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Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty
A personal story of the ways in which persistence, chance, and creativity interact in biomedical research. This first book by the author of Zen and the Brain examines the role of chance in the creative process. James Austin tells a personal story of the ways in which persistence, chance, and creativity interact in biomedical research; the conclusions he reaches shed light on the creative process in any field. Austin shows how, in his own investigations, unpredictable events shaped the outcome of his research and brought about novel results. He then goes beyond this story of serendipity to propose a new classification of the varieties of chance, drawing on his own research and examples from the history of science—including the famous accidents that led Fleming to the discovery of penicillin. Finally, he explores the nature of the creative process, considering not only the environmental and neurophysiological correlates of creativity but also the role of intuition in both scientific discoveries and spiritual quests. This updated MIT Press paperback edition includes a new introduction and recent material on medical research, creativity, and spirituality.
266 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 25, 2020
"The younger the scientific field, the more it responds to the human, subjective elements of chance; the older, well-defined field has less room for open-field running, requires a more disciplined, objective conscious effort."
December 29, 2020
Great book about the creative process and how discoveries are made. The author shows the role of chasing ideas, chance, and creativity in his own research process.
A great follow-up book for this would be Steven Johnson's "Where good ideas come from" which explores the role of different aspects like error, serendipity, or a slow hunch in the creative process. There is a huge overlap there and I think most of the ideas in Johnson's book could be mapped to the stages proposed by Austin.
A great follow-up book for this would be Steven Johnson's "Where good ideas come from" which explores the role of different aspects like error, serendipity, or a slow hunch in the creative process. There is a huge overlap there and I think most of the ideas in Johnson's book could be mapped to the stages proposed by Austin.
October 7, 2019
I found this book through Naval’s How to Get Rich podcastr episodes, where he referenced Marc Andreesen’s blog post on luck: https://pmarchive.com/luck_and_the_en...
While Part I and Part II were good reads, I found completing the book arduous after the four types of luck (called chance in the book) were described and expounded upon in Part II. In particularlyt he Author’s unrelenting use of Male gender pronouns for Doctors, Scientists, and any Researchers grated on me throughout the book. For that reason and some of the clearly outdated descriptions such as “Feminine” traits—my raiting shouldn’t be viewed as a recommedation, but instead as what I was able to take away from the reading in spite of itself.
Readers will have differing perspective of Austin’s, decision to take a autobiographic account of his own research and science contributions. I found it quite useful in that he went beyond the superficial moments of serndipity (the origins of this word were a fun detour) and actually highlighted the years of meandering research and false starts that went into his greatest contributions.
It’s a useful data point that based on my own experience more closely resembles true discovery than the Newtonian Apple falling from the tree.
A premise that isn’t really touched on in detail here is the importance of documenting your ideas. A scientist would never enter the lab without the proverbial lab notebook, and yet in software development disciplines we too often only “orally” dialogue about our hypothesis.
As Austin writes:
“Oral reports are perishable; they have no permanent scientific value.”
— Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty (The MIT Press) by James H. Austin
http://a.co/doTfiKN
While Part I and Part II were good reads, I found completing the book arduous after the four types of luck (called chance in the book) were described and expounded upon in Part II. In particularlyt he Author’s unrelenting use of Male gender pronouns for Doctors, Scientists, and any Researchers grated on me throughout the book. For that reason and some of the clearly outdated descriptions such as “Feminine” traits—my raiting shouldn’t be viewed as a recommedation, but instead as what I was able to take away from the reading in spite of itself.
Readers will have differing perspective of Austin’s, decision to take a autobiographic account of his own research and science contributions. I found it quite useful in that he went beyond the superficial moments of serndipity (the origins of this word were a fun detour) and actually highlighted the years of meandering research and false starts that went into his greatest contributions.
It’s a useful data point that based on my own experience more closely resembles true discovery than the Newtonian Apple falling from the tree.
A premise that isn’t really touched on in detail here is the importance of documenting your ideas. A scientist would never enter the lab without the proverbial lab notebook, and yet in software development disciplines we too often only “orally” dialogue about our hypothesis.
As Austin writes:
“Oral reports are perishable; they have no permanent scientific value.”
— Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty (The MIT Press) by James H. Austin
http://a.co/doTfiKN
August 3, 2018
A good perspective into how certain aspects can affect your path and how luck is more than randomness, but really many different types.
October 16, 2010
a must-read for any internet entrepreneur. we're all playing the chance and luck cards...
August 1, 2016
Review coming
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews