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SciShow explains how some great, Nobel-winning research into the human brain turned into a meme of misunderstanding that lasted for decades.

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The right and left hand hemispheres of the brain

The brain is split down the middle, the right and left hemispheres operate both independently and in coalition. they communicate information, such as sensory observations through the corpus callosum that connects them.

It’s anyones Fun Fact that the left side of the brain controls the right hand side of the body and vice versa. Examples that can illustrate this fact well are cases of brain damage where one side of the brain is damaged and the opposite side of the body is affected or paralysed. 

The left hemisphere is dominate in language: processing what you hear and handling most speaking capabilities. its also responsible for logic and exact mathematical calculations. The right hemisphere is mainly incharge of spatial awareness, facial recognition and processing music. rough estimations and comparisons are the extent of its mathematical abilities. It also makes sence of visual information and plays a role in language, particularly in interpreting context and a persons tone. The two perform different functions because obviously it is not efficient to require both sides of the brain to do complete one function- this function allows you to multitask.

Whilst people can write with their left and but throw a ball with their right, the distinction between ‘right or left brained’ is clearly not that defined.

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Right-brained and left-brained, masculine and feminine, blue-eyed and brown-eyed: Are certain kinds of people more creative than others? Many super successful creatives are dyslexic; Leonardo da Vinci, Pablo Picasso, Jørn Utzon, Agatha Christie and Albert Einstein. Which begs the question is dyslexia related to a persons creativity?

Scientifically the answer is no. It appears that more dyslectic people simply elect to work in the non-linguistic creative professions. A persons performance in a subject is linked instead to how long a person spends on a certain task- and since dyslexic people will have to work harder to complete linguistic challenges they are more likely to put more effort and time into developing creative skills and settle for being mediocre at spelling and writing. The attached video explains why reading is so much more challenging and slow in dyslexic individuals specifically from 2mins 53secs.

This explains the above average. 1 in 5 students or 15-20% of the population are dyslexic, where as the Glasgow School of Art claim that around 50% of their students are, which has been increasing from less than 17% in 2005.

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Academia repressing creativity within scientific research

Obtaining a research grant in the physical and biological sciences has become increasingly difficult and competitive. The amount of avaidable money has stayed almost the same whilst the number or applying bodies has increased dramatically. The 2016 budget states “Government is protecting science resource funding at its current level of £4.7 billion”. however it is prediced that only 10% of research proposals are granted by risk- adverse boards. Established investigators are more attractive to the boards, who often propose minor adaptation and improvement on previous work. Academics are therefore less likely to propose a creative new approach to a subject area, riskier proposals by younger researchers are penalised. More funding needs to be allocated to scientific research. 

The allocation of science and research funding - 2016 government budget:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/505308/bis-16-160-allocation-science-research-funding-2016-17-2019-20.pdf

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“Creativity enhances life. It enables the great thinkers, artists, and leaders of our world to continually push forward new concepts, new forms of expression and new ways to improve every facet of our existence. The creative impulse is of particular importance to scientific research. Without it, the same obstacles, ailments, and solutions would occur repeatedly because no one stepped back and reflected to gain a new perspective. Unfortunately, in the academic world—where much of today’s scientific innovation takes place—researchers are encouraged to maintain the status quo and not rock the boat.”

Fred Southwick, a Professor of Medicine at the University of Florida. Published in the May 9 2012 issue of The Scientist: The Magazine of the Life Sciences

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Is science in fact just as creative?

it could be argued that science is also a creative subject (however ‘hard’ it may be stereotyped as). How else could you solve problems if not for creative thinking?

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Why does studying science make you seem automatically smart?

Students, particularly from the creative areas, often seem to assume that just because you take scientific subjects that you must be super intelligent and have your life together.

When you say you’re doing science people don’t even ask you what grades you got before assuming you’re some wiz kid who knows the periodic table back to front. I could have got a D and a U in biology and chemistry at Alevel and you’re still assumed to be an academic genius destined to cure cancer.

Possibly people look up to those who study maths/science because they aren’t graded subjectively like an art is. They seem to be considered hard simply because not every one can learn it or easily understand them, just as not everyone can draw a still life in almost perfect proportion, but art isn’t hard, right? One factor that could influence this mindset is the media, and peoples innate attraction to new discovery, which often involves scientific or mathematical skills. The media helps to glorify scientific discovery in a way artistic originality is never glorified. Because of course: Publicised news = real significance in the world. 

In a world where academics are praised and artists are criticised its not surprising that there’s a stereotype around taking a science. And you cant be surprised when a creative automatically assumes that they are less intelligent than you simply based on your Alevel choices, even once you’ve left school.

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‘The scientists’ vs ‘The creatives’ in school

Secondary school in the UK is quick to divide the year group into catagories. from the very beginning of schooling ‘sets’, ‘groups’ and ‘streaming’ are an integral part of how a child values themselves and who they associate with. I was always in ‘blue group’ throughout junior school, as opposed to ‘red group’ who were the quite obviously more ‘intelligent’ half of the year from which all the school captains etc. were selected from. Blue group members were sure they had more fun and when a red group member defected to the blues they agreed. Blue group often outshone red creatively and under performed in academic subjects.

The divide within a year group becomes even more profound come GCSE choices. Everyone has to do the ‘academic’ subjects -maths, english, chemistry, biology, physics, and a modern language of your choice. Humanities, the remaining languages including latin and the ‘creative’ subjects are left up for grabs to fill four remaining slots. Half the year sticks with the basics plus ‘essay subjects’ or another language, and half take art, food tech, design and technology, graphics etc.  

Alevel finally divides the year for good. With only 4 subjects some 17 year olds are now defined Academic and some Creative. Those with a mixture of the two need to be ready to endure two years of ‘ooo thats an interesting combination! how do you find that then?’ from fellow students and well meaning family friends alike. From here on out you are almost defined by your chosen subjects whether you find them difficult or not. in my case geographically separated too, in fact the only reason i would ever come into contact with someone- God forbid- doing a humanity during teaching hours was in the library or in the art department; where i would cross the threshold away from the comfort of the science block and venture into the mysterious presence of French fans and King Lear lovers. Of course friends from the other side were still on the group chat, but it was weird to think of how different the information in your head was from them, and there was many a side group chat for just the scientists or just the ‘history gals’.

The scientists obviously dominated the science block and when the subjects mixed around and psychology ended up mixed into the science block and people were so not happy about it. The ‘faux science’ being in our zone was a sly point of contention. the majority of psychologists were from the other side of the year- they took humanities or English and definitely weren’t considered worthy of roaming the science streets.

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Whats this?

In this blog i intend on exploring the nature of the human brain and the difference between our creative and academic natures. Through analysing published scientific journals, my own experiences and gathering first hand ideas from people i believe to be spread the whole way across the spectrum from ‘totally creative’ to ‘entirely scientific’. creative including subjects such as art, design, humanities, English and languages. scientific subjects being biology, chemistry, physics and maths. I hope to come to a personal conclusion based on both scientific research social enquiry as to what is the difference between these people, and what does it mean to be someone on the threshold of the two- like me.