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Well, it appears Jonah Lehrer was a little too imaginative.  He's now
resigned from the New Yorker after he was caught fabricating quotes in his
book, "Imagine".  Shipment and online sales of "Imagine" have been halted
by the publisher.
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/jonah-lehrer-resigns-from-new-yorker-after-making-up-dylan-quotes-for-his-book/?hp

On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 10:50 PM, Charlie Carlson <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> Sometime back, like March 2012, posted an article about creativity by
> Jonathan Lehrer.  In his article he put forth evidence based upon his
> research into creative environments which strongly argued against the
> notion of non-critical brainstorming put forth by Alex Osborn in 1939.
>
> I'd only read a few articles at the time and heard a few NPR reviews.
>  Since that initial flurry of activity, I've had a chance to do some follow
> up.
>
> I finally read the appropriate sections of Lehrer's book, Imagine: How
> Creativity Works, chapter 6.  Clearly, he made an anecdotal set of
> observations based upon the research of others, and no controlled studies
> himself.  He cites a 1958 Yale study, and a UC Berkeley study both of which
> soundly refute the Osborn hypothesis.The evidence Lehrer presents clearly
> demonstrates the opposite.  Renowned creative environments like Pixar,
> Apple, Fairchild, Intel, etc. don't and didn't use free flowing idea
> riffing, and instead foster a culture of criticism, sometimes severe
> criticism that plays a vital role in driving to the best solutions.  For
> example, Pixar employs a "plussing strategy," that is a criticism requires
> putting forth a suggested solution or alternative interpretation, and it
> sounds way more challenging than pleasant.
>
> His underlying thesis is that the human brain is a problem solving
> machine, and that we thrive on challenge and argumentation.  A corollary,
> to the challenging environment observation, is that there is power in the
> number of synaptic connections working on the problem, and that groups of
> brains are way more powerful thinking machines than individual ones.
>
> It maybe be why we live in groups and cities have become ascendant rather
> than disastrous living situations. It's all about problems and numbers of
> brains.
>
> I had several inquires as to how it all works, and the simplest answer is
> that creative brainstorming needs to be moderated but that it's essentially
> a "no-holds-bard" focus on making accurate assessments and proposing
> alternative solutions, and that alternative and different solutions which
> go against commonly held solutions are frequently the most useful
> solutions, and that blind acceptance is a death knell to creativity.
>
> In any case, Lehrer's book is a good read, and provides some useful
> insights into the process of problem solving and how our brain's work.
>
> C
> *Charles Carlson*
> Senior Scientist
> exploratorium
>
> *http://blogs.exploratorium.edu/whyintercept/*
> *
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> *Twitter: charliec53*
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