The lone genius is a myth. We have a tendency to put individuals on a pedestal - take the Nobel Prizes for example, which are given to just a handful of individuals. In reality, science is done by teams. For every Nobel Laureate there are dozens or hundreds of other scientists that worked on parts of the same problem.
Part of the reason is that science is at its core a creative pursuit. Sure, you need people to do some very repetitive tasks once in a while to make sure everything is reproducible, but the original ideas have to come from somewhere. There are plenty of studies that show that teamwork and collaboration helps scientists to come up with new ideas, so it’s no surprise that scientists have always been quite active on Twitter. Many scientists have a Twitter account - sometimes multiple - and they use it not just to share what they’ve been working on, but to make connections with other researchers. There are entire research projects that wouldn’t have existed if the collaborators hadn’t met on Twitter, or hadn’t shared ideas on Twitter. And that’s not even counting the research projects that study Twitter.
It was a hub of creative ideas and collaborations. And I say “was”, because the plans that Twitter’s new erratic owner is pushing through will make it far less of a coffee club where people share creative ideas and more of a commercial city centre without any personality. If the most visible content is that of people who paid for the privilege of being visible, it will be much harder to connect with people who don’t pay - including people who might have very interesting ideas and potential international collaborators.
So at the moment, I’m not particularly optimistic about Twitter’s future as a collaborative platform for creative science ideas. In the last few days I’ve already seen a lot of academics and journalists move to various Mastodon platforms, which might not offer everyone the same audience or prestige as they had before, but should work just as well (if not better) as a place to find others and come up with new ideas.
Because connecting with other people is far, far more productive when it comes to advancing new ideas than simply buying a business with absurd amounts of money. The lone genius is a myth.
If this is the first time you’ve read a Mixture, have a look at the archives. The bits at the start are usually much shorter and less opinionated, but there is always some link between science and art, science and creativity or science and culture. And they always include a few interesting links, as you’ll find below.
💡Interesting links
Tired: Data scientists. Wired: Data artists. By Simon Sharwood in The Register.
Inaudible, low-frequency bass makes people boogie more on the dancefloor, on NPR All Things Considered
Cannabis use may make people overestimate their creativity. By Devrupa Rakshit for The Swaddle.
Is AI art really art? asks Ed Simon in Nautilus.
I wrote about climate art at COP27 for Forbes.com
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Interesting to more news of people moving to Mastodon. I've never used Twitter for work but made plenty of creative connections. I've finally left Twitter after 15 years, as I've documented here https://howaboutthis.substack.com/p/curious-realizer-what-makes-a-great