Creating is hard. It takes effort, vision, … a point of view. Curiosity and creativity are baked into our DNA, as without them, we would not have survived, let alone, evolve, as a species. Culture, history, rituals, wisdom, and knowledge were all natural mechanisms that emerged through millennia as our species faced challenges and events that threatened our existence.
Creating is natural, curiosity is pervasive. So, why do so many people struggle with creating as a way of life? Our modern, post-industrial society has evolved to produce tools of unprecedented capacity, power, and use. Who created these tools and for what reason? Many creators stay true to the ethos that defines our species: create, explore, be curious. Creators are amongst us in every walk of life. One type of creator, however, has special and immense powers at their disposal: Scientists.
While human creation is as old as our evolutionary tree, in modern, post-industrial society the scientist has taken center stage. The scientist is that person who seeks deep understanding of phenomena by embarking on a learning journey, guided by a simple and very effective sequence of steps: Guessing, experimenting/observing, comparing, analyzing and learning, leading to new guesses. These steps - called the scientific method - are the foundation of the modern, post-industrial technology-driven world.
What do these scientists do with what they have learned? When their ideas about phenomena consistently match experimental results, scientists write about it. They publish papers for others to review, learn, and replicate. Most scientific work is documented in peer-reviewed publications, serving as a foundation for others to build on. The old adage holds true: The more you know, the less you know. Science and its scientists embody this.
The knowledge accumulated in the annals of science takes a long time to reach non-scientists, or society in general. How does an iron worker in Dublin learn about a new property of steel that can reduce the weight of the beams they handle, thus sparing them unnecessary effort? How does a teacher in Mumbai explain to her students how gravity actually works, after its ripples from colliding black holes were measured by a new instrument, the LIGO observatory, confirming Einstein’s equations? The knowledge created by science needs time and effort to disseminate throughout society.
There are many mechanisms for this dissemination. Schools, universities, work, social and familial networks are some ways through which new knowledge is shared. The instantiation of this new knowledge creates the link between experimental demonstrations of knowledge and large-scale use.
The majority of scientists that pursue science will not devote their lifetime to just exploring new ideas and being curious about how the world works. They pursue science as part of their educational journey which leads them to receiving advanced degrees, like masters or PhDs, and facing choices such as continuing towards professorships, researcher roles, corporate jobs, and/or creators/founders of new enterprises.
The last of these options is the hardest for scientists, as it involves the process of reducing knowledge to practice into something useful to society, a process scientists are rarely exposed to.