Killing the myth - Is creative thinking in your DNA?
““There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.” ”
Since the evolution of Homo sapiens — modern man — our world has been driven by flashes of inspiration. Civilization has evolved and progressed, driven by the process of creativity. The enduring question has always been whether the defining factors come from nature or nurture. Could it be that creativity literally resides in our DNA?
Potentially, yes.
In 1869, the English explorer and anthropologist Francis Galton, a relative of Charles Darwin, wrote a book on what he called ‘hereditary genius.’ Galton felt that the ability to come up with great ideas was passed down through generations.
A century and a half later — as recently as the early 2000s — we’ve continued to uncover new things about the brain and creativity. In fact, a number of recent studies seem to validate Galton’s theory of genetic inheritance.
In 2009, a team from Cornell University’s Department of Neurology and Neuroscience discovered that the brains of artistically creative individuals have a particular characteristic that may enhance imagination and inventiveness.
They found that the size of the corpus callosum, a bundle of more than 200 million nerve fibres that link the hemispheres of our brain, plays a crucial part in an individual’s ability to think ‘divergently.’ Basically, the smaller this juncture was, the easier it was for the individual to be creative. It seems that a decrease in the connectivity between the right and left lobes allows each hemisphere to specialize, so ideas can develop more freely and fully. Writers, artists, musicians and other creative types were in fact found to have a smaller corpus callosum than others in the general population.However, this does not tell the full story. Creativity is not only about divergent thinking, but also generating endless associations. Recent findings suggest that the secret to this lies in our DNA.
In 2013, researchers at Helsinki University looked at human genes and their relation to hereditary genius. Their study found that an individual’s ability to be creative musically is linked to a particular cluster of genes known to be involved in the plasticity of the brain — its ability to reorganise itself by breaking and forming new connections between cells. The more plasticity your brain exhibits, the more creative you become.
This would seem to indicate that some people are inherently more creative than others. The key word here is the notion of ‘more.’ Everyone is creative; it is in our DNA. But we’ve been taught the myth that a lot of us are not creative because we were born to use mainly one side of our brain — the left side.
Killing the myth
Let’s looks at this further. The right side of the brain, is associated with things like creativity, imagination and intuition, whilst the left side is associated with things like planning, logic and rationality. The argument goes that ‘left-brain people’ are more logical in their thinking, rather than imaginative, and simply cannot be all that creative.
That’s a long-held belief… but science tells us it’s simply not the case.
The brain’s right hemisphere is not a separate organ, working in isolation from the left hemisphere. It is also incorrect to say that the left brain is uncreative.
The link between creativity and the right brain is pretty clear. The specialized characteristics of the right hemisphere make it the seat of curiosity, synergy, experimentation, metaphorical thinking, playfulness, solution finding, artistry, flexibility, synthesizing and risk taking. In addition, it is likely to be opportunistic, future oriented, welcoming of change, and to function as the centre of our visualization capability.
Every one of these specialized modes is capable of enhancing an individual's creative thinking. For example, an intuitive idea that pops into your mind and appears to solve a problem can be experimented with, visualized, integrated with other ideas and ultimately developed into a possible solution. That's the right hemisphere part.
Now, to do something about that possible solution requires different specialized mental processes, and these, by and large, are located in the left hemisphere. Assessing the proposed solution to determine whether it represents a viable solution to the real problem makes use of our rational processes of analysis and logic.
The role of the right hemisphere is essential to the creative process. But, it supplies only a half of the thinking needed to realize the full creative process. We also need the left hemisphere and both halves of the limbic system to optimize creative output. This is where we start to be come inventive: when we begin translating these creative thoughts into action.
Creativity is a whole-brain process. Kill the myth — which many are told from a young age, and believe, and live their lives by — that they are just not creative people. While factors such as environment and upbringing play a crucial role in your brain's development, work done by scientists in Scandinavia and the US has shown that having the right genetic makeup can make your brain more inclined towards creative thinking. Having said that, every one of us, every day, uses creative thinking. You probably don’t realize it.
You are creative human being
Creativity is possible in all areas of human life. It can be evident in science, the arts, mathematics, technology, cuisine, teaching, politics, business… you name it. And, like many human capacities, our creative powers can be developed, cultivated and refined. Doing that involves an increasing mastery of awareness, skills, knowledge and ideas.
Creativity is about fresh thinking that involves making critical judgments about whether what you’re working on is any good, be it a theorem, a product design or a poem. Creative work typically passes through a series of phases. Sometimes, what you end up with is not what you had in mind when you started. Being creative is not just about having off-the-wall ideas and letting your imagination run free. It may involve all of that, but it also includes refining, testing and focusing on what you’re doing. It’s about blue-sky inspiration and original thinking, but also about critically judging whether the work in process is taking the right shape and is worthwhile, at least for the person producing it. It is about the right and left sides of your brain — the imaginative half and the rational half — working in partnership.
Creativity is not the opposite of discipline and control. On the contrary, creativity in any field may involve deep factual knowledge and high levels of practical skill. And, creativity isn’t a linear process, in which you have to learn all the necessary skills before you get started. The real driver of creativity is an appetite for discovery and a passion to create fantastic new things that will enhance your life and the lives of those around you.
This extract is taken from Neil Francis’s new book, ‘’The Creative Thinking Book – how to ignite and boost your creativity’’, which will be published on 29th September. It can be pre-ordered from this website, https://www.neil-francis.com/shop-1/p/the-creative-thinking-book, any other good book shop or Amazon.
www.neil-francis.com