(A fOr

Notes on] nfsearch on creativity from biographical sources
lerom talk to the Stanford Medical School Alumni Sek

June 4, 19869. Stanford, Calif. rsa
wy

In his discussion on experience effects on the organization of
the visual cortex David Hubel made some remark on immersion and
problem salving as the basis of creative activity. I took that as a
point of transitioni without decrying what he said in any way I in-
dicated that I was going to put more emphasis on fantasy and
imagination: the development of hypotheses, the discovery of questions.
What I had to say would leave no doubt about my indulgence in
fantasy. He had also said something about age effects: my riposte would
be that the loss of fantasy: the distance from childhood (not to
mention having learned too much) may hinder a fresh approach
Some of us may still profit from a second childhood!

Transitigh from previous speaker.

My thanks to Dr. Purpura as 4 fellow graduate of Stuy-
vesant High School for 4 welcome opportunity to visit a place that
had occupied the larger part of my adult life and to rejoin many
people with whom I hope to sustain neuronal connections (referring
back to Hubel‘’s talk>.

He also gave me a difficult assignment ta say something sensible
about creativity: or failing that to lapse into reminiscence in 4
way that was never encouraged when I lived at Stanford and would not
hasten to do where [ live now. If I do lapse into indecent exposure
I can fall back to another jurisdiction. On the other hand,
many of you know me well enough to offer some corrective discipline
against self-delusion. But you will recognize my act of trust in you.

Ed Rubenstein is well known for inflicting challenges like this
“especially on his friends

For many years I have looked at scientific biography and dis-~
cavery accounts. They have been inspirational but hardly ever en-
Lightening for clues of process. What‘’s wrong?

1. The observations are hardly ever and could not readily be con-
trolled. We do not do comparative studies of competent but uncrea~
tive people.

2 (But I didn’t go into this in my talk.) Intrinsic factors in
intellectual development, the sorting out of genetic from environ
mantal companents will become accessible in the near future with
advances in DNA research. For example polymorphisms that Dr.
Cavalli-Sforza and his colleagues here work on.

3. (Pathology)
lf we were to pursue case studies the example of medicine suggests
that we focus on pathology: the experiments of nature, to understand
the outcomes of people who would seem to be very promising but did
not achieve that promise.
I referred although only anecdotally to studies and observations
like those on the Terman group, the whiz kids, my own thoughts about
the science talent search winners which suggested to me that early
performance in those academic dimensions was not very often followed
up by creative activity in later life. There is some other literature
on this to which I may also allude but the matter should not be ac-
cepted on faith too lightly.

A remark on biography in general: that so many factors shape our
lives no way could I review them here.

Science requires such a paradoxical blend of humility and ag-
gressioni the career of the scientist is subject to so many stresses
(Lawrence Kubie): One wonders that anyone can stay the course! Yes
there may ba some connection between creativity and madness (The
Divine Malady). The imaginative phase needs intermittent suspension of
what we think we knoau-~- what has bean termed ‘regression in service of
the ego’ -~-i but we must return to reality as well.

ifany life stories do speak to the role of an inspirational
mentor (mine was Francis Ryan at Columbia). For the rebellious,
stubborn-minded infant, this may have as much to do with sympathetic
socialization as well as intellectual evocation and discipline.

(How precocity fits in deserves further discussion. Ed
Feigenbaum points out that precocious children may also be
charismatic, attracting mentorial attention. }

We do have to worry what proposition 13 will do in California
just as there has been a terrible deterioration of both science
teaching, school support and libraries in New York City.

Back again to many comments that speak to the rarity with which
early promise persists and we are surely dealing with many tragic
losses here. I also referred to my own observation that I found
many familiar names in the runners-up but not in the top echelon
of science talent saarch.

Groups like Stuyvesant High School at large had done remarkably
well: Dean Julie Crevans (UC-SF Medical school was another of my
classmates). And behold the small cohort of 20 or 30 youngsters
at the AISL in 1941. I have not
investigated but would doubt if Barry Blumberg or Paul W. Berg or
Charlie Yanofsky stood out purely grade-wise any more than I had.

