(October 14, 2012 at 3:50 pm)jonb Wrote: Again another story of animal invention. But something is eating into me: In all the cases of animal invention I know there is no case where the invention is made by high status males, and yet I have not seen any scientific comment on it? Have we become as cultures so enraptured by the ideas of the strong man solving all the problems, that all evidence to the contrary is being swept under the carpet?

I don't know about the high-status males question, but I've been reading a book on the brain (in response to the free will debate thread) and learned that while many animals use tools, they don't generalize from one tool to tools for other purposes.

(October 14, 2012 at 6:00 pm)Tino Wrote: I don't know about the high-status males question, but I've been reading a book on the brain (in response to the free will debate thread) and learned that while many animals use tools, they don't generalize from one tool to tools for other purposes.

The ability of animals other than human to make connections is very limited. My problem is that creativity is not being analysed correctly. In fact the current thinking seems to be that a group of creatives compete with each other to come up with a solution. I worked for twenty years in a very competitive environment, but when we got together to come up with creative ideas there was no competition, it was about playing with ideas, status meant nothing. The most creative minds I met never sought status. Yet companies, select for goal driven people who desire status, and there is a questioning why large conglomerates do not come up with ground breaking ideas.
I feel the problem with thinking now is that the thought is that some big cleaver man will come an sort out all our problems, and to do that people with creative minds are being removed from the loop.

(October 14, 2012 at 6:42 pm)jonb Wrote: The ability of animals other than human to make connections is very limited. My problem is that creativity is not being analysed correctly. In fact the current thinking seems to be that a group of creatives compete with each other to come up with a solution. I worked for twenty years in a very competitive environment, but when we got together to come up with creative ideas there was no competition, it was about playing with ideas, status meant nothing. The most creative minds I met never sought status. Yet companies, select for goal driven people who desire status, and there is a questioning why large conglomerates do not come up with ground breaking ideas.
I feel the problem with thinking now is that the thought is that some big cleaver man will come an sort out all our problems, and to do that people with creative minds are being removed from the loop.

I think the error here might be in thinking that the person with the best idea should be selected for the highest status jobs (which is what I think you are referring to). Corporate environments are often looking for the best leader, who is often the person with the best ability to get people to move together to accomplish something. Those people need the creative idea people to be successful, and smart companies find ways to compensate the idea-creators to keep them, even if the higher-status job goes to the less creative leader-type.