Scientists are creative
Scientists are no robots, but employ creativity all the time
When I was pursuing my PhD, I did not view the career of scientist as creative. I viewed scientists as very cut and dry - people who would follow the data to a logical conclusion and not be distracted by things that did not contribute to the ultimate goal of their research. During my third year of grad school when I was feeling stuck and beaten down by my research, my advisor encouraged me to identify some ways that scientists are creative. She thought that this exercise would help me understand that as a scientist I am creative and encourage me in the slump of third year.
It is amusing to look back at the time in grad school and how I did not realize the creativity inherent in the profession of scientist. Especially because now as a Senior Medical Writer, I am using my creative skills every day to communicate complex science research and ideas to groups of people with different levels of scientific understanding (eg, patients, doctors).
I thought it could be useful to share how I think scientists are creative especially in a time of a lot of upheaval and unknowns for science.
Devising Experiments
As a scientist, your job is to generate a hypothesis that you can test, devise an experiment that can test this hypothesis, perform the experiment with accuracy so that it will produce usable data, analyze the results to come up with a conclusion about the experiment, and compare the conclusion with your hypothesis to see if it logically lines up with what you think is going on. There are many steps in this process and they can go awry at any point. Creativity is really part of every step, but devising the experiment to test the hypothesis is I think one of the most creative pursuits a scientist can have. There are many questions that scientists ask to devise an experiment. In this process, all the variables in the experiment must be considered - could temperature, light exposure, time of day, humidity, etc affect this experiment? What should my controls be to make sure that I know if a result can be trusted and is not some random artifact? Can I test other hypotheses in this experiment to maximize the time I spend performing the experiment? Spending the time to design an experiment often means that more time will be saved in the long run.
In grad school, I initially would just jump headfirst with experiments because I wanted to generate data and check an item off of my to-do list. However, the farther into my PhD I got, the more time I would spend designing an experiment because I wanted to maximize my time working and minimize my time doing experiments and being at the lab bench. I did not find joy in designing experiments like other grad students seemed to do and this was one of the first signs that a career as a scientist doing experiments was not the right fit for me.
Writing up Research
Writing is probably one of the most clear ways that scientists demonstrate their creativity. It takes a creative mind to be able to think through the abstract experiments you perform and tie the results together into a coherent story that is typically for other scientists to understand, but can also be for a general audience.
Science experiments do not just flow logically from one experiment to another. Often, you will attempt several different kinds of experiments and depending on the results, you will choose one path to follow until it either results in a dead end or shows you something interesting. As mentioned above, it is up to the scientist to connect the dots between experiments that may have confusing results. This takes an immense amount of creativity and knowledge as you must know the research well enough to see where the puzzle pieces of your experiments assemble into the broader picture of the field you are studying. And then you must write it up in a way that flows together for another researcher in your field to be able to read and understand.
Connecting experiment ideas was difficult for me in grad school and I still feel that it is an area I am always working to get better at in my job. I am not an abstract thinker by nature and this skill requires a certain amount of abstract thinking and pulling back from the details to see the big picture. Especially as medical writers, we do not have a lot of time to dive into the literature and connect the dots, but have to do this quickly and efficiently. However, the more time you spend pondering something, the easier it is to come up with ideas for how all the research connects.
Presenting Research
Anytime you communicate research to others there is an opportunity for creativity. Writing about science requires a certain creativity to ensure that the written word conveys scientific ideas. Presenting research is also another very creative endeavor because it involves written, verbal, and visual communication. Everything matters when you are presenting your research. The font size you use, the colors employed, and even the amount of text on the slide can impact how people perceive and understand your work.
I remember one of the conferences I attended in grad school very vividly. People had 10 minutes to share their research. In that 10 minutes, one tenured professor attempted to share 30 years of their research and did so using poorly designed slides that had too much on them and used the font comic sans. As an audience member, I got nothing out of that talk. I do not remember anything that was shared about their research. What I do remember is the poor communication and it changed how I communicated my own research.
Presenting my research was one of my favorite things to do in grad school. I loved thinking through who my audience would be and considering if the story I was trying to tell would be clear to them. To do this, I would put on the audience ‘hat’ and ask myself ‘if I had this background knowledge of science, would I understand this?’ This helped me to step in the shoes of someone else to see how they would perceive my talk.
For myself, I personally like very simple slides with minimal text on them. This helps me focus on the main idea of the slide instead of being distracted by lots of ideas. Still now, I like the sort of minimalist approach to communication so that there is more focus on the words being said and the slides supporting those words.
As I am over 2 years in my post-PhD career, I definitely view myself as creative. However, that is not just because I write about science which requires creativity. But also because I enjoy hobbies where I can create like pottery, violin, and knitting. I have talked to many scientists and engineers who have similar creative bents, so it seems like quite a common experience. For me, being creative helps me shut off my overactive brain especially after a day of work when I am mentally on for 8 hours. I am a better human if I can take a break from the erudite mode I get in and release some creative juices.
I am thankful that I realized the creativity inherent in being a scientist and how I have been able to embrace that side of myself more post-grad school and employ creativity in my work.