Darwin's Armada.

I just finished reading Dawin's Armada by Iain McCalman. Professor McCalman weaves together the stories of four of England's most important naturalists: Charles Darwin, Joseph Hooker, Thomas Huxley, and Alfred Wallace.  According to McCalman each of these men played key roles in the birth of the theory of evolution. Darwin and Wallace formulated the theory independently. Hooker and Huxley were masterful political strategists whose machinations sped the acceptance of the theory; due to their efforts the theory of evolution became widely accepted within seven years of its initial presentation.

What I was struck by when reading this book was the story of Alfred Wallace.  Of the four men Wallace was by far the poorest and least educated.  However, in my mind his scientific accomplishments easily rival that of the others.  Further, the hardships and setback he endured were far beyond anything the others had to face.

 Wallace was born to a working class family. His formal education ended when his was thirteen years old. He spent the next twelve years trying his hand at a number of different vocations: teacher, architect and surveyor.  In 1848 at the age of 25 he set off to the Brazil with a friend of his to build a career as a naturalist and collector.

The other three scientists also spent time collecting specimens and touring the world. However, they did so with the support of the British Navy, attached to survey ships.  Wallace on the other hand set off with little money and no official status; hoping to make money by selling the specimens he collect to wealthy collectors and institutions in the UK. He spent the next four years in the Amazon, traveling and living with various Indian tribes, venturing into parts of the Amazon that had never been travelled to by an European and amassing a massive collection, "including ten thousand bird skins, a large herbarium of dried plants, and an unparalleled collection of bird's eggs."  During these four years he suffered the loss of his brother, bouts of malaria and various other tropical diseases.

A month into his journey back to England the ship he was traveling on caught fire and sunk. He lost his entire collection as well as all his notes and sketches.  When he finally made it back to England, after a long tortuous journey, he arrived with nothing more than the shirt on his back.  Despite this he re-established him self. Managed to write a few papers based on the few notes he had saved as well his memory.  Despite not being fully recovered from his previous trip, he decided to set off on another collecting trip.

This time he decided to travel to Southeast Asia.  Again he traveled on his own, hoping to make money selling the specimens he collected. He arrived Singapore in 1854, he did not return to England until 1862.  During the nearly eight years he was in Southeast Asia he collected an incredible number of specimens; endured bouts of illness; formulated his theory of natural selection; and wrote several papers.

To me, Wallace's story is both amazing and inspirational.  Here was a man with no means born into highly hierarchical Victorian England who managed to live a life of adventure and gain the respect and admiration of preeminent naturalists of his day.

Encouraging Creative Thinking.

While sitting in Barnes and Noble eating a cupcake, I ran across a really interesting article in December's Harvard Business review entitled "The Innovator's DNA."  The authors argue that there are five skills that separate highly innovate people from the rest of us: associating, questioning, observing, experimenting and networking. They also argued that you could become more innovative by practicing the aforementioned skills.

So what exactly are these five magic skills?

1. Associating - The ability to make connections between seeming unrelated things. For example, an associative mind would understand the relationship between Chihuahuas and paint balls.
   
2. Questioning - Systematically challenging the world around you, trying to understand how and why things work the way they do.  Particularly, questioning the validity of basic assumptions.
   
3. Observing - Learning to see the world as it is and drawing insights, inspiration, and ideas from it.
4. Experimentation - Systematically evaluating your ideas, hypothesis; trying new things to see what happens; and of course, pushing any big red buttons you happen to see. 
5. Networking - Talking to and learning from other people.  I'm not sure Twittering counts.
   

 Basically, the authors of this article argue that curious people who talk to other smart people and systematically evaluate their ideas will come up with good ideas. At some level this is like arguing that the sky is blue.  However, I think it's not as obvious an argument as it seems at first glance.  Much of the way the world works is designed to discourage people from asking questions, exploring fields outside of their own, talking to other smart people about work, and trying new things.

Consider modern academia, much of it's structure is designed to discourage people from (1) exploring outside their own fields and (2) questioning consesus.  Many will argue that modern the complexity of modern science requires specialists and that inter-disciplinarity is a fools errand.  However, almost everyone will agree that when ideas from disaparte fields are meshed together surprising results will emerge.

Of course, academia is designed to speed the process of incremental innovation--adding a clock to whatever gizmo your professor dreamed up. It's not as well suited for promoting revolutionary innovation--proving whatever theory your professor came up with was a bunch of BS.  Which, I suppose is why revolutionary innovation is so rare.