Letters to a Young Scientist Part II: The Creative Process

Chapter four of Letters to a Young Scientist by Edward O. Wilson focuses on one question. What is Science? In the chapter Wilson poses the idea of how ants are able to recognize the dead bodies of the other ants and drag them out of the ant hill. How does an ant recognize their dead? Wilson talked about how observations are the basis for the science. He used the observation of ants removing the dead from the nests in order to pose the questions of why, and how do they know dead from alive? I will allow you to research the answer to this question rather than telling you. The point of this chapter that I feel is most meaningful and should be brought into the science classroom is the idea of using observations in order to come up with meaningful questions.

“ Because science is the wellspring of modern civilization. It is not just “another way of knowing” to be equated with religion or transcendental meditation. It takes nothing away from the genius of humanities, including the creative arts. Instead it offers ways to add to their content” (Wilson, 63)


Chapter Five is about the creative process that is required in science. Wilson related science to literature. He mentions how science has the best roots in fantasy because at one point the ‘facts’ we know as science were once seen as fantasy. We wouldn’t know anything without exploration and so many fantasy books are based in exploration. Ideas connect to each other and each one builds off of the last. Characters grow and change with time and science is eternally changeable. “ The idea scientist thinks like a poet and only later works like a bookkeeper” (Wilson,74). In my classroom I will encourage my students to be innovative problem solvers. I want them to find the rhythm of creative thinking and they be able to apply it to the knowledge of science. If a student is not able to think for themselves they have gained no real knowledge from my class. 


The last piece of this section that I want to touch on is in chapter 10: Scientists as Explorers of the Universe. This chapter mostly focuses on how broad a field of science is. The author is a biologist by trade but he also says he is a “student of ecology and biodiversity”. To explain what he means he poses the image of a decaying tree. Any biologist would look at it and tell you the type of tree. A chemist would tell you the chemical composition of the tree. A physicist would tell you the rate of decay. But, they are just looking at the tree. What if we use the tree to ask further questions. Are there cavities that host mice or insects? How do these insects work within their niche? Did millions of years of adaptation occur so that that insect could live in that tree? These are questions that need to be asked in order to learn more. One person can not simply call themselves a chemist because it take a deeper lens to see into the reality of nature and the environment. Everything connects and a scientist must be able to ask the questions to get them to connect. My students will work to connect the topics they have learned to events or situations outside of the lab. “ The more you draw, the more there is to draw” (Wilson, 116). Standards: Application of Content, Learning Environment, Learning Development


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