’s 1991 Thelma & Louise or to classroom, in “the sweet spot between whether it will offer us world-changing ideas. Akira Kurosawa’s Stray Dog (1949) — springs unstructured play and imitating models”. Like What’s sure is that, in an era of climate change, from our instinctive appreciation of “altruism Wilson, they conclude that creativity springs intractable inequity and geopolitical instabil- and cooperation”. And Wilson argues that from a restless brain bored by monotonous ity, creative solutions are an imperative. ■ our evolutionary past shapes many cultures’ input. Compared with other species, they aesthetic preferences. Gardeners “from the write, humans have “more brain cells between Dan Jones is a freelance writer in temples of Kyoto to the baronial estates of sensation (what’s out there?) and action (this Brighton, UK. England”, he writes, choose trees that share is what I’m going to do)”, which allow us to e-mail: [email protected] ©2017 Mac millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. All ri ghts reserved. ©2017 Mac millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. All ri gh5ts OCTOBERreserved. 2017 | VOL 550 | NATURE | 35 .
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