PubMed2002
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the nature of creative thinking in biomedical science with specific applications to molecular pathologies and DNA technologies. DATA SOURCES: Accounts of breakthroughs and inventions contained in autobiographies, biographies, interviews, and archival sources. STUDY SELECTION: Discoveries that have altered, or may yet alter, basic textbook accounts of biomedical sciences for which appropriate data sources exist. DATA EXTRACTION: Approximately 1000 data sources were analyzed, both within appropriate sciences and in other creative fields, such as the arts. DATA SYNTHESIS: The current analysis is based on a framework described in our previous book, Sparks of Genius, which outlines a general approach to understanding creative thinking. CONCLUSIONS: Creative thinking in all disciplines depends on a common mental "toolkit" that consists of 13 fundamental tools: observing, imaging, abstracting, pattern recognition, pattern forming, analogizing, body thinking, empathizing, dimensional thinking, modeling, playing, transforming, and synthesizing. Scientists recognize and solve problems by observing data that break the patterns established by theories; exploring a system by creating an abstract model with which they can play; and transforming data into feelings, sounds, and other forms that create surprising analogies to already-understood principles. The result of such personal thinking is knowledge combined with sensation and emotion--feeling and understanding synthesized into complete awareness. We illustrate some of these modes of thinking with reference to recent breakthroughs in DNA-related areas and suggest ways in which the use of "tools for thinking" can increase the probability of making further discoveries in the biomedical sciences.