Nobel prizes most often go to researchers who defy specialization – winners are creative thinkers who synthesize innovations from varied fields and even hobbies

Thu, 20 Oct 2022 04:36:52 +1100

Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>

Andrew Pam
<https://theconversation.com/nobel-prizes-most-often-go-to-researchers-who-defy-specialization-winners-are-creative-thinkers-who-synthesize-innovations-from-varied-fields-and-even-hobbies-186193>

"Experts often recommend that people specialize in one field of work or
research to maximize their chances of success. Yet our recently published
research indicates that successful innovators take a broader path.

We looked at the careers of Nobel Prize winners, who are arguably among the
most innovative people in the world. We found that they are unusually likely to
be what we call “creative polymaths.” That is, they purposely integrate formal
and informal expertise from widely varied disciplines to yield new and useful
ideas and practices.

In fact, the testimony of science laureates who were students of previous
laureates suggests that creative polymathy is a skill that can be learned. We
have written about some of these in our books “Discovering” and “Sparks of
Genius.”

Many of these laureates discover problems by looking at topics in new ways, or
they solve them by transferring skills, techniques and materials from one field
to another. They often use conceptual tools such as making analogies, pattern
recognition, body thinking, playacting and modeling. In one notable example,
Alexis Carrel won his Nobel Prize in medicine in 1912 by adapting lace-making
and embroidery techniques to transplant surgery."

Cheers,
       *** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net               Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/                 Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/            Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/               Manager, Serious Cybernetics

Comment via email

Home E-Mail Sponsors Index Search About Us