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How can we account for the sudden appearance
of such dazzling artists and scientists as Mozart, Shakespeare,
Darwin, or Einstein? How can we define such genius? What
conditions or personality traits seem to produce exceptionally
creative people? Is the association between genius and madness
really just a myth? These and many other questions are brilliantly
illuminated in The Origins of Genius.
Dean Keith Simonton convincingly argues
that creativity can best be understood as a Darwinian process
of variation and selection. The artist or scientist generates
a wealth of ideas, and then subjects these ideas to aesthetic
or scientific judgment, selecting only those that have the
best chance to survive and reproduce. Indeed, the true test
of genius is the ability to bequeath an impressive and influential
body of work to future generations. Simonton draws on the
latest research into creativity and explores such topics
as the personality type of the genius, whether genius is
genetic or produced by environment and education, the links
between genius and mental illness (Darwin himself was emotionally
and mentally unwell), the high incidence of childhood trauma,
especially loss of a parent, amongst Nobel Prize winners,
the importance of unconscious incubation in creative problem-solving,
and much more. Simonton substantiates his theory by examining
and quoting from the work of such eminent figures as Henri
Poincare, W. H. Auden, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Charles
Darwin, Niels Bohr, and many others.
For anyone intrigued by the spectacular
feats of the human mind, The Origins of Genius offers
a revolutionary new way of understanding the very nature
of creativity.
Dean Keith Simonton is Professor of Psychology
at the University of California at Davis. The recipient
of the Francis Galton Prize, he is the author of Genius,
Creativity, and Leadership, Scientific Genius,
Why Presidents Succeed, and other books. He lives
in Davis, California.
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