I’ve argued “school functions in part to help folks accept workplace domination,” said modern workplaces don’t reward creativity, and cited evidence that schools discourage creativity: Creativity and mental flexibility are directly penalized in terms of school grades, holding constant test scores,
Can creativity really be taught and tested in the classroom? I'm not sure but I know there is a test for it in the real world. Those who are the most successful at whatever they do (and and pursue excellence ethically) are really the most creative individuals out there.
>CEOs may give it lip service to creativity, but their actions speak much louder than their words. Most (not all) workplaces punish creativity, and while that situation remains most schools will drill it out of kids as well.
Maybe the worst workplaces have lots of creativity but don't get things done, the average workplace gets things done without much creativity, and the best workplaces get things done creatively. Maybe achieving the goal of getting things done creatively is a rare accomplishment, and the CEOs who talk about creativity are stating their goal of achieving that accomplishment.
Shouldn't true creative individuals be those who can thrive in a hostile, routine environment? If they are so easily dissuaded, how creative are they really? And would their creativity be used to produce really lasting innovations?
Much of the decline in individuality has come during decades in which our elites preached individualism and cultural libertinism while simultaneously making "creative" synonymous with cookie-cutter bohemianism. The great creative peaks of the Western world were also periods of enormous conformity and social pressure to avoid deviance.
Flaubert talked of the need to live like a calm bourgeois to write about passion, crime, and love.
I for one, long for more boring meritocratic overlords.
If intelligence tests miss something that isn't strictly speaking, intelligence, are they really missing something, or do they just not have the preferred emphasis of the speaker?
Does anyone ever talk about "What Creativity Tests Miss"?
If 'some intelligence related variable' which doesn't correlate with measured IQ predicts inventions, novels and the like and is measured by tests that purport to measure creativity, that intelligence related variable IS creativity. It's totally credible that creativity might be the predisposition to memorize generalizations or something similar. It's not an ontologically basic thing after all. The ultimate question regarding the meaning of the word is this; do tests of creativity predict who will be described as creative by their peers.
Of course it was one of the security guards who came and informed me that I was smoking in the wrong area.
The question of why a white-collar office located outside of downtown would need security is absolutely baffling to the sane person's mind, if they haven't educated themselves on the sort of matters Hanson covers here.
Obedience and hierarchy signalling, liability prevention, and behaviour code enforcement. Shame they couldn't have spent that money on something useful like a team of medics.
For a couple of years I worked in an Engineering office which did encourage creativity. Everyone was engaged in Getting The Job Done By Any Means Necessary, and the resources were provided whenever they were needed. The main reason for this, I think, was that our office was located in the Industrial area, far away from the corporate campus, which was a haven of obedience and corporate think. I once tested out the site's cell phone receptors, and got in trouble for smoking 30 m from the entrance by a garbage can - there was a separate Designated Smoking Area.
I am pretty skeptical about the idea of a simple definition and measurement of creativity, even more than measurement of IQ. I think the IQ people have piled up enough evidence that I've largely overcome my skepticism: they seem to have found a reasonable simplification which is real and useful and persistent. But the creativity people haven't piled up nearly as much evidence, and it's not clear ro me that there can be any single creativity measure which is real and useful and persistent. Even if they do pile up such evidence to support the idea that their "creativity" test measures something which is real and useful and persistent, I will strongly suspect that it's not actually creativity, but some simpler intelligence-related property, e.g., size of short term working memory, or predisposition to memorize generalizations vs. memorizing facts.
A central theme in the design and application of computer optimization algorithms is the tension between doing well at small routine incremental improvements and doing well at large dramatic improvements. This tension seems likely to be at least part of what we'd want to capture in any actual measurement of "creativity." I am pessimistic about finding a single number which reliably characterizes what's good about variants of simulated annealing, and which is also reliably useful for comparing that goodness to the goodness of variants of genetic algorithms.
Reminds me of all those billboards in socialist countries exhorting productivity. They clearly wanted it to happen at a high level. But, they also didn't like any of the changes at the lower level consistent with greater productivity. So, they never got any.
> Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William & Mary discovered this in May, after analyzing almost 300,000 Torrance scores of children and adults. Kim found creativity scores had been steadily rising, just like IQ scores, until 1990. Since then, creativity scores have consistently inched downward.
That is odd. I can't think what might've happened in the late 80s/early 90s except computers & video games. (Even racial explanations should've had an impact well before.)
> Me, I’m surprised the decline didn’t start earlier
Hm, doesn't the Torrance dataseries only start back in 1958? Creativity could easily have begun falling long before that; you can't notice what you aren't measuring.
Can creativity really be taught and tested in the classroom? I'm not sure but I know there is a test for it in the real world. Those who are the most successful at whatever they do (and and pursue excellence ethically) are really the most creative individuals out there.
