Artscience: Creativity in the Post-Google Generation

The first reviewer represents the reverse of academic elitism, and, while entitled to his views of the book, does other potential readers a disservice. As both a former academic who was part of a team establishing an interdisciplinary university, and an entrepreneur, I found the book refreshing and a great help in getting others to understand the importance of being open to interdisciplinary work and experiences. I highly recommend the book...it is through stories that new ideas can grow. (And snide comments are not needed for intelligent reviews.)

I did not understand what the previous negative review was really about until I went ahead and read this book. In summary, the book is an excellent introduction to the concept of bridging a gap among different academic, industrial, social and cultural disciplines as a means of creating ideas with high impact and translating them for public. 'Artscientist' may be a misleading term - it really refers to innovators who make our world a better place. The author articulates using a lot of real-life examples that sources of inspiration for artscientists are not restricted to their 'area of expertise' but can come from outside - if one is a scientist, inspiration can come from arts or vice versa. The author hits the right spot claiming that the process of interdisciplinary idea translation is not encouraged by our society that has been in large part institutionalized and specialized. In the last part of the book, he introduces his own work to create a framework that encourages idea translation process for motivated students and scholars. In fact, it is this creative process that is defined as 'artscience'. Therefore, the book is not really about arts vs sciences and how people who have a 'dual taste' are likely to be more creative than others as the previous negative review states. There seems to be no black and white way to enhance one's creativity. Translation between arts and sciences may not 'guarantee' conception of high impact ideas but as the author states, it is the process of translation - whether this crosses between art and science or just between subdivisions of a given umbrella discipline - that will allow one to refine ideas that may one day become influential. This book is a great primer for a person who is seriously considering about becoming a problem solver with a bird-eye view of the world we live in.