Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society

Review: An Emerging Paradigm for Research on Human Creativity

Reviewed Work(s): Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen through the Lives of
Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi by Howard Gardner
Review by: David Henry Feldman
Source: American Scientist, Vol. 82, No. 5 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1994), pp. 472-473
Published by: Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29775284
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 The Scientists' Bookshelf

An Emerging Paradigm for Research on Human Creativity

Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Cre? tential could be measured as accurately as Creating Minds sets out an ambitious
ativity Seen through the Lives of we could measure intellectual potential. agenda: to shed light on how major
Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Time has proven that creativity may not breakthroughs are made in a wide array
Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi. Howard yield up its secrets so willingly as the post? of disciplines, including the case of .creat?
Gardner. 464 pp. Basic Books, 1993. war enthusiasts had hoped. Indeed, it now ing a new discipline itself. As Gardner
$30. appears (in large measure through the ef? writes, "...I seek conclusions about the
forts of Howard Gardner, the author of the nature of the Creative Enterprise writ
As science proceeds to render human work under review) that we may have large"; and "The book may be regarded
intelligence less and less exceptional, cre? been naive in thinking that intelligence it? as one effort to proceed at least the first
ativity would seem to be one of the last self is a known scientific entity. Even if it step away from findings rooted in indi?
hopes of a privileged place for the mind of were, the 25-year campaign to produce a vidual cases to generalizations that eluci?
our species. Machines calculate more ac? creativity test to complement the IQ test date creativity within and across do?
curately and faster than we ever will, and has proven to be (largely) a bust. Even the mains." Using his theory of multiple
certain chimp and ape species show star? most devoted fan of currently available intelligences as a guide, Gardner chooses
tling tendencies to use symbolic functions. creativity tests recognizes that there have seven individuals (one representing each
The great Swiss developmentalist Piaget been validity problems with them. Basical? of the seven known intelligences identi?
claimed that consciousness is not restrict? ly this means that there is not much reason fied in his theory), limits himself to a brief
ed to human experience except perhaps at to believe that the tests measure what they period in recent history (the turn of the
its highest and most abstract levels. Even are purported to measure or predict what last century), and proceeds to search for
intuition, that most ineluctable, inexpress? they are supposed to predict. patterns that might generalize across the
ible human tendency, is under investiga? As of the mid-1970s, the field of scien? seven cases. Contrasts between and
tion by practitioners of the new discipline tific research on creativity was moribund. among the cases are also noted.
of artificial intelligence. Scientific discov? It appeared that creativity would once The cases represent some of the most
ery itself has recently been simulated by again elude the best efforts of the scientif? noted figures of recent history. Only one
these same intrepid pioneers; Kepler's ic community. Still there continued to be (Albert Einstein) was a physical scientist
third law has been "discovered" by a pro? interest in the topic, and during the (Sigmund Freud, a neurologist by train?
gram called bacon produced at Carnegie decade between the mid-1970s and the ing, might arguably also be labeled a sci?
Mellon University. mid-1980s the field of scientific creativity entist). The other five cases analyzed are
For 2,000 years and more, creativity has research was revolutionized and rejuve? Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, T. S. Eliot,
been the subject of interpretation and nated, in part because of Howard Gard? Martha Graham and Mahatma Gandhi.
speculation by some of history's greatest ner. Clearly, then, when appraising his The subjects reflect, in turn, the logi?
minds, from Plato to Kant to Freud. But newest book, Creating Minds, we are deal? cal/mathematical, interpersonal, spatial,
until the midpoint of this century it is fair ing with one of the major figures of late musical, linguistic, bodily and interper?
to say that the scientific study of creativity 20th-century scientific psychology. sonal intelligences of Gardner's theory.
had hardly begun. Once begun, however, Although it must be acknowledged The selection of subjects was thus guided
it appeared that creativity would fall, as that I have been a colleague and collabo? by theory as well as by Gardner's judg?
have so many other human conceits, to rator of Gardner's, in my opinion Creating ment of the power and quality of each
the systematic efforts of the research com? Minds is his most mature and powerful subject's contribution to his or her field.
munity. After all, some of the same scien? work. Gardner is best known for his 1983 Note once again that the kind of cre?
tists who undertook to study creativity, j. classic Frames of Mind: The Theory of Mul? ativity studied in the present work is
P. Guilford of the University of Southern tiple Intelligences, a book that has had at the extreme of what might be meant
California foremost among them, had pro? great influence on current theories of in? by creativity; following our colleague
duced a testing program for the military telligence. It may remain his most widely Howard Gruber, whose studies of Charles
that was widely (if, it turns out, inaccu? known book, and deservedly so, but the Darwin demonstrated the value of re?
rately) perceived to have made an impor? present volume is the one that will, I be? search on unequivocally creative cases,
tant difference in the success of the Allied lieve, better stand the test of time. Its im? the present work represents a reversal of
effort. When, with substantial military portance lies in the fact that it marks a the tradition in research on creativity,
support, a major effort to produce a cre? turning point in the scientific study of cre? which has tended to study it as if it were
ativity test was launched in the early ativity that is at once more dramatic and the same in all individuals and, therefore,
1950s, it seemed as though it would be of greater long-term significance than a could be studied equally productively in
only a matter of time before creative po change in theories of intelligence. any sample.

