Creativity according to Vint Cerf
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The recent paper published by Simonton on Nature has already opened a debate in the scientific community. Summarizing, he maintains that “genius in science has become extinct”. In his opinion “scientist today might require more raw intelligence to become a first-rate researcher than it took to become a genius during the “heroic age” of the scientific revolution in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, given how much information and experience researchers must acquire to become proficient”. Besides the hyper-specialization that characterized the contemporary scientific world, Simonton explains the extinction of scientific genius sharing the Thomas Kuhn’s point of view, that a scientific revolution happens only in front of a discipline state of crisis produced by an accumulation of critical findings that continue to resist explanation. And the natural sciences do not seem in a crisis state.
Can really the creative insights be understood in scientific terms? Or better, does it really matter? The question I raise is whether the scientific approach could add some value to creative thinking.