by Anthony Brandt & David Eagleman
Catapult 2017
304 pages
Nonfiction
There used to be a test to judge which side of the brain you
functioned best with—the right side or the left side. The right side is the
creative side; the left side the more methodical and scientific. After taking
the test at school, the principal lined up the staff based on their scores. Lots
of teachers were in the middle of the range; I, of course, was on the far right
side of the line and one of my friends was on the far left. As we talked about
it at lunch, i commented about how I created whole scenarios with my dolls when
I was a child. My left-brained friend said that she spent her childhood organizing
her Barbie dolls' shoes by color and category. Both of us used our dolls for
creative imagining. The results were different, but no less creative.
The Runaway Species delves deeply into human creativity. Brandt
is a musician and composer and Eagleman is a neuroscientist, and their combined
research into creativity—of all sorts—is both refreshing and enlightening. The
authors introduce us to the process of creativity by suggesting that the work
of NASA and the work of Picasso are basically the same. What separates us from
animals is cognitive flexibility. "We absorb the raw materials of
experience and manipulate them to form something new." We open our eyes,
see what is around us, and envision other possible worlds. They also believe
that creativity is going to be our salvation going forward as a society.
There are three parts of this creative process—bending, breaking
and blending. "We take the raw materials of experience and then bend,
break and blend them to create new outcomes." In bending, an original is
modified or twisted out of shape. In breaking, of course, it is taken apart,
and in blending, two or more sources are merged. Time is spent exploring each
of these concepts, and there are remarkable examples both in the text and with
photographs. I particularly liked the section on how to design the creative
school and the authors' dramatic recommendations about creative opportunities
for children. One of the reasons that students of science need the arts is that
the arts encourage risk taking and the arts operate "as dynamic remixes of
real life."
Two examples: My first husband Lee was a science teacher but
an extremely creative man. He would always say, "You know what you could
do." It could be about a dish I served for supper or the redecoration of a
room or the repair of a gutter. It used to annoy the heck out of me. He didn't live long enough to see how his "You know what you could do" played out in his children's lives. However,
our oldest son is now a toy inventor, the next son is a professional problem
solver, and our daughter is a preschool teacher. "You know what you could
do" is the mantra of their lives.
Then—my daughter said that she thought her 4-year-old was
just scribbling when he had a paper and crayons. Then she realized that he was
drawing a couple of figures on the paper and creating an entire script
involving those figures. The scribbling was the action happening to the
figures. He was bending, breaking and blending.
My husband and I read The Runaway Species aloud to each other. We found
it so inspiring. He said, that it helped him understand the "strait-jacket
of the politically correct" and how that strait jacket curtails creativity. I had never thought about how creativity in science and the arts
are intimately connected. These are the major take-aways from our reading.
The book received a star rating from Kirkus
Reviews. They said "The book is astonishing for its simplicity in
explaining the threads that link creativity in the arts, sciences, and
technology." Kirkus calls it "essential—and highly pleasurable"
reading. We recommend The Runaway Species. It engendered a
tremendous amount of discussion—our favorite kind of book. Look for it, It will be published next week.
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