472 American Scientist, Volume 82

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 Methodologically, Creating Minds is nei?
ther conventional biography nor conven?
tional group research; we have rather an
ensemble of subjects, chosen for quite spe?
cific reasons, whose lives are compared
and contrasted within a framework for the
study of creativity that is itself evolving.
"... [M]y approach to the study of creativi?
ty begins in focused biography?in an in?
tensive examination of the periods in the
life of a creative individual when a break?
through was conceptualized, realized, and
reacted to by knowledgeable individuals
and relevant institutions. I seek to tran?
scend a concatenation of specific biogra?
phies by searching for common properties
and illuminating distinctions across a
small set of instructive cases." The research
beautifully exemplifies the emerging para?
digm in creativity research at the level of Picasso's Horse and Mother with Dead Child"May 8, 1937 (2)/' pencil on paper. From Creating Minds.
the individual or the small group that
Gardner and a few others pioneered. One of the most interesting is the fact that the possibility that its findings are limited
Some remarkable findings are reported: at crucial moments each one of the seven to its small and idiosyncratically selected
There are more common patterns in the creators worked closely and collabora sample, but if one were to read one book
creative lives of these widely diverse indi? tively with someone whose work was not by the author, particularly one book of in?
viduals than one might have imagined. as widely recognized as was their own. terest to the broad scientific community,
For example, a "10-year" rule seemed to Examples include Picasso's collaboration this is the book. I will go further; if one
apply in each case. It took about 10 years with Georges Bracque at the most forma? were to read one book on the study of cre?
for each subject to achieve a first break? tive period of what we now call Cubism, ativity by any author, this is the book. So
through or a pivotal work, and another 10 and Einstein's 15-year collaboration with long as one recognizes that, of necessity,
years or so to reach a second major turning his first wife, Mileva Marie. Generally, this is a study that stakes out largely un?
point. "We see at work what I have these collaborations ended when a major explored territory, the reader will find
dubbed the ten-year rule, with significant breakthrough or reorganization was ac? Creating Minds a work of great merit.
innovations or reorientations happening at complished and consolidated. The usefulness of the author's approach
approximately decade-long intervals after Gardner does not claim that the pat? to the study of creativity is more than am?
an initial decade in which the skills of terns revealed in his analysis would hold ply demonstrated in this remarkable and
one's trade have been mastered. In for all subjects, not even among subjects elegant work of scholarship and imagina?
Stravinsky's case, the situation is compli? as preeminent as these seven, nor for sub? tion. Whether the book represents a break?
cated by the fact that... two compositions jects from different cultures or different through of the sort studied in Frames of
were begun at almost the same time, with historical periods. The peculiar genius of Mind remains to be seen (it would conform
Les noces having an extraordinarily long the modern era, Gardner believes, has to the 10-year rule if it did); one of the
gestation period." been its ability to integrate the childlike lessons learned from reading the book is
Another common feature of the seven with the mature, a quality unlikely to per? that it is for the field to judge such matters
lives is that a kind of "Faustian bargain" sist into the next century. He is thus ex? over time. When the history of the scientif?
was struck (consciously or unconsciously) quisitely sensitive to both the limits of his ic study of creativity is written, however, it
between the individual and his or her data and the contextual constraints im? is my opinion that the present work will
craft such that normal interpersonal rela? posed when a Western-trained develop? have secured a prominent place in the sto?
tions are compromised, often severely, to mental psychologist studies modem West ry. It is the story that is likely to reveal the
better serve the creator's gift. em instances of creative accomplishment. uniqueness of our species, for better or for
There are other fascinating patterns The book does have its limitations and worse.?David Henry Feldman, Eliot-Pearson
found and discussed in Creating Minds. problems, the most important of which is Child Study Center, Tufts University

How Do Physicists Come to Ask the Questions They Ask?

What Makes Nature Tick? Roger G. number of talks given... to a group of col? effectiveness of mathematics in the nat?
Newton. 257 pp. Harvard University leagues from various disciplines who have ural sciences," the author suggests that
Press, 1993. $27.95. been meeting... to discuss our disparate in? it "is no more than a very powerful cod?
tellectual interests." We are therefore of? ification of logical short cuts." He calls
Could you resist Newton's thoughts on fered a series of 10 essays that do not, of on great thinkers to help make his
What Makes Nature Tick? In this case the course, answer the title question, but rather points, and his ingenious use of quotes,
Newton is Roger G. Newton, Distin? discuss how physicists came to ask some of often from unexpected sources, is an en?
guished Professor of Physics at Indiana the questions they are now asking. chanting aspect of this challenging text.
University, and his insights into the histo? Newton opens with a lucid discus? For example, the opening chapter fea?
ry, development and current models sion of what science is, why it is a tures quotes from Albert Einstein,
physicists use to probe our universe unique and effective way of looking at Michael Faraday, Hermann Bondi, Eu?
would fascinate Sir Isaac. In the preface, the universe, and the roles of mathemat? gene Wigner, Peter Medawar, Charles
the author explains: "This book had its ori? ics, imagination and beauty in its devel? Dickens, John Maynard Keynes, Free?
gin in a Phi Beta Kappa address and in a opment. In analyzing "the unreasonable man Dyson and Hippocrates.

1994 September-October 473

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