>CEOs may give it lip service to creativity, but their actions speak much louder than their words. Most (not all) workplaces punish creativity, and while that situation remains most schools will drill it out of kids as well.
Maybe the worst workplaces have lots of creativity but don't get things done, the average workplace gets things done without much creativity, and the best workplaces get things done creatively. Maybe achieving the goal of getting things done creatively is a rare accomplishment, and the CEOs who talk about creativity are stating their goal of achieving that accomplishment.
Shouldn't true creative individuals be those who can thrive in a hostile, routine environment? If they are so easily dissuaded, how creative are they really? And would their creativity be used to produce really lasting innovations?
Much of the decline in individuality has come during decades in which our elites preached individualism and cultural libertinism while simultaneously making "creative" synonymous with cookie-cutter bohemianism. The great creative peaks of the Western world were also periods of enormous conformity and social pressure to avoid deviance.
Flaubert talked of the need to live like a calm bourgeois to write about passion, crime, and love.
I for one, long for more boring meritocratic overlords.
If intelligence tests miss something that isn't strictly speaking, intelligence, are they really missing something, or do they just not have the preferred emphasis of the speaker?
Does anyone ever talk about "What Creativity Tests Miss"?
If 'some intelligence related variable' which doesn't correlate with measured IQ predicts inventions, novels and the like and is measured by tests that purport to measure creativity, that intelligence related variable IS creativity. It's totally credible that creativity might be the predisposition to memorize generalizations or something similar. It's not an ontologically basic thing after all. The ultimate question regarding the meaning of the word is this; do tests of creativity predict who will be described as creative by their peers.
Of course it was one of the security guards who came and informed me that I was smoking in the wrong area.
The question of why a white-collar office located outside of downtown would need security is absolutely baffling to the sane person's mind, if they haven't educated themselves on the sort of matters Hanson covers here.
Obedience and hierarchy signalling, liability prevention, and behaviour code enforcement. Shame they couldn't have spent that money on something useful like a team of medics.
For a couple of years I worked in an Engineering office which did encourage creativity. Everyone was engaged in Getting The Job Done By Any Means Necessary, and the resources were provided whenever they were needed. The main reason for this, I think, was that our office was located in the Industrial area, far away from the corporate campus, which was a haven of obedience and corporate think. I once tested out the site's cell phone receptors, and got in trouble for smoking 30 m from the entrance by a garbage can - there was a separate Designated Smoking Area.
The whole place was awful and creepy.
I am pretty skeptical about the idea of a simple definition and measurement of creativity, even more than measurement of IQ. I think the IQ people have piled up enough evidence that I've largely overcome my skepticism: they seem to have found a reasonable simplification which is real and useful and persistent. But the creativity people haven't piled up nearly as much evidence, and it's not clear ro me that there can be any single creativity measure which is real and useful and persistent. Even if they do pile up such evidence to support the idea that their "creativity" test measures something which is real and useful and persistent, I will strongly suspect that it's not actually creativity, but some simpler intelligence-related property, e.g., size of short term working memory, or predisposition to memorize generalizations vs. memorizing facts.
A central theme in the design and application of computer optimization algorithms is the tension between doing well at small routine incremental improvements and doing well at large dramatic improvements. This tension seems likely to be at least part of what we'd want to capture in any actual measurement of "creativity." I am pessimistic about finding a single number which reliably characterizes what's good about variants of simulated annealing, and which is also reliably useful for comparing that goodness to the goodness of variants of genetic algorithms.
Thanks; fixed.
Alex at MR isn't convinced. I didn't see where Tyler comments on it.
Reminds me of all those billboards in socialist countries exhorting productivity. They clearly wanted it to happen at a high level. But, they also didn't like any of the changes at the lower level consistent with greater productivity. So, they never got any.
Er, disregard. Just re-read the article:
> Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William & Mary discovered this in May, after analyzing almost 300,000 Torrance scores of children and adults. Kim found creativity scores had been steadily rising, just like IQ scores, until 1990. Since then, creativity scores have consistently inched downward.
That is odd. I can't think what might've happened in the late 80s/early 90s except computers & video games. (Even racial explanations should've had an impact well before.)
> Me, I’m surprised the decline didn’t start earlier
Hm, doesn't the Torrance dataseries only start back in 1958? Creativity could easily have begun falling long before that; you can't notice what you aren't measuring.
Who, in their right mind, relies on or believes in large organizations promoting, encouraging or supporting creativity.
Too disruptive.
You're late to the party, Robin. This was discussed considerably on Steve Sailor's blog about a week ago.
http://isteve.blogspot.com/...
What I wouldn't give to edit comments.
to use is it ridiculousshould be:to use it is ridiculous