The Runaway Species audiobook cover - How Human Creativity Remakes the World

The Runaway Species

How Human Creativity Remakes the World

Anthony Brandt and David Eagleman

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Categories:
CreativityPsychology

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The Runaway Species
The Nature of Creativity+
The Three Creative Functions+
Generating Ideas+
Fostering Innovation+

Quiz — Test Your Understanding

Question 1 of 7
What is the fundamental premise of human creativity according to the book?
  • A. It relies on sudden bursts of unprecedented, isolated genius.
  • B. It depends heavily on the ability to reinvent and reshape inherited ideas.
  • C. It requires completely discarding past innovations to formulate new ones.
  • D. It is an innate biological talent that cannot be systematically taught.
Question 2 of 7
How did doctors Billy Cohn and Bud Frazier apply the concept of 'bending' to improve the artificial heart?
  • A. They used flexible, bendable plastics instead of rigid metals to prevent tissue damage.
  • B. They designed a heart that pumps blood at a variable rate based on the patient's physical activity.
  • C. They created a mechanism that relies on a continuous flow of blood rather than imitating a natural pump.
  • D. They broke the heart's function into four separate modular components that could be replaced individually.
Question 3 of 7
Which of the following artistic innovations is cited as an example of the 'breaking' technique?
  • A. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's use of imagery from his personal library.
  • B. Harold Pinter's reversal of chronological time in his play Betrayal.
  • C. Lindsay Esola's students drawing apples in the style of Pop Art.
  • D. Early filmmakers using cuts to skip unnecessary parts of a character's journey.
Question 4 of 7
What problem did geneticist Randy Lewis solve using the creative principle of 'blending'?
  • A. He combined peanut crops with cotton to restore soil nutrients in the South.
  • B. He spliced spider DNA into a goat to produce spider silk in its milk.
  • C. He merged a music player, a phone, and a computer into a single device.
  • D. He cross-bred different species of spiders to prevent them from cannibalizing each other.
Question 5 of 7
What lesson about creativity is demonstrated by Thomas Edison's concrete piano and George Washington Carver's peanut products?
  • A. True creators must focus exclusively on one perfect idea until it succeeds.
  • B. The best inventions are those that solve immediate, practical problems.
  • C. Generating many fallible options and accepting some failures is essential to the creative process.
  • D. Creative ideas are only valuable if they are eventually proven to be commercially successful.
Question 6 of 7
How does Microsoft's experiment with underwater data centers illustrate a key characteristic of creative organizations?
  • A. It demonstrates a willingness to plan unorthodox solutions for future challenges.
  • B. It proves that breaking large problems down into smaller components is the most efficient strategy.
  • C. It highlights the importance of blending hardware and software development.
  • D. It shows that focusing entirely on today's immediate problems yields the highest profits.
Question 7 of 7
How does art teacher Lindsay Esola measure her students' creative development over the semester?
  • A. By how accurately and realistically they can replicate her drawing of an apple.
  • B. By their transition from copying her apple drawing to reinventing it using different artistic styles.
  • C. By their ability to invent entirely new colors and shading techniques without any references.
  • D. By their success in breaking down the components of an apple into abstract mathematical shapes.

The Runaway Species — Full Chapter Overview

The Runaway Species Summary & Overview

The Runaway Species (2017) is a gripping account of human creativity. Examining the principles that underlie our inventiveness, as well as real-world examples of creative breakthroughs, it offers a novel account of the abilities that make our species unique.

Who Should Listen to The Runaway Species?

  • Artistic types wondering how creativity works
  • Entrepreneurs trying to develop the next big thing
  • Anyone who wants to become a bit more inventive

About the Author: Anthony Brandt and David Eagleman

Anthony Brandt is an acclaimed composer and a professor of music at Rice University. His musical compositions include an oratorio and two chamber operas. David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Stanford University and the internationally best-selling author of The Brain, Incognito, and other works.

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