The Origins of Creativity

July 24, 2017
Wilson (Half-Earth) makes a case for blending an understanding of the sciences into the humanities in his latest work, raising provocative questions in the process. He ponders what sets humans apart from other hominids and what societal factors may be suppressing the humanities as a field of study, but despite his title’s promise he only provides brief glimpses of answers to his central question. As Wilson is one of the world’s leading evolutionary biologists, it is not surprising that he focuses so much on the evolutionary history of our species. “Because the creative arts entail a universal, genetic trait, the answer to the question lies in evolutionary biology,” he posits. He argues that the humanities have failed to make enough progress on this front and have lost public support because “they remain largely unaware and uncaring about the evolutionary events of prehistory that created the human mind, which after all created the history on which the humanities focus.” He integrates examples largely from literature and the visual arts to analogize cultural innovation to genetic mutation. Wilson concludes by calling for a “third enlightenment” in which the humanities and the sciences draw more heavily on one another but, even as he professes otherwise, he appears to place far more weight on the latter.

May 1, 2017

After The Meaning of Human Existence, world-renowned biologist/naturalist Wilson continues to wax philosophical, drawing on paleontology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience to consider the source of human creativity. Wilson sees creativity emerging not 10,000 years ago, as scientists have long opined, but more than 100,000 years ago, and he draws on everything from song to metaphor to gardening as he explains how the creative impulse moved from primates to humans. What's next? A "Third Enlightenment" blending of science and the humanities to clarify the origins of the human condition.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2017

Wilson (emeritus, Honorary Curator in Entomology, Harvard Univ.; The Ants; The Social Conquest of Earth) returns to the task he previously wrote of in Consilience: uniting science and the humanities to look at the how and why of existence. Although he posits science and the humanities as complementary products of the human mind, he situates the former as the bedrock out of which springs the latter, with its broader reach going beyond physical reality into the imagination. Wilson is strongest when explaining creativity and symbolic reasoning as evolutionary adaptations that allowed the genus Homo to thrive in multiple ecologies. He describes the coevolution of genes and culture, highlighting intriguing genetic vestiges of our common heritage on the African savanna in language, aesthetics, and other endeavors. Another recent publication in this vein is Augustin Fuentes's The Creative Spark. Less convincingly argued, perhaps, is Wilson's contention that the humanities must extend the limits of human perception (e.g., the visible spectrum, the range of audible sounds) to achieve their full potential. VERDICT A rallying cry for uniting scientific and humanistic inquiry to answer big questions, this book will resonate with science enthusiasts who appreciate that a life worth living means embracing more than the material world. [See Prepub Alert, 4/10/17.]--Wade M. Lee, Univ. of Toledo Lib.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 15, 2017
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Wilson (Emeritus, Evolutionary Biology/Harvard Univ.; Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life, 2016, etc.) offers a philosophical examination into "the mystery of why there are universal creative arts."The author's answer exemplifies an alliance between science and the humanities that he champions throughout the book. Such a blending, he maintains, could "reinvigorate philosophy and begin a new, more endurable Enlightenment." Wilson identifies five fields of research where this blending can be especially fertile: paleontology, anthropology, psychology, evolutionary biology, and neurobiology. These fields may allow "the full meaning of the humanities" to emerge by helping the humanities overcome their shortcomings: "they are rootless in their explanations of causation and they exist within a bubble of sensory experience." The big five fields are united by a "common thread" of belief in the crucial importance of natural selection. "Nothing in science and the humanities makes sense except in the light of evolution," Wilson quotes a geneticist, including the existence of creativity. The author sees language as "the greatest evolutionary advance," setting Homo sapiens apart from other species: "Without the invention of language we would have remained animals. Without metaphors we would still be savages." Early Homo sapiens had a larger brain than their ancestors, providing "larger memory, leading to the construction of internal storytelling" and "true language," which in turn gave rise to "our unprecedented creativity and culture." That rapid transformation "was driven by a unique mode of evolution, called gene-culture coevolution," in which cultural innovation and genes favoring intelligence and cooperation occurred "in reciprocity." Wilson's writing is at its most luminous when describing the "chitinous armor" and glistening bodies of ants--"one of the most beautiful animals in the world"--to which he has devoted much of his career. His more abstract analysis, though sometimes repetitious, is nevertheless salient. A concise, thoughtful exploration of how human understanding will be enhanced by "a humanistic science and a scientific humanities."

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September 15, 2017
An emeritus Harvard biologist, environmental champion, and prolific, Pulitzer-winning writer, Wilson (The Meaning of Human Existence, 2014) continues his investigation into human nature and our domination of the biosphere. Combining entertaining tales from the field with philosophical and aesthetic musings and biological elucidations, he analyzes creativity, the unique and defining trait of our species, in terms of genetic and cultural evolution. From our ancestors' campfire stories to gardens, music, metaphors, novels, history, literary criticism, and archetypes in movies, he defines the arts and humanities as the foundation of moral and political reasoning and social values, arguing for a more dynamic nexus between science and the creative realm. Wilson believes artists and scholars need to be more curious about the living natural world, the nature of consciousness, why we're hardwired to be social, and the deep biological lineage of the safety net of civilization, which comprises such qualities as generosity, courage, leadership, and justice. Art and the humanities, Wilson contends, must keep pace with science and technology if we are to come together for the common good and preserve life on Earth.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)