Many people would know that Charles Darwin is credited with describing the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection in his landmark work, The Origin of Species. Surely, one can say this was a very creative theory. Not only did it challenge current beliefs, but was based on the analysis and synthesis of several distant concepts. It involved a phase of abstract ideation and a phase of practical application. Creative in every dimension.
Slightly lesser known, but these days coming more into vogue is the work of Alfred Russel Wallace, who separately came to the same conclusion as Darwin, after Darwin began work on his theory, but before Darwin was able to publish.
Wallace, previously a surveyor who had given up this regular profession, to collect and study the natural world full-time, undertook several expeditions to the Amazon and Malay archipelago. In 1858, after being motivated by seeing the writings of a peer, Wallace published “On the Law Which Has Regulated the Introduction of New Species” which all but stated the theory of evolution by natural selection. Wallace would shortly publish two more essays that expanded his theory.
When Darwin, who had been perfecting these ideas himself over the last twenty years, was alerted of this, the course taken was to present Wallace’s essay to the Linnean Society along with fragments of Darwin’s writings. This contributed to cementing Darwin’s position as the founder of the theory. (Wallace’s history paraphrased from Smith (2015) – see below).
This presents an interesting situation from the perspective of creativity. There is no doubt that Darwin came to the conclusion first. However, Wallace also reached the same conclusion – entirely separately (despite periods of time he was in communication with Darwin). Was Wallace’s idea creative? Does the fact that the idea already existed make his act any less creative?
Immediately, we feel that Wallace’s idea was certainly creative. However, one can certainly see within the art world (literature and music included) that if a creation is similar to one that already exists, even if it is created without any knowledge of this prior creation, it is deemed less authentic: not original and not creative. Then again, Wallace did publish first. There would be those for whom Wallace was the original. To judge this we can look at the idea of individual, domain and field.
The Handbook of Creativity describes creativity as a process that is observed at the intersection of these three themes (Sternberg, 1999, 314-315). The domain is the existing pattern, often an indicator of originality (in this case, The Study of Natural History). The field refers to the associated social organisations, the gatekeepers (The Linnean Socity for example).
Thus, the judgement of creativity depends on the reaction of the field and the existing pattern of the domain.
At the time, Wallace’s ideas would have certainly seemed somewhat novel within the domain (although others were possibly thinking along the same lines), and they were received by the field. At the beginning, only a few would have known Darwin had beaten him to the idea. As time has gone on, it has become more known that Darwin was “first” and the field, the gatekeepers, have stressed his work more than Wallace’s. Perhaps this is due to the depth of Darwins’s work – a subject he never stopped writing about.
The fundamental question then: was Wallace creative? Yes. In terms of process, his ideation and application closely resembles the process of creativity. What is all this talk about then? Judgement. Wallace was being creative, but he is not judged to have been creative (one might say he was not seen to be innovative). This is the important distinction.
Do you want to be creative? Or, do you want to be judged to be creative? For the benefit of society, to move a domain forward, to progress ideas, we want to be judged to be creative. However, if we are too afraid of this judgement to ever actually be creative, this is not really much help either.
It seems, that if you want success, you must be judged to be creative, but if you want personal growth, you just need to be creative – judgement doesn’t matter.
Why is this? It is explained in the reason why I chose the Darwin/Wallace example: this model of creativity is analogous to evolution. An individual organism produces variations which are rejected or selected by the environment to be transmitted to the next generation (Sternberg, 1999, Handbook of Creativity, 316)
For more info on Alfred Russel Wallace I suggest the following:
Smith ,S. H. (2015). Alfred Russel Wallace: A Capsule Biography. The Origins of an Evolutionist. Accessed from: http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/BIOG.htm
Feature image courtesy of Maurizio Costanzo
