Reading & Writing » Science

Creativity?

jd — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:16:19 +0000

What struck me about this Scientific American article on creativity is what an impoverished notion of creativity the scientists have. Solving that little problem about how to get out of a tower with a rope is “creative”? If you’re a ten-year-old, maybe. Or a psychologist. Creativity as problem solving. Is that what scientists really think? Maybe the imagination does interest itself in problems, or is engaged by problematic situations (to grab a term from John Dewey), but the process is more open-ended than the scientists appear to think it is.

Scientism…

jd — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:08:08 +0000

. . . in the service of police power. A very dangerous combination if one is interested in justice.

Conservative Science Studies

jd — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 01:51:38 +0000

I know the American radical right has a problem with science, but I had no idea they had adopted the doctrine of the four humors; next thing you know, Sarah Palin will be talking about the four fundamental elements of earth, air, fire & water. Oh, read it yourself, as much as you can take before you bust out laughing, but the upshot is that the choleric John McCain will make a better president than the phlegmatic Barack Obama.

“For a Coming Extinction” (W.S. Merwin)

jd — Fri, 02 May 2008 22:45:29 +0000

For a Coming Extinction

Gray whale
Now that we are sinding you to The End
That great god
Tell him
That we who follow you invented forgiveness
And forgive nothing

I write as though you could understand
And I could say it
One must always pretend something
Among the dying
When you have left the seas nodding on their stalks
Empty of you
Tell him that we were made
On another day

The bewilderment will diminish like an echo
Winding along your inner mountains
Unheard by us
And find its way out
Leaving behind it the future
Dead
And ours

When you will not see again
The whale calves trying the light
Consider what you will find in the black garden
And its court
The sea cows the Great Auks the gorillas
The irreplaceable hosts ranged countless
And fore-ordaining as stars
Our sacrifices
Join your work to theirs
Tell him
That it is we who are important

[W.S. Merwin]

See also: This imminent extinction. More: Right whales written off. “It is we who are important.