One factor may indeed be the difficulty that standardized,
multiple choice tests pose to the really imaginative child. That
child can perhaps learn to be test~-wise but is that what we want to
reinforce? The really creative person will read interpretations
into many questions that are likely to escape the test writer and
may become either bored or disgusted or simply fail to see them in
the simple-minded style of the writer, and fail.

And here is SLIDE 1. The ETS example.
Having little more to offer from overall analysis I
will follow Dr. Purpura’s invitation, and turn to one case study that
I know particularly well namely my own scientific biography or more
precisely the biography of an experiment that was first done almost
precisely 37 years ago on June 2, 1946. Remark my skepticism about the
factual accuracy of biographical and discovery accounts indicating
the experience with Peter Friedman and Jerry Feitelson in trying
to give authentic transcripts of the discussions in my own labora~-
tory. In a matter of a few seconds or minutes our whole gestalt
of the meaning of a question: the interpretation of our terms, could
be so radically transformed that it would be very difficult indeed
to go through the entire chain of reasoning by which we might jump
from one plane to another. We did not however have detailed video
transcripts which could try to illuminate our facial expressions
and our body language, as well as all the details of our explicit
discourse and those are experiments that
perhaps deserve to be done. (I probably should ask Mike Cole out
at UC San Diego if he’s ever actually looked at that kind of discourse. )

Having expressed that skepticism I may be in the position of as-
gerting that almost every proposition is false including this one.

As Dr. Purpura has told you I was just a week past my 2ist birth-
dayi in my third year of medical studies at Columbia P&S but at the
time on elective study at Yale in Ed Tatum’s laboratory. Professor
Tatum had just left the biology department here at Stanford ina
tradition that Warren Weaver had recorded: “biology departments don’t
need themists". He was of course to return two years later in the
wave of modernity that still pertains here in that field.

The Slide on the experiment.

I could tell you a lot more about the genetics of bacteria but
that may have even less to do with “creativity” although perhaps some
people in 1946 were quite ready to think it was a creative fabrica-
tion. I’m going to give it to you only in its essentials and focus
on the setting in history that it made it possible

The Slide on the intellectual history.

Not enough time for a detailed narrative - focus on
setting the stage, the separation of disciplines, the tradition of
schizomycetes. And then concentrate on social factors and related
externals these are not very startling but they give some notion of
the enablement. As that Slide indicates it has very much to do with
trying to tease out what we all take for granted in the particular
life that we live within our own skins. How rarely do we communicate
with others in such a fashion as to enable us to discover what must
not be taken for granted. Is that the artist’s role? Cthinking of
Hollander coming on the program].
Coda.

Stein‘’s compendium of research on creativity is as telling as
anything else I know. He has the familiar trilogy of imagination
criticism and communication. Imagination needs permission to
fantasize. Criticism must come from the self, as well as others.
Communication is not just
to tell the world about additions to its knowledge but also to evoke
that criticism so necessary to temper fantasy with Teality.

Our university structures are relentless filters for the success-
ful accomplishment and coordination of these abilities. A place like
Stanford has people who almost all qualify in a very high order.
These are the success stories I’m less certain how well and how far
we nurture tha development of these capabilities in the groups of
people which are our responsibilities.

Further footnotes: My Slide on sociological background may have
-~@ lot to say about why I’m now at The Rockefeller University.

This discussion has a sociological cast which was greatly in-
formed by my consultations at Center for Advanced Studies with Bob
Merton and Harriet Zuckerman.

ne em -eaOm Rp

In the discussion there was a question about suffering as a stimulus
to creativity. €1 1. Not obvious in anything I presented. 2. Some
people may find escape from anxiety in creative work.

3. Bereavment may leave a

person so self-abasing, stripped bare (Job-like), that with recovery a
Teassessment and career change may emerge. Scientific work needs both
imagination and concentration, and I would not prescribe suffering for
the latter.