A robust volume that brings new perspective to an old subject.
A modern, interdisciplinary analysis of the social-environmental patterns most suited to idea generation, and how we can use their lessons to foster innovation.
Wired contributing editor Johnson (The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America, 2008, etc.) identifies seven such patterns: the adjacent possible, liquid networks, the slow hunch, serendipity, error, exaptation and emergent platforms. In each chapter, the author outlines the basic principle of a pattern, then contextualizes its importance with an array of historical and contemporary examples. He emphasizes the importance of the “space of innovation” as being paramount to success. An individual’s genius, he argues, is less imperative than a fertile “intellectual ecosystem,” and networks are vital, as evidenced by the astounding creative production of interconnected systems like the Internet and the vibrant density of cities. Using the remarkable “epic diversity” of coral reefs as a metaphor, Johnson posits that an environment embracing an open flow of information and thought is more likely to produce ideas at a higher rate than a closed or hierarchical network. Combined with several more daily patterns, like writing everything down to aggregate a thought process or picking up a new hobby, soliciting such “liquid networks” is bound to help percolate that big idea. On a broader scale, businesses, schools and even the government would benefit from greater interconnectivity. The author notes that had the FBI had access to a greater information network in the weeks leading to 9/11, agents may have connected the dots to Mohamed Atta in time. Johnson also traces the origin of several magnificent ideas—Darwin's theory of evolution, Kekulé's insight into the molecular structure of benzene—and presents them in the context of one of the seven patterns. The author recounts dozens of examples in this vein, touching on fields as varying as economics, information technology, biology, social networking and literature. Throughout, his infectious enthusiasm and unyielding insight inspire and entertain.
A robust volume that brings new perspective to an old subject.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59448-771-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2010